Understand the purpose for your audience

Spending a few minutes on understanding why you are presenting is definitely worthwhile. Doing so will help you gain clarity and will form the foundation of how you build your presentation.

To identify the purpose of your presentation, ask yourself the following four questions:

What do I want my audience to think?

What do I want my audience to feel?

What do I want my audience to do?

What problem am I solving for my audience?

Obviously the purpose of your presentation will change every time you do a different presentation, even if it is similar content. So you'll need to ask yourself these questions for each and every presentation you do.

Ask yourself this: at the end of your presentation, what do you want your audience to do? What is it you want to achieve? Before you start thinking about your content and arranging it into PowerPoint slides, you have to think about ‘why’ you are presenting. What's the purpose of your presentation?

Understand the purpose for you

I worked with a client who was acting in the role of senior executive. She was going through the formal process of applying for the role she was acting in and her company was also interviewing several external candidates. While she was in the final stages of the interviewing process, she had to do a presentation to the board. I worked with her on her presentation, starting with the why. The purpose for the board was that they needed a high-level overview of the strategy and they wanted to feel confident that this was the right approach. My client also identified a purpose for her — and perhaps a hidden purpose for the board. Like it or not, coincidentally or not, this was a pseudo test and would informally became part of the decision process to identify if she was suitable to hold the senior executive role permanently.

Understanding this influenced the way we structured the presentation. She knew there was a chance that questions from certain board members could drag her into providing technical solutions, whereas she wanted to remain strategic. So we crafted appropriate responses if those situations occurred.

She knew she would be presenting to the board after hours of previous presentations, so she ditched the PowerPoint and went with an approach that would be refreshing and would introduce a change of pace.

She spent more time than usual identifying questions she thought the board would ask and worked on thorough and elegant responses for each of those.

While talking about purpose, one other aspect is worth a mention — the ‘listening cost’ of the room. If you are a CEO or a senior leader and you are presenting to 50 or 200 or more of your leaders, think about how much you are actually paying these people to sit and listen to you. Even if the number is lower, considering the ‘listening cost’ is important. On average, your leaders may earn about $100 an hour. If you have 100 such leaders in the room listening to you for an hour, that is a $10 000 ‘listening cost’. When you think about this, you would want to be good.

I hear many leaders comment on external speakers who are charging that amount, saying something along the line of, ‘They better be good for that money’ — and they have a point. If you're paying an external speaker $10 000 to do a 60-minute keynote, you expect them to be good. You could rightly expect them to be brilliant. But shouldn't we also place that same expectation on ourselves when we consider the ‘listening cost’ of the people sitting in the room? Not to mention what collectively the people listening could all achieve with those 100 hours. If we consider this aspect for meetings as well as presentations, we may start having shorter meetings and only invite the people who absolutely need to be there.

So now that I have added all that extra pressure, let's make your presentations rock and worth the ‘listening cost’.

Once you understand your purpose, you must spend some time looking at this purpose from your audience's perspective. You would be surprised how many presenters don't do this, or only do so at a surface level. But to be a more engaging presenter, you need to go beyond the surface level with an audience analysis and go to a deeper level.

First, the surface level. At this level you do need to understand a few things:

• Who are they?
• How many people are attending?
• What time of day will you be presenting? (After lunch or late afternoon?)
• Will you have to overcome any possible distractions? (For example, lunch being served.)

Then go beyond this and get to a deeper level. Following are some questions worth considering. You may not be able to answer them all and some may be irrelevant. If you don't know your audience at all, speak to someone who does know them and can give you insights into the questions.

Some questions worth thinking about include:

• What problems are you solving (if any)?
• What type of relationship (if any) do you have with your audience?
• What motivates them?
• What do they want from your presentation?
• What are three current challenges or concerns relevant to them?
• Do they want to be there?
• Do they really want to be there or are they expected to be there?
• How will they receive your messages?
• Is there a chance some will see your presentation in a negative light?
• What do you want them to think differently about after your presentation?
• What do you want them to ‘do’ differently, if anything?
• What do you want them to ‘feel’ differently?

