Part 3

10 common presenting challenges

Challenge 1     How do I prepare with no time to prepare?

Challenge 2     How do I fit it all in, with little time available?

Challenge 3     How do I get people to listen and engage?

Challenge 4     How do I get people to take action?

Challenge 5     How do I manage interruptions?

Challenge 6     How do I manage difficult people?

Challenge 7     How do I deal with questions?

Challenge 8     How do I handle nerves?

Challenge 9     How do I remember what I want to say?

Challenge 10   How do I make a boring subject interesting?

This part covers 10 challenges that you may come across when making presentations. Don’t scare yourself by thinking you will experience all of these every time you make a presentation. As you read the part, consider which are more likely to crop up when you make your own presentations. For example, some people know they will be presenting to challenging audiences, whereas others know that it is their own nerves that are more likely to be the challenge. Decide which is your challenge and head straight to it.

Challenge 1

How do I prepare with no time to prepare?

Preparation can often be done before you know you will need it.

On several occasions I have met people who have complained about having had very little or no time to prepare a presentation. Yet, on questioning, it becomes apparent that they had known for a long time that a presentation was likely to be needed, but decided to wait until asked before giving it any thought.

The best way to prepare for a presentation is to give yourself plenty of thinking time. At each stage of working on a product or project, think how you might explain this to a customer or the board if you were asked to. Often you will find friends and family give you this preparation time accidentally by asking about your working day. If you stumble across a good explanation, jot it down at the time, otherwise you risk forgetting it.

So, aside from preparing in advance before you even know a presentation is required, how once you do know you have to give a presentation can you prepare with no warning, or very little time?

Let’s consider the following scenarios:

1. You are on your way to a meeting and in the corridor you learn that you have been ‘volunteered’ to present the project you are working on at the meeting. Find three key points you wish to mention, jot them onto a piece of paper and stick to those. Offer to provide follow-up data to anyone who contacts you afterwards, or to circulate additional information as an attachment to the meeting minutes.
2. You are in the meeting and are asked to give an overview of the project on the spot. Take a deep breath (it gets oxygen into your frontal lobes, allowing your brain to think). Thank the chairperson of the meeting for the opportunity to give your overview (buying you a little more thinking time).

   Remember the basics of a presentation: to have a beginning, middle and end. Provide a bit of history, where you are at now, and where you intend the project to be in the future. Keep it short and offer time for questions. If you can, make three points in the middle section of your presentation.

   Speak from the heart, not to impress, that way your passion for your work will shine through.

3. You have a 5-minute warning before you are to present. If you have 5 minutes or more to gather your thoughts and prepare a presentation then refer to the tips on structuring your presentation (see Step 3).

   Personally, I find mind maps an excellent way of putting down my thoughts in a coherent fashion in a short space of time. However, they don’t work for everyone. If you prefer to have your notes in a linear format, then highlight, asterisk or number your key points so you can find them at a glance.

Quick review

• Structure:
  • beginning;
  • middle;
  • end.
• Use the power of three:
  • Tell them what you are going to say.
  • Tell them.
  • Tell them what you have said.
• Start and end powerfully.
• Don’t apologise for having not prepared, or draw attention to the fact that you were asked to make this presentation at short notice. The audience won’t care about that; they care about what you have to say on your subject.

Challenge 2

How do I fit it all in, with little time available?

Sometimes the challenge isn’t having too little time to prepare, it is having too much time.

By too much time, I mean that you have had time to think of lots of things you want to include in your presentation, several different ways of getting your message across and a number of stories to illustrate your key points. The challenge then becomes one of squeezing it all in, which is never a good position to be in.

• Don’t try and squeeze it all in, leave minor points out.
• Don’t speak quickly so you can try and fit it in.
• Don’t miss out pauses and emphasis because you are running short of time.

Sadly, I have seen many presentations ruin the key messages by clouding them with supplementary and unnecessary additional information, all because the speaker wanted to show all they knew on the subject.

Presentations are also spoiled by repeated mentioning of the lack of time and the amount of information that could be included, but isn’t because there isn’t enough time allowed.

Tips for fitting it all in

Working on the basis that the time allowed cannot be altered, you need to alter your presentation.

Here are three suggestions:

1. Decide your key points.
2. Don’t tell your audience what they are missing.
3. Take your time, within the time available.

Decide your key points

Think about your presentation from the audience’s point of view:

• What do they need to know?
• What are they particularly interested in?
• What objections or questions might they raise?

