Everyone wants to give a killer presentation that the audience remembers for years to come. Yet most presentations flop. The essential key to any great presenter is the preparation they take before each presentation. To help ensure you can successfully communicate your presentation to an audience remember first to RATE your presentation:
Review
Arrange
Translate
Exercise
Review
First you must REVIEW and determine the information you will present. In this stage, make sure you understand the topic you will speak about to ensure you sound like an expert. In this stage you should:
- Determine the topic of your presentation
- Review the issues related to your topic
- Come up with recommendations that your audience will want to know
- Conduct research, if needed, to supplement your personal knowledge
Arrange
In this stage, you should arrange your presentation and put together an outline to ensure it’s properly structured. An easy way to arrange your presentation is to follow this basic outline:
- Introduction
- Main Point 1
- Sub point 1
- Sub point 2
- Sub point 3
- Main Point 2
- Sub point 1
- Sub point 2
- Sub point 3
- Main Point 3
- Sub point 1
- Sub point 2
- Sub point 3
- Conclusion
When you think about arranging your presentation, script or other type of communication piece remember to keep things clear and concise. You must ensure your audience understands you the first time they hear it. If it’s a live presentation, they can’t go back and rewind it. If it’s a YouTube video, they can, but how many viewers will really stay with you if they have to keep rewinding? The answer: not very many. Most viewers also won’t stay with you if you are terribly long winded. So keep it as concise as possible. Very good presenters have learned to express many thoughts in a few words. Get to the point – fast.
Translate
The best presenters will ensure that their audience understands them. So make sure you translate clearly what’s in your mind to your audience. So think first about your audience. Who are they? Work at talking in a simple, understandable, and conversational style.
We basically “converse” using simple, common language with our friends, co-workers and family. So we have to take that simple language style most everyone is used to and bring it to your presentation.
Here are some further tips for ensuring your presentation is translated correctly to your audience:
- Avoid technical language or industry jargon (unless speaking specifically to that industry)
- Define key terms you will talk about to the audience may not know
- Use metaphors and creative stories to transfer memorable ideas and information
Exercise
Now it’s time to put your presentation to memory and practice. How you express the topic will make or break the presentation. First off you need to be very familiar with your presentation outline and talking points, if not having most of the facts memorized.
As we’ve all heard and seen dozens of times is the phrase: “practice makes perfect.” When it comes to presenting nothing could be more true. Start practicing by going over the outline of your ideas and ensuring you are familiar with each talking point. Then put down just the headlines on flash cards and see if you can talk to each point well. Next go over the entire presentation without any notes. If you will be filmed go practice in the mirror. Or film yourself. This alone will give you a huge advantage over those who never do this step.
Once you’ve effectively prepared your ready to deliver the presentation. During the presentation you should talk to the audience. Avoid reading note cards or the outline during the presentation if you can. Why? This breaks your eye contact with the audience. One of the first ways the audience will connect with you and stay connected with you is through eye contact. Make sure you maintain consistent eye contact throughout the entire presentation.
Lastly, be natural. This is really hard to do for most people when under pressure. Make sure your gestures, facial expressions and movement are natural and feel great. Watch out for presenting ticks. This could include putting your hands in your pants pockets over and over, playing with your belt, clicking a pen over and over, putting your hand through your hair, blinking a lot, smiling too much, never smiling and so on. If you film yourself presenting, you will often find out if you have a tick like the ones listed above or one that is unique to you. Once you determine if you have a tick, you can work to eliminate it.
And that’s it. If you RATE your presentation every time, you will give the best presentation you’ve given to date. So whether it’s an in-person presentation, a live TV interview, YouTube video or other social video (Facebook Live, Instagram, SnapChat, Vine) you can be prepared to knock the socks off your audience with a great performance.