When I run presentation workshops and take leaders through this exercise, without fail they gain an insight they had not thought of. So I encourage you to ask yourself these questions every time you present.

‘Bumper sticker’ your message

Once you have written your messages down and prioritised them, think about how you can ‘bumper sticker’ your message. Here is a chance for you to move away from the corporate jargon, which has a tendency to bounce off people's heads, and trade that jargon for something that gets into their head, their heart or their gut. This is a chance to have a bit of fun, take a little risk and make your messages ‘sticky’.

Look at your messages and ask yourself, ‘If they were bumper stickers, what would they be?’

For example, Brian was a senior manager who was trying to communicate to his team that, no matter the communication material they were producing, most people were accessing this material on their smart phones. This meant his team needed to consider this during the design stage. He had written down his message as ‘Think of size when designing’. However, he bumper stickered his message to ‘size matters’. A little bit risqué perhaps, but a bit of fun and, most importantly, memorable.

When I work with sales teams on how to use storytelling in sales, my main message is, ‘When you are selling, reduce the focus on all the facts about the product and sell the value through storytelling, which will increase your sales’. When I bumper sticker that message, it translates to: ‘Facts tell; stories sell’.

By bumper stickering your message, you are creating two versions of how you can communicate the message — the business version and the bumper sticker version. The idea is to use both, or to keep both in mind and use each one depending on your audience. However, don't assume that just because you are talking to the board of directors or a senior leadership team they will not appreciate the bumper sticker message. People will most likely remember the bumper sticker and know what it stands for through your business version of the explanation.

Stories

So if you have just read the previous chapter, you're probably unsurprised that using stories is at the top of my list of the pedagogies you should use when presenting. In these situations, I believe you should always try to use personal stories to emphasise your messages. I also highly recommend starting your presentation with a story that shows your credibility and passion for what you are about to talk about. Walk on stage and simply start with your story.

For some reason, starting this way seems to freak people out a bit and they are really reluctant to do it. Perhaps because it is so unusual. I often see leaders start a conference by telling people where the toilets are and what to do in case of an emergency. Yes, this information is important and perhaps providing some of it is a legal requirement. But what is more important for you at that moment? Building credibility and instant connection with your audience or making sure they know where the toilets are? You're likely dealing with intelligent adults here and I reckon they may have already figured out where the toilets are. And if they haven't they can probably ask 100 other people before they need to be relying on the person on the stage.

START YOUR PRESENTATION WITH A STORY THAT SHOWS YOUR credibility AND passion FOR WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO TALK ABOUT. WALK ON STAGE AND SIMPLY START WITH YOUR STORY.

So all the ‘housekeeping’ type information may be important, but it does not have to be the first thing you say. Maybe tell your story first to get connection and engagement and then cover off on the housekeeping.

As discussed in chapter 4, remember that stories don't have to be overly personal, because you may not be comfortable sharing these on stage. But only you can decide what you're comfortable with. If you've reconciled yourself with the events you want to share and feel the story will help your audience engage with your main message, go ahead.

Props

Using props in presentations can be a creative and memorable way to demonstrate a point. For example, Sasha was a project leader who had to present to his senior leadership team the outcomes and recommendations of a project that he and his team had been working on. He was hoping to get funding and resources to implement a new internal employee contacts database and he wanted to emphasise how outdated the current system was.

During the presentation, Sasha held up the White Pages telephone directory (which, as you may know, is the size of about two bricks) and asked his audience if they could remember the last time they used one to find the contact details for someone. The answer (as he knew it would be) was years and years ago. He then pulled out his smart phone and said, ‘Of course, we all now use one of these’. He went on by saying, ‘In our personal life we use a device like this, yet at work we ask our employees to use a device like this’. With that, he dropped the very heavy White Pages directory on the table. It landed with a loud thud.

