A survey for the Confident Club found that nearly one in two Brits are more scared of making presentations than they are of dying. Confident Club coach, Steve McDermott, reveals powerful strategies for successful presentations.
1. Believe: A presentation starts long before you get up to speak. Mental preparation is at least as important as physical rehearsal. The key to success is positive visualisation: you need to picture yourself delivering a powerful and effective presentation. Master communicators also have a set of beliefs that help them. Like you don’t have to perfect you just have to be you. And there’s no such thing as failure just the chance to learn.
2. Exit: The most important part of your presentation is the end. That’s what people remember so it’s no good running out of steam before you get there. When you’re preparing, allow enough time to plan a big finish. And delivery it like you mean it.
3. Entry: The second most important part of the presentation is the beginning. Too many people get up and start going through housekeeping. Ideally, get someone else to introduce you and make sure you start by getting your audience’s attention.
4. Once upon a time: People like a good story. They want to know what happens next, and if it’s good, they’ll pass it on. That makes personal stories a brilliant device to build in when you’re presenting. Plus of course you don’t have to remember what you are going to say because it happened to you. It’s also a useful way of thinking about your presentation as a whole - what’s your story and what’s its point?
5. The Kit Kat: Make your audience wait. It’s your show so take your time. And remember to take a break. Silence can be more dramatic than turning the volume up so use it.
6. The drill: Speed up, slow down, remember to use pace. It’s important to create change for your audience and varying the tempo is one way of achieving this.
7. The hammer There’s no point in muttering out a great point. Emphasise your words, but make sure they’re the right words. Changing the emphasis can change the meaning so think not only about what you’re saying but also how you say it.
8. The touchy feely stuff: 38% of communication is tone of voice. (Only 7% is what you actually say; 55% is physiology, which is why using your voice and the right body language is so important – Original study Birtwhistle and Mahrabian). Props are powerful because they’re tangible and hit people between the eyes.
9. The right technology: Making a presentation isn’t about rushing to PowerPoint and writing 30 slides of text-heavy bullet points. Technology can play a role however, especially if you use it for pictures rather than words. There are some really sexy interactive tools out there now which allow you to deliver leading edge presentations that still retain the personal touch.
10. Look who’s talking: Presenting is all about being able to get your personality across whether you’re in a room with one person, 100 people, or for that matter, several hundred people. Be confident about who you are and let it shine.