The answers to these questions will provide you with the key points you need to include in your presentation.

If you have time to elaborate, great. But it really isn’t necessary. A short presentation can be just as, or more, impactful than a long one.

Don’t tell your audience what they are missing

I have seen many good presentations damaged by phrases such as:

• I haven’t got the time to go into detail here.
• Sorry, I’m going to have to skip over XYZ.
• I had hoped to be able to cover ABC, but I’ve run out of time.

Your audience ends up feeling short-changed because you haven’t planned your presentation well enough for the time available. A tip I learned early on in my speaking career was not to mention time constraints. I also learned to plan an extra section that I could include if there was time available, and a section I could leave out if I ran out of time. Always be able to jump to your concluding points – and your conclusion should not have anything in it that you haven’t mentioned in the body of your presentation.

If you want to provide extra information to your audience after the main presentation, that is absolutely fine. Just don’t do it by way of an apology, or by telling them you haven’t been able to include it. A good presenter will make it seem that it was planned to provide the extra detail in a different way all along. This could be by email, an online portal, a hand-out or other means that suit your business. Alternatively, keep that information until your next presentation.

See Step 6 on best practices for PowerPoint, to show you how to skip slides without it being obvious to your audience.

Take your time, within the time available

However short the time is for your presentation, you won’t succeed in getting your message both heard and understood if you speak too quickly. Take a look at the digital content and the information in Step 7 on the rate of speech to help with slowing things down.

People need time to listen and reflect on the information: how does it apply to them and their situation? What are you asking them to do or say? Pauses, repetition and reflective questions can aid this process far better than cramming in extra information and running through it too quickly.

Challenge 3

How do I get people to listen and engage?

There may be a number of reasons why your audience are unresponsive or inattentive. Assuming it isn’t your monotonous voice or poor slide presentation that is causing them to disengage from your presentation, there are some tips and techniques you can use to create more engagement and generate greater interaction.

First of all, you need to be engaged yourself, both with your material and the audience. However, coming across like a game show host, with overly enthusiastic encouragement, can turn some people off even more, so pace yourself to create rapport and draw the audience with you rather than starting at a high energy level they can’t relate to.

Facilitate, don’t present

While the focus of this book is on presentation skills, a good presenter will know when to present and when to change their style to a more facilitative approach. This provides a higher level of audience participation, discussions and interactions. However, it also provides opportunities to go over time or off topic, which needs careful management.

Despite the possible drawbacks, a facilitative approach definitely increases engagement.

Instead of giving someone a list or the facts, ask them what they know

One woman I was coaching needed to include some technical information in her presentation; in this example it was a set of rules defining the responsibilities of sellers and buyers for the delivery of goods in export markets. Her initial approach was to list all of the rules in her presentation, with their definitions. But that didn’t take account of what her audience might already know, or at least be able to work out for themselves. Instead she started by asking the audience which rules they already knew. This created far more involvement and allowed her to focus on the particular rules that her audience were not familiar with, instead of boring them with information they already had.

Create a quiz

You could create a topic-based quiz, perhaps interspersed with some wider company facts or current media items. Add some prizes to get even more engagement: I find that chocolate works well!

Pause

People get used to hearing presenters drone on, and on and on. Putting pauses in your presentation provides opportunities for them to reflect on what you’ve said, relate it to their situation and work out what they might do with the information.

Invite discussion

Depending on the size of your group, you might want to ask people to break into small groups, speak to their neighbours or simply invite discussion with the whole audience … or a mix of all three during your presentation. Whatever approach you take, inviting discussion increases engagement with the topic, but doesn’t guarantee agreement.

Use Post-its

I am hugely grateful to Arthur Fry and Spencer Silver for the invention of the Post-it note. Post-its allow comments to be collected, collated and sorted – often anonymously – in all sizes of groups.

If you use Post-its, be sure to reflect back the sentiments described in the Post-it comments in a plenary session, even if you don’t read every Post-it aloud to the group.

Wave a flag

Not literally, but metaphorically. Use verbal language to flag up important points, to get people to sit up and take note, to engage and listen. Adopt phrases such as:

• ‘Heads up…’
• ‘This is a really important point…’
• ‘If you take nothing else away from today, remember this…’
• ‘The key point is…’
• ‘To summarise…’
• ‘To conclude…’

Ask questions

As I’ve mentioned in earlier sections of the book, the use of questions engages your audience. Use both rhetorical questions, with a pause to allow a little reflection time, as well as questions you are seeking an answer to.