You can see from Sasha's example that the props don't have to be anything grand or outrageous. They just need to provide an opportunity to get your audience's attention, to have an impact and be memorable.

Using a personal prop can also be memorable and provide a great opportunity to bring the whole of you to your presentation — maybe a ‘most improved’ trophy from your under-11 tennis playing days or a framed photo of your grandparents. You just need to make sure they provide a good link to your main message.

Props can work especially well when combined with a story. Personal props and personal stories are very powerful.

Something unusual

Simply doing something unusual is another underused way to deliver memorable presentations.

About ten years ago I attended a full-day conference with a client. The conference was run by a global logistics company and they had brought about twenty people from around the Australasian region together in the beautiful setting of Indonesia. During the day, each country head would present what they had achieved for the year and cover their targets for next year.

Franc was the leader of the whole team and he was the final speaker. He had to present the overall business results for the last year and the targets for the following year. He had told me before the conference that the targets for the next financial year were a big stretch and he was expecting scepticism from his team, and perhaps even some serious backlash. Being a global company, these targets had been imposed on him and his initial reaction was also of scepticism. He, however, had known about the targets for a couple of weeks so had had time to work though his initial scepticism and was now feeling that the targets were achievable. He was hoping he could fast-track this process for his team so they could spend less time focusing on how the targets could not be achieved — and more time focusing on how they could be achieved.

Franc was co-presenting with one of his team members and what he did I still remember to this day. In fact, it is the only thing I remember from that entire day.

Franc and his co-presenter first went through what had been achieved for the previous twelve months, and then Franc put up the slide showing the following year's targets. Franc let people absorb these targets for about ten seconds and then he just said, ‘Those targets are ridiculous. There is no way we can achieve those.’ He then walked out the room, closing the door behind him. Everyone in the room just looked at each other wondering what was going on. Franc had a reputation for being a bit of joker but no-one was really sure if he was being serious or not. After about thirty seconds he re-entered the room, talking to himself in a voice that was still audible to the audience. He said, ‘Maybe the targets aren't so ridiculous after all. Maybe we could actually achieve them. It will be tough and we will have to do things a bit differently but what if we could achieve them? I think maybe I should give this a go.’

Now, at this stage it was obvious to everyone that this was part of the presentation, but it had the desired effect of fast-tracking the mindset of his team from ‘We can't do this’ to ‘We may able to achieve it’. Total acceptance wasn't that fast and there was certainly discussion about how much of a stretch the stretch targets were, but overall the approach worked. Franc took a risk, did something unusual and memorable, and it worked. More importantly, Franc was a bit of a fun guy. He liked to push the boundaries and not take things too seriously so this was absolutely true to him. The whole time it was the real Franc on stage.

I worked with another senior executive leader who was tasked with introducing the session after lunch. I had worked with him on a personal story he was going to share with his team, and on what he thought was important for leadership to him, to his business and the leaders he led. The setting was a large conference room of approximately 250 people, all sitting at tables of ten.

IF YOU ARE PREPARED TO TAKE A CALCULATED RISK AND DO SOMETHING JUST A LITTLE BIT unexpected, YOU CAN HAVE A HUGE IMPACT.

Instead of immediately taking to the stage, he decided to start at the very back of the room. He was wearing a lapel microphone so he was audible but, at the start, no-one knew where he was standing. Everyone was looking around to see where he was, and it only took a few seconds for them to find him at the back of the room. He spoke for about five minutes and slowly made his way to the stage in a bit of a crisscross fashion, walking past most tables as he did so. Doing something just a little bit different combined with a personal story had a big impact.

If you are prepared to take a calculated risk and do something just a little bit unexpected, you can have a huge impact. Take some advice from the ‘King’, Elvis Presley. He simply said, ‘Do something worth remembering!’

Rule 1: Reduce your slides

Reduce both the content on your slides and the number of slides. People still put way too much content on their slides. I know of one organisation that had a minimum font size to try to address this, only to find their employees widened the margins of each slide.