Leave for a short while?

As the presenter, do you need to be there the whole time? If you are leading a team and want some honest feedback, sometimes it might be better if you leave the room, allow your team to have a discussion for, say, 5–10 minutes (tell them the timeframe) and then return to gather the feedback, perhaps on Post-it notes. Don’t forget that if you are on a conference call or webinar it is still possible to break people into groups, depending on the technology you are using.

Advance priming

You can contact your audience in advance by telephone, circulating an agenda or emailing the key discussion topic. Ask them to submit questions or comments before the meeting and use these towards the beginning of your presentation – if you leave it too long people may start to wonder whether you have forgotten or dismissed the comments they made, which could create greater disengagement.

Use your sensory acuity and flexibility

Be flexible: what is it people are interested in? Listen to what is being said, and not said. Watch the body language. Adjust your style and content accordingly.

Challenge 4

How do I get people to take action?

Have you given a presentation, come to a conclusion, had people nod in agreement and then do nothing. What happened?

For people to take action following a presentation they need to be:

• emotionally involved;
• accountable; and
• committed.

Emotionally involved

Generating emotional involvement is so important that it comes up throughout this book. But if you haven’t read the other sections yet, here is a quick summary:

• Use ethos, pathos and logos. Ensure you focus on pathos and connect to the emotions of your listeners.
• Tell stories. Emotional involvement comes through effective storytelling, rather than presenting dry facts or information. Create a compelling case by telling stories. For instance, what is the current situation? Where will it be if nothing happens and where could it be if everyone takes action?

Accountable

It can be a useful trick to refer back to actions identified during a presentation at a later date, possibly without people expecting you to do so.

I recently facilitated a leadership team meeting for a large corporation and at the end everyone wrote their actions onto Post-it notes and shared their top action with the rest of the room. Four weeks after the event, each participant received a phone call from me, out of the blue, to ask how they were getting on with their actions and to ask for feedback about the event itself. I was pleased that many had actioned their commitments: one person was even moving his Post-it note forward every day in his diary to remind him of his ongoing action. The two people who hadn’t done anything about their actions said they were grateful to be prompted to revisit their commitments. The actions were then followed up at the next leadership meeting.

An alternative to you as the presenter or manager holding people accountable is to create a buddy system in the room, where the members of your team hold each other accountable.

Another alternative is to get everyone to write their actions onto a postcard, with their address, collect them in and then send the postcards out around 3–4 weeks later (or longer if you think it’s appropriate). One word of caution with using this approach – be sure that your listeners get to record their actions for themselves somewhere else, as well as on the postcard, otherwise they may justifiably use memory failure as a reason for not taking action until the postcard arrives!

Committed

Making a public statement can generate commitment. Research by Robert Cialdini shows that if people make a public commitment they are more likely to be consistent in their actions. So, rather than let people nod their way through your presentation, ask them to verbalise the actions they will take. That way you can discuss with them if their actions are off track, or just note down the actions if they are on track.

You could ask one or two members of your audience to capture the actions onto a flipchart. You can then photograph the flipchart and email the picture alongside the minutes of the presentation.

Minutes? Definitely ensure action points are noted at the time and circulated promptly after your presentation. Full-blown minutes might not be appropriate, but circulating the actions will be if you are expecting people to do something as a result of your presentation.

Hold a follow-up meeting

Holding a follow-up meeting to discuss the actions, or creating sub-groups to take the actions forward, keeps the ball rolling.

Enlist senior support

You might need to enlist support for the implementation of actions. Who do you need to communicate with (for example other people’s managers) to make sure that people are not being pulled in different directions by different managers? This will also discourage people from using their own manager as an excuse for not taking action.

Identify resistors

As with anything, there are likely to be one, two or a few people who are natural resistors, especially to change. If you can identify who they are you can take steps, such as enlisting your early adopters to support and encourage them.

Rome wasn’t built in a day

Sometimes the actions people intend to take are too big a step, too time-consuming or they have too many and don’t know where to start, and therefore nothing happens. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day: a change implementation or a culture shift doesn’t happen overnight. It may be that you need to encourage more constructive confrontation, rather than agreement, for future decisions to be effective. If that sounds like your situation, I recommend that you get a copy of Five Dysfunctions of a Team by consultant and speaker Patrick Lencioni, where you will find lots of ideas on how to start making this happen. Over two million copies of Patrick’s book have been sold, with good reason.