My general rule for the ratio of PowerPoint slides to time is one slide for every three to five minutes. Always remember that less is more. If you're in doubt, try halving the number of slides you use. If you have 40 slides, make it 20; if you have 20, make it 10. Your audience does not need to see everything you are saying.

Rule 2: Make sure your slides are legible

Nothing is worse than showing a slide and saying, ‘You probably can't read this, but … ’ I'm sure you've seen such a slide. The font used is tiny or the diagram has so many labels attached it makes no sense. Showing such a slide is insulting to your audience, and it makes you look lazy and like a poor presenter. Promise me if during a presentation you ever utter the words, ‘You probably can't read this’ you will add ‘because I am a lazy presenter and I couldn't figure out a better way to communicate this to you’. Instead of having to make such an admission, think about using a handout instead, writing up key information on a whiteboard or replacing the information on the slide with your key point.

Rule 3: Remember a picture paints a thousand words

Every slide does not need to contain text. You can insert pictures, photos or simple diagrams. If you're using a story to convey a message, you could use an image that represents what you're saying. Just remember to keep it real — use your own photos rather than stock photos.

Once I was involved in a project that took nearly three years to complete. When I presented to the business about the completed project, I began by showing a photo of my daughter, who was two years old at the time. I knew full well that everyone was wondering why I was talking about my daughter and showing a picture of her. But one of the main points I wanted to get across from the start was how long and intensive the project had been. So I talked about my two-year-old daughter for about thirty seconds and then said, ‘When we started this project, I was six weeks pregnant.’

Rule 4: Split your presentation

Not everyone will turn up on the day of your presentation, and so some people may miss out on information. To combat this, many presenters produce a PowerPoint pack, rich in text, that can be emailed out to those who didn't attend. Providing the information by email is a good idea but, if you decide to do this, don't think you need to include the text within the slide. Instead, convert the information to a document in Word and add text there, or put all the additional text into the notes pages of the PowerPoint presentation.

Remember that presentations are about what's right for the audience first, and then about you. The PowerPoint slides should only be used if they assist the audience in understanding and remembering your message — they shouldn't be used as prompts for you.

Prompts are always a good idea but have separate notes for that. Again, adding additional text may help you but it will have a detrimental effect on people understanding and remembering your message.

Well before your presentation

To make sure you're organised and calm on the day of your presentation, you can do some prep work days or weeks beforehand. Consider working through the following.

Prioritise practice

Being a real presenter does not mean you don't practise.

It's easy to say practise, practise, practise but the reality is that most of us just don't and that is due to a whole lot of reasons. Within my work with leaders (especially in the corporate world) I come across a variety reasons that stop them from practising, but by the far the most common is ‘time’.

Time is obviously a key factor that will determine how much we practise but the other factor is, or at least should be, familiarity of content. These will determine how much and what we practise before any presentation.

Some tips for practice

The power of practice can't be underestimated, and you should try to practise aloud, not just in your head. Practising aloud is a real test for ‘Is this the real you?’ You will hear what words are not sounding right for you. Try to use language you would normally use because this is about real talk and presenting the real you on stage.

Here are some further tips:

• Practise alone in the car, in the shower, or when you are going for a run or a walk.
• Practise by recording yourself on your phone and listening back to it.³
• Make sure you practise in front of someone, even if this is your partner at home. Presenting to just one other person makes your presentation come alive — there is now a dynamic, and you might speed up or slow down.
• Practise, practise and then practise some more.

The final tip, and perhaps the most important, is find a method that works for you. Some people suggest practising in front of a mirror. Personally I hate this because I look at myself and start to become all self-conscious about minor things. I end up focusing on me as opposed to my message or potential audience.

Find a way that works for you and go for it.

Know your routine

Most Olympic athletes have a routine they religiously perform before each event. Sport psychologists call this ‘mindfulness’ or ‘process focusing’. It's helpful because it focuses the mind on the present moment and so distracts the brain from racing ahead.