Challenge 5

How do I manage interruptions?

During presentations you need to be prepared for any unexpected events, and one of these is interruptions. They may come in several forms: the vocal interruption from someone interjecting their point of view; the visual interruption, such as seeing a flipchart slide from the wall, or someone walk in or out; or a noise interruption, such as an aeroplane passing or a crash of plates.

If it is someone in your audience interrupting your talk to make their point, then you have a few options:

• You can allow the interruption – after all it may be a valid point.
• You can thank the person and ask if you can take their comment at the end of the presentation.
• You can ignore the person and pretend you haven’t heard them.

What you do will depend on your confidence, whether you know the person, whether the comment is on topic and how much time you have left.

To manage an interruption, be firm. Don’t say, ‘Would it be ok, if you don’t mind, if you could possibly umm, er keep your comments until the end? Thank you.’ Be firm and clear in both your vocal tone (keep it low), your verbal language (keep it clear and clean) and your body language (stand upright, be still and make eye contact). Say what you want to have happen and make your request firmly and politely. If the other person doesn’t agree with you, see the next challenge about dealing with difficult people.

Examples of how to deal with the interruption effectively might include:

• ‘Thank you Fred, you’ve made some very valid comments there. I’d like to discuss those at the end once everyone has had a chance to consider the rest of the information I’m about to present.’
• ‘Thank you Fred, hold on to that thought and I’ll come back to you at the end. Interrupt me again if I don’t.’

If you have asked someone to wait until the end of your talk before taking their interruption, be sure to invite them to speak before you take any other questions. If you pass them over for someone else without at least an acknowledgement or reason why, they are likely to become agitated and may interrupt again.

Enlist support

Other people in your audience can be extremely useful in managing an interruption. After hearing the comment, passing it out with a ‘what do the rest of you think?’ allows your audience an opportunity to make a judgement as to whether the point is valid or not, without you needing to do so.

Keep calm and manage your emotions

Stay calm and be willing to forgo some of your own ego in order to stroke the other person’s. They may simply wish to be seen as a big fish or a force to be reckoned with. The chances are others in the room will know the real story.

Interruptions can throw you off your train of thought. Take a breath after the interruption to gather your thoughts, and even vocalise to your audience something along the lines of ‘right, let’s carry on then…’.

I recently had to deal with two different situations where I was interrupted by someone walking into the room. The first was at a workshop that I was running on a client’s premises. Part way through the morning the client’s HR manager walked in, came straight up to me while I was in full flow, handed me a non-urgent message, turned and walked straight out, with not a word said. After she left the room, we all looked at each other and chuckled. I gave the participants a quick overview of the message and then carried on the workshop. The chuckle allowed us all to put the event behind us and move on.

The other interruption happened towards the end of a conference presentation when I suddenly felt someone standing silently by my right shoulder. I’ve no idea how long he had been there distracting the audience, waiting to tell me that I had 2 minutes left. After he walked out, I raised my eyebrows to acknowledge the unnecessary interruption and carried on. Again, it was the acknowledgement of the interruption that was important; don’t leave that elephant in the room!

Visual interruptions

If the interruption is a visual one, I suggest acknowledging it only if other people have also seen it. If it is something you alone have spotted, you can choose to ignore it.

Noises

Most of the time I acknowledge noisy interruptions. This can be done in a humorous way if you can think of an appropriate retort on the spur of the moment, or simply a facial expression. This allows your audience to show a reaction to the noise and to return their attention to you and your presentation. If it remains unacknowledged, the chances are a few people will be wondering what the noise was or how much damage was done (in the case of dropped glasses or the equivalent). If it is a noisy aeroplane overhead, unless you are working at an airport where that type of interruption will be frequent (which I have done), I suggest you wait until the moment has passed before you continue with your presentation.

Challenge 6

How do I manage difficult people?

What type of person do you consider to be difficult?

This question raises the whole issue of personality traits, behavioural signs and feelings. But, in essence, we are likely to consider a difficult person to be someone who is different from us. It is almost invariably that difference that causes the difficulty, rather than a deliberate intention to be difficult (although that cannot be ruled out).

Difficult people in the context of making a presentation are often those who take a different viewpoint and want it to be heard.

Who is difficult?

Can you find out who is likely to be difficult in advance of your presentation? If you are presenting to your team you will know the characters well enough, but if you are presenting to a group you haven’t met before it is often useful to find out what differences of opinion you might encounter. Personally, I tend to avoid finding out exactly who the difficult people are going to be as I don’t want to pre-judge their behaviour. But sometimes it is useful to know exactly who will be asking the most challenging questions or who will be the hardest to persuade.

Separate the behaviour from the person

If you see someone as being a ‘difficult’ person you will probably pick up on every little piece of their behaviour that doesn’t back up you or your presentation and miss those that do. Human beings are very adept at selective attention, and once we have labelled someone we tend to fit their behaviour to that label. We focus on our preconceptions and can block out some very obvious contrary cues. (For fun, see this short video about selective attention: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IGQmdoK_ZfY)

So think about challenging behaviour, rather than difficult people. If you can work out the cause of the challenging behaviour – and there will be one – then you are part way to dealing with the behaviour itself.

Change your thinking

If you think a person will be difficult, the chances are that they will be, in your own mind at least, because of your selective attention. So change your thinking. Are they being difficult, or just asking difficult questions? Are the questions difficult or just ones you are not ready, willing or able to answer? Are they a lone thinker or asking what the rest of the group is thinking?

Acknowledge the intention behind the behaviour rather than labelling the person. Value their opinion; after all, they might be right and you might be wrong.

If they challenge some of the data you are presenting, might they have a point? You could concede their right to a difference of opinion and offer to investigate and get back to them afterwards.

The key is to acknowledge their viewpoint, not necessarily agree with it. By acknowledging it, rather than countering it with an ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ approach, you demonstrate you have heard them, really heard them. If you get into a discussion or argument on who is right you are likely to lose credibility as a speaker with the rest of the audience, and still not win over your difficult person. It becomes a battle of the egos, but as a presenter your focus should be on the audience and their egos, not yours.

Practise the art of nemawashi

Nemawashi in business is the art of influencing one person at a time to gain consensus (see Step 2) and can be useful if there is a person you suspect might be difficult. This involves meeting people one on one before your presentation to see what their views are, to gather information and to present your argument before going into the main meeting.

I recall needing to make a proposal to a board meeting where I knew that one particular individual was knowledgeable on the subject and might want to air his views at the meeting. So I contacted him in advance and asked him for his views on my proposal. He agreed with what I was putting forward and I went happily into the meeting knowing I had him on board. Or so I thought …. During the meeting he became increasingly vocal and appeared to be contradicting me. I realised that one of the mistakes I had made was to sit on the same side of the table as him, at the opposite end, so I couldn’t make eye contact with him. I needed to find a way to look him in the eye when making my next point. So I moved my position slightly by reaching for a drink, took a deep breath, leaned forward a long way and looked down the table to make eye contact as I addressed him with the details and facts that we had agreed on in advance.

Points to remember about these individuals:

• Difficult or different?
• Identify them in advance.
• Speak to them in advance.
• Sit where you can make eye contact with them.
• Stand up to assert yourself if necessary.
• Pause your presentation and wait for them to calm down.
• Be prepared to ask them to leave, or mute them if you’re on a conference call.

And above all:

• Stay calm and breathe.

Challenge 7

How do I deal with questions?

Taking questions from the audience can be nerve-racking and does take a degree of confidence. Over the years I have developed an ability to respond on my feet, but it wasn’t something that came naturally. For me personally, taking part in debating competitions and impromptu speaking competitions helped to develop this skill. But once you have it, it will also stand you in good stead in any form of meeting where you may be put on the spot.

So what are the key things to do?

There are some things you can do before you give your presentation to anticipate questions that you might receive. Think about who is going to be there, what they might want to know and what you don’t want them to ask. Deciding what you don’t want them to ask gives you a great start on what to prepare answers for, as you can be pretty sure that one of those difficult questions will crop up.

As you invite questions:

• Remember to breathe.
• Look people in the eye.
• Maintain your confident stance.

Tips for handling questions

Take one at a time

You may need to act as chairperson and indicate to someone that you have seen they want to ask a question, and perhaps even mouth to them that you will come to them next.

Repeat the question

Repeating or paraphrasing the question if you are unsure what the person said or meant enables you to check your understanding. It will also give your brain a little time to think of an answer, and provide those who didn’t hear the question the chance to understand what you are answering.

Don’t fudge

Answer the question as best you can or if you are unable to do so, say so. Don’t fudge the issue. If you can’t give an answer because it is confidential information, or needs sign-off before it becomes public, I suggest you say so.