During the 2004 Athens Olympics, for example, Australian swim coach Shannon Rollason instructed swimmer Jodie Henry to have a routine for the twenty minutes preceding each race. Swimmers have this amount of time between leaving the change rooms and finally getting on the blocks to race, and it's enough time for nerves and doubts to build. On leaving the change room, Shannon told Jodie she was to speak to someone in the marshalling area; then she was to find the Australian team and wave to them. Next, she had to seek out her parents in the audience and give them a wave. When she was introduced she had to wave and then, and only then, was she to take off her tracksuit and put her cap on. Henry won three Olympic gold medals in the 2004 games using this pre-match routine. Granted, the fact that she could swim faster than anyone else in the pool probably contributed more to her wins than her routine, but in the past her nerves had prevented her from proving this. Having a routine that works for you can certainly help.

The routine that works for you might be as simple as doing a final practice in your head, or listening to a particular song that relaxes you or fires you up.

Visualise success

In an experiment conducted by Australian psychologist Alan Richardson, a group of basketball players was split into three smaller groups. One group was told to practise their free-throw technique for 20 minutes every day. The next group was told to spend 20 minutes every day visualising, but not practising, free throws. The last group was not allowed to either practise or visualise their free throws. At the end of the experiment period, the group who had done nothing remained as they were, but both the other groups showed similar degrees of improvement. The people who only visualised playing basketball were able to perform almost as well as the ones who had actually practised. How can that be so?

Well, the people practising missed some shots. Each time they missed they had, in effect, practised how to miss. The people who were visualising hit every basket, so they were building up the feelings and memory of how to be successful.

Visualisation is an incredibly powerful and simple way of speeding up the improvement process by fooling the mind into believing that you have already done something before you have. Of course, this in and of itself will not turn you into an NBA star, or an inspiring presenter. You actually have to practise as well, but it will help you succeed more quickly.

During the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, for example, the Australian men's rowing team (who were known as the ‘Oarsome Foursome’) had only just scraped into the final. Against all odds, they went on to win gold in the event. They put this down to sport psychologist Jeff Bond, who had worked with them on positive visualisation in the lead-up to Atlanta. They practised the event over and over in their heads — warming up, paddling and finishing the race. Apparently, on the day it went exactly as they had visualised.

You too can use the same technique. In the week leading up to your presentation, picture yourself walking on stage, engaging your audience at the start, going through your key messages, finishing with a lot of applause as you leave the stage and getting all the great feedback afterwards.

Visualising success works because the brain cannot distinguish between reality and imagination. After you have visualised something like this in detail, when you actually stand up to present, your mind feels it's done this before. The more you visualise success, the more you'll trick your mind into thinking it is real.

I must admit I was a bit sceptical of this approach but I have grown to use it and can now say it works. At a minimum, it helps reduce the nerves and anxiety.

Use power posing

Amy Cuddy is a Harvard Business School professor⁴ who gave a TED talk that has received more than 21 million views to date.⁵ Cuddy's research links our body language to our hormone levels, our feelings and our behaviour. Her research shows that even faking powerful body postures that convey competence and power can change our testosterone (dominance) and cortisol (stress) levels. Cuddy calls this ‘power posing’ and it can be effective after faking it for only a couple of minutes. With this increase in testosterone and cortisol levels, we increase our appetite for risk and have greater ability to cope well in stressful situations.

IF YOU ACT powerfully, YOU WILL BEGIN TO THINK POWERFULLY, AND WHEN PEOPLE FEEL POWERFUL, THEY BECOME MORE present.

Cuddy believes that our body language can shape who we are, and that the non-verbal gestures we make can govern what other people think and feel about us. Non-verbals can even govern the way we think and feel about ourselves.

If you act powerfully, you will begin to think powerfully, and when people feel powerful, they become more present. They become better connected with their own thoughts and feelings, which can help them to better connect with the thoughts and feelings of others. This can allow a presenter to significantly increase their chances of connecting, engaging and captivating an audience.