Be honest

If you don’t know the answer it is best to admit it. The key is to return to the questioner with the answer once you have found it out, or to point them in the right direction to find it themselves.

Tell your audience when to ask questions

I prefer to take questions during a presentation, if it is informal enough to allow that to be the case. You may find that puts you off track, so if you decide to go down this route, be sure to keep track of your thread.

Step into the audience

Be willing to step into the audience if the environment allows. For instance, small groups may be in a horseshoe shape that you can walk into or clusters where you can go round each table.

Check you have answered it

If necessary, check back with the questioner as to whether they are happy with your answer. Or if you know you haven’t answered it, say so. For example, you might say something like:

That’s probably not directly answered your question. I can’t give you any more information at the moment, but do come and talk to me privately afterwards and I’ll raise your concerns for you.

Facilitate the generation of questions

Split people into small groups to generate questions if you think they are unlikely to say anything aloud to the large group. This works particularly well when people might want to ask contentious questions and don’t know whether, or how, to. If you appoint a spokesperson or ask for questions on Post-its, this can help prevent the questioner being identified and can elicit more in-depth questions. In addition, collecting questions on Post-its allows you to decide the order in which you take them, and you can group similarly themed questions together.

Challenge 8

How do I handle nerves?

Everybody is nervous when they make a presentation, unless you started making yours around the age of four, before you had learned to be nervous. People are born with innate fears, such as those of loud noises, falling and snakes… but four-year-olds don’t have a fear of standing up in front of people and giving a presentation. That is learned behaviour.

So where did you learn your fear of speaking from?

Perhaps you were told by your parents not to show off, or you were the butt of jokes at school whenever you did something out of the ordinary, or maybe you gave your first presentation and froze, forgot what you wanted to say and slunk off the stage thinking, ‘I am never going to do that again!’. Yet here you are, finding the need to give presentations as part of your job, and you can recall that feeling as if it was yesterday. Fortunately, most of us don’t need to undergo extensive psychotherapy to uncover the root cause of this fear, as the issue is how to manage it, rather than where it came from.

However, for some people the fear of public speaking is so deep-seated and pervasive that it can affect their ability to function in everyday life. If this is the case for you, please discuss it with your GP as you may be experiencing an anxiety disorder that would benefit from specific treatment. Many options are now available for helping people overcome anxiety disorders, which are far more common than you might think.

As humans, we typically have a choice of three reactions to fear: fight, flight or freeze. Assuming you have to give your presentation, the fight or flight responses are less of an option; it is the freeze response, where your mind suddenly goes blank, that you need to be aware of.

Everyone has some level of nerves when giving a presentation, including me. For me, it seems to be down to caring too much about the outcome and what people will think of me. If I was truly complacent and didn’t care, perhaps my nerves wouldn’t be present, but then I would be performing at a lower level.

Tips for handling nerves

Accept the nerves

The first step is to accept the nerves; they show you care.

Forget trying to get it right or be perfect

You are human, and humans make mistakes. If you have read through the rest of this book and put in the preparation and practice you will have a good presentation to give, but there is no way that it will be ‘perfect’. Accept that.

If you make a mistake, either embrace it or ignore it

My preferred option is to ignore mistakes rather than point them out. If you can see your audience really spotting it, such as a misspelling on the flipchart, acknowledge it and move on. Mistakes often go unnoticed by the audience and they will remain focused on the content unless you draw their attention to the error.

Breathe

Breathing deeply helps to slow your heart rate and gets blood to your frontal lobes to help you think more clearly.

Focus on your audience

Paul Dolan, professor of behavioural science, writes about his stammer in the introduction to his book Happiness by Design. He came to realise that the amount of attention he was paying to his speech compared to the attention paid by others was completely at odds. His stammer wasn’t noticed by most people, but focusing on it made it worse. Once he stopped paying it so much attention it lessened in intensity. Where you focus your attention during your presentation matters; if you think ‘I’m really nervous’ or ‘I’m going to mess this bit up’ it will exacerbate your nerves and be unhelpful to your delivery. Instead, focus on your audience. When I’m giving a presentation I go into a different mindset, almost an altered state. It may sound odd, but I stop focusing on what I’m going to say and how I’m going to say it; that is something I have done before the presentation starts. I focus on my audience.

Widen your peripheral vision

Nerves and nervousness make our vision narrow. Widening your peripheral vision and focusing on what you can see out of the corner of your eyes before you begin your presentation can help to calm your nerves.

Use affirmations

Some people find repeating positive affirmations either out loud or in their heads really helpful. These could be ‘I know my talk’, ‘I have prepared well’, ‘I am developing my skills as a presenter’, ‘I will do my best’ or, if it works for you, ‘I am a great presenter’.

Alter the negative

Human beings have a cognitive bias towards negative thinking. This is not helpful when giving your presentation, but can be very helpful during the preparation stage. When preparing, you can run through all the things that might go wrong and either take steps to prevent them from happening or decide how you will handle them if they do. As you get to the night before your presentation, stop the negative spiral and focus on the positive. Focus on what you want to have happen, how you want your audience to respond, imagine your presentation going smoothly, on time and with actions agreed at the end.

If you still have negative thoughts spinning around your head before a presentation, then do your best to rework them into something positive. Make them into a positive action, such as ‘increasing skills set’, ‘learning how to present’ or ‘growing in confidence’.

Stay in the present during your presentation

Keep your mind focused on the here and now, rather than on the whats, ifs or maybes.

Ignore your sweaty palms

Don’t wipe your hands down your trousers or skirt.

Sip water to aid a dry throat

The best is still water at room temperature; bubbles in sparkling water may make you burp!

You know you’re shaking, others don’t

Knocking knees and shaking hands are often not noticed, unless you hold an A4 sheet of paper in your hands. There is no need to draw attention to it, but don’t try and use a laser pointer unless you can guarantee rock-steady hands, which most of us can’t.

Ignore your blush

Blushing with embarrassment is rarely as bad as you think, nor is it noticed as much as you think.

Finally, recent research has found that the emotional state of excitement is very akin to that of nervousness. So choose to be excited about your presentation rather than nervous.

Challenge 9

How do I remember what I want to say?

Remembering what you want to say word for word, in the exact order, is a huge ask. Actors do it, with a lot of practice, repetition and rehearsal. For business presentations it is very unlikely that you will be working to a script. However, there are some tips and aides-mémoire to help you remember what you want to say.

Have a structure

If your presentation has a clear structure you will be able to identify key points, words or phrases at the specific structural points. Committing those to memory, rather than the whole presentation, is much easier.

Use triggers

There are some memory techniques that you might find useful. One is to design your presentation and link it to the layout of your own home. You begin at the front door, perhaps by placing a sign on the door with your opening remarks. Then at different stages through your presentation you visualise yourself moving through your home, entering different rooms to move you on to a different section of your talk.

Another technique is to make key words link in a ridiculous way. For instance, you could visualise a large banana with your key word written on the side; as you peel the banana, inside you find your next key word. Then along comes a monkey and takes a bite, which reveals your next section. The monkey has a tag hanging around its neck with your next key word and, finally, the zoo keeper appears wearing an overly large hat upon which is written your closing remarks. Of course you can make up your own ridiculous story; the more outrageous the better, as it’s easier for the brain to recall.

Draw or write your own mind map

This is the method I personally use, but I didn’t like using mind maps at first; they can take a bit of getting used to. I find handwriting my mind map rather than using software helps to integrate my presentation into my brain. Often I create a mind map to design the presentation, as discussed in Step 3. However, I write another mind map the day before I am scheduled to speak. This one has my key points on it and is often placed to the side when I am speaking, but I rarely need to refer to it. Knowing the mind map is there allows me to focus on my audience rather than worrying about whether I will remember what I want to say.

Use crib cards

I started off giving presentations by using crib cards. These were the 6 × 4 index cards, or record cards, which were in regular office use before computers. They are still available and very useful, as the card is sturdy and won’t flap or draw as much attention as a sheet of A4 or A5 paper would.

Use of slides

Preparing a slide presentation and thinking you will use that as your memory jogger can be a real disaster. You might have a technology failure and not be able to show your slides. You may end up not being able to see the PC screen, so find yourself turning to view the main screen and thus putting your back to the audience (one of the presentation don’ts mentioned in Step 6). In addition, you are likely to put too much on your slides and fall into the trap of reading them.

If you must, use a slide presentation to jog your memory but not to simply read verbatim.