Put the audience first

You need to put your audience's needs ahead of yours. Once I was asked to deliver a keynote presentation as part of an internal leadership conference. I was the last speaker of the day. I had to fly to the event so I arrived a few hours early and decided to sit in on earlier presentations so I could weave any themes or messages into my presentation.

It was a glorious spring day in Sydney. The conference room was directly on the water with spectacular views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. And the best bit was that the conference rooms had floor-to-ceiling glass walls so you could make the most of this amazing view.

However, every speaker who presented was using PowerPoint, so the blockout blinds had to be drawn to avoid the sun glare making it difficult for the audience to see the screen.

During the afternoon tea-break, I was getting my lapel microphone attached and tested along with the other speaker who was on just before me. Someone asked him about his presentation and he said he was not using PowerPoint. I told him I only had provided PowerPoint slides because the organisers had insisted, and I would also be happy to not use them because it would allow the blockout blinds to be raised and the view to be appreciated.

Someone suggested that people may look at the view instead of listening to me. I was happy to take that risk and, at one stage, that is exactly what happened. I was talking away and noticed that quite a lot of eyes were looking past me and out the window. I stopped and turned around to see a large tall ship, with all sails drawn, sailing past directly under the harbour bridge. It was an impressive sight that I commented on. I waited the twenty seconds or so it took to sail by and then continued.

It is easy for ego to come into play here and tell yourself, ‘Everyone should be listening to me’, but it's not about you. It's about them. Keep it real and put your audience first.

Be flexible

Life is never perfect, so things are often going to go wrong. Your presentation time may be cut, the technology may fail, you may be asked an unexpected curly question or you may be interrupted by an audience member who informs you that your topic was just covered by another speaker.

Being flexible in your approach to your content and context will allow you to recover from these setbacks.

A presenter I know, Jane, once had a problem with her slides — they kept randomly moving forwards and backwards, and the remote she was using did not seem to be controlling them. After repeatedly asking the support crew to revert back to the slide she wanted, she decided to ditch them all together and had the support crew turn the system off. Jane found out later that the remotes had been switched between rooms and the presenter in the next room was controlling the flow of her slides.

When things go wrong, the audience has the opportunity to see the real you. How you respond can be critical. Not that you would want something wrong to happen but, if it does, it can create an amazing opportunity for the real you to shine.

Use your pace

Nothing is more tedious than listening to a presenter stuck on one speed — whether that pace is slow, or super-fast. It comes across as fake or over-rehearsed … a long way from ‘real’. A singular pace can often happen when people read from a script.

Getting your pace right is important, but that also means that you vary your pace at particular points. This helps keep and sustain your audience's attention and stops you developing a monotone.

It's natural that your audience's attention will vary throughout your presentation. Seldom is anyone going to be hanging on every word you say. The harsh reality is you will lose your audience at different points as they zone out — perhaps to think about what's for dinner or if they hung out the washing. So you should give them the opportunity to refocus on you. Varying your pace is an underused technique that helps you do exactly that.

When you are presenting an important point, slow down your normal pace by about 10 per cent — that is, look at your baseline pace and slow it down by 10 per cent. Speaking slowly gives you a sense of authority. Just be careful not to do this too much — otherwise, it will have the opposite effect and you'll come across as patronising, like you're telling a child a bedtime story. Slow down slightly at particular points to increase your presence and impact.

Pausing in between words is also a sure-fire way to have a big impact. This kind of technique signals the importance of what you're saying. Recently I ran a group of leaders through an exercise focusing on this. Without telling them what I was doing I said, ‘What I am about to share with you is really important’. I then remained silently present. I did not say a word for about ten seconds, but maintained eye contact the whole way. Then I asked them, ‘What just happened?’ They responded along the lines of, ‘I just can't wait to hear what you are about to say’ and ‘You had me totally intrigued and had my full attention’.

Just as slowing down and pausing can work to keep or grab an audience's attention, so too can speeding up your pace. If you are sharing an exciting, high-energy point or even a story with lots of action in it, you should speed up what you are saying by at least 10 to 15 per cent. Speeding up recreates the energy and excitement of the story. It's natural to talk fast when we're excited or eager and the aim here is to mimic natural conversational patterns.