PowerPoint has a ‘notes’ view where you can write up your notes against each slide. You can then print out sheets of A4 paper, one per slide, with the slide on the top half and the notes on the bottom. Again, I do not recommend this. There is a tendency to read your notes word for word and you may lose the connection with your audience. Or you might hold the A4 paper in your hand, which is distracting for the audience. It can also provide a false sense of security, persuading you that you don’t need to do the next two memory steps. The notes view is useful in the planning process; just don’t rely on it as your memory technique.

Record, replay and rehearse

An alternative, and sometimes time-saving, technique is to record one of your presentation practices. You can then replay it while you are cooking the dinner, listen to it while driving or even when exercising in the gym. On the odd occasions where I need to learn a speech word for word, I will record it once straight through, then with deliberate pauses so that I can fill in the blanks when listening to the recording and check whether I remembered correctly. A bit like those audio exercises when learning a foreign language.

Practise, practise, practise

Nothing commits words to memory more than practice, so if you have the time keep rehearsing. Aim to remember the gist; it doesn’t have to be word for word.

Challenge 10

How do I make a boring subject interesting?

It is important not to convey to an audience that you find your topic uninteresting (as discussed in Step 4). The first place to start with how to make a boring subject interesting is with your own thoughts. If you think your subject is boring … it will be!

Why you?

Whether you are speaking about the breeding cycle of fruit flies, the geological structure of the Grand Canyon or the UK tax system, you first need to ask ‘why?’. Not why this presentation, but why are you giving this presentation.

Where is your expertise, where is your passion in the subject and how can you convey that to your audience?

Look for the WIIFM

Then, to make your subject interesting to the audience and not just to you, you need to take a look at why the audience are hearing your presentation?

Where is their interest? If it is the UK tax system, their interest might not be in the system itself but more in how they could reduce their tax bill. Perhaps the audience for the Grand Canyon presentation are students who need the knowledge for an exam, in which case focus on making the key facts as clear and memorable as possible; or perhaps holidaymakers about to go on a visit who might be most interested in the best viewpoint and café?

In the public speaking profession, this is often referred to as tuning into Channel WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?), with ‘Me’ meaning the audience, not the speaker.

So think about:

• What do they need to know?
• Why do they need to know it?
• What will they do once they know it?

Keep it short and simple

You may be an expert on your subject, but keep it relevant to your audience. Don’t give them all the background technical information unless they really need to know it. Don’t tell them the life story of your topic, unless they need to know it. Don’t overload your presentation with data or explanations.

Keep it short and simple.

Use analogies and alternatives

Find an alternative way of presenting the information – for instance, the final year accounts of an organisation I belonged to were reported by the treasurer. One year, he opened by asking us all a question: if the bank balance was £1,564 and was turned into pound coins, how far would it reach? Our answers ranged from, half way around the world ‘to the moon and back’, but our engagement was high and the rest of his talk was short, to the point and peppered with humour and off-the-cuff facts. Only at the end did he reveal the correct answer!

Use media

Earlier on I referred to you, the speaker, as being the most important visual aid in a presentation. While this remains true, if you want to keep the interest of your audience then using different types of visual aids in your presentations can be of real benefit. For instance, you can:

• Insert pictures into your slide presentation.
• Embed appropriate video clips, or make your own to illustrate a point.
• Create a sound file – perhaps an endorsement by a colleague or customer.
• Use music to add extra emphasis to points, or at the beginning and end of your presentations.

Do be careful to consider copyright on images, videos and music though. As a professional speaker, I subscribe to the Performing Right Society, which allows me to play music in public. You probably don’t need to go this far, but make sure you use media that is in the public domain, or to which you or your organisation owns the copyright.

Include an activity

While there is often a groan when the presenter says ‘and now we’ll break for a short exercise…’, the fact is that activities keep the engagement high. But don’t have activities without a reason, and do keep them on topic if you want to keep that engagement.

When introducing the activity, set it up with a reason for people to engage, such as: ‘Now I’m sure you’ve been wondering what this means for you … I’d like to invite you to take 5 minutes to discuss this in pairs or small groups. So, how will implementing XYZ affect you and what questions do you need answering?’

Use humour

If it works for you, and it doesn’t work for everyone, the use of humour can create high levels of engagement and make a presentation more interesting. See Step 5 for more tips on humour.

If all else fails … strip

When I give a talk on networking and it comes to talking about how best to dress for an event, I start to undress. Not completely, sorry to spoil that picture in your imagination, but partially, to make a point about colour coordination, belts, having pockets and looking business-like versus casual. It certainly captures the attention of my audience!