Use your space

All the world's a stage.

— William Shakespeare, English playwright

When you are presenting, all your world at that moment is the stage, so use it. Now, of course, every stage will be different — some will be longer, some wider, and they will be different shapes or heights. Regardless of what the stage looks like, make it work for you and take control of it.

You have a lapel microphone on (hopefully) so you are not anchored to the lectern. Get out there and use the stage — but make sure you meander with purpose.

Walking around on stage does a couple of things for you:

• It can create interest and energy.
• It can make you look more confident and feel more confident.

Here are some ways you can meander around the stage with purpose:

• The power position on the stage is front and centre. Use this space to both open and close your presentation and to get across your key messages.
• Move to the front of the stage when you want to get closer to your audience and when you feel you need to make a connection or emphasise a point. When I share a personal story, for example, I always move closer to the front of the stage.
• Move from left to right on the stage to emphasise the past, present and future.

And here are a few further things to consider:

• Make sure you do not walk out of the lighted area. Your audience always needs to see you.
• If there are obstacles in the room (such as columns that block some audience members' view), avoid these spots so the audience can see you most of the time.
• During the sound check, identify any no-go zones where you lose sound or trigger that annoying, ear-piercing screech from microphone interference.

Thank people

I am not talking about thanking the audience at the end of your speech. That is a given. However, one thing to note is that you should try not to do so with a ‘Thank you for listening’. I try to end with something along the lines of ‘It's been a pleasure being with you’ or ‘Thanks for your energy and interaction; I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference’.

Also showing gratitude to the people who asked you to speak is an important element of presenting. Take the opportunity to be grateful to the people in the audience who came to see you as well as the organisers who invited you to speak.

Small gestures like this can make such a big difference. If you're not already in the habit of thanking people, it may be a good habit to adopt. It doesn't matter whether you've just given a keynote speech, a presentation that you are being paid handsomely for, pro-bono work or a presentation at your team's sales conference — give thanks, because you've been given an opportunity that you should be thankful for.

Seek feedback and reflect

So how did you go? Do a quick evaluation of what worked and what didn't. What should you do more of? What could you do better? I often blog about things as a way to reflect and also to share what I learnt from an experience.

You could use a variety of feedback and reflective models, but I just ask myself three simple questions:

1. What did I do well? What seemed to work for the audience?
2. What didn't work that I would not use again?
3. What could I do differently or better next time?

Also reflect on your presentation through the lens of ‘How real did this feel?’ When did you feel you were being real? When did everything seem to flow? Try to do more of that and your presentations will feel more real — and I can guarantee you, when that happens you start to enjoy them more.

Apart from self-reflection, seeking out feedback from others is also a good idea. You could ask a trusted adviser in the audience how it went. Were people engaged? Sometimes the questions, or lack of questions, after you have presented is also an indicator.

I recall I once went to an appalling breakfast presentation and when the organisers asked for questions at the end, there were none. This is an indication; this is feedback for you as the presenter. Some presenters also record their presentations so they can watch or listen to them afterwards, and pick up the bits that worked and those they could improve on.

It does not matter how you reflect, just make sure you do.

Strive

Besides seeking feedback and reflecting after each presentation, you can do a couple of other things as you strive to be a better presenter:

• Observe other speakers — when you're in the audience and listening to an inspiring presenter, observe what they're doing and be curious about that. What are they doing that makes it such a great presentation? How do they use the stage? When are they sharing their stories? How are they interacting with the audience? Watch some TED talks online and do the same. I encourage you to use your two eyes and ears when watching presenters. One to actually take in what you are hearing and seeing but the other to observe what is happening and what tools are being used.
• Get a mentor — find a mentor to help you develop your content, your style and your confidence. Leaders have coaches for all sorts of things and it's worthwhile considering a mentor to help with your presenting.