There are three main parts to preparing a presentation:

• Deciding what to say.
• Deciding how to say it.
• Preparing yourself to say it.

What to say

Let’s start with “Deciding what to say”, this is really all about your audience and what you would like them to do. What do you want your presentation to achieve? What is your objective? How will you know if you have achieved your objective? You need to be really clear on what your aim is, so take some time at the start to work out why you are giving the presentation and what you want it to achieve. If you can write this down in one or two sentences you will have a good foundation for your presentation.

Having decided your objective, then start thinking about your audience. Who are they? Why are they coming to listen to you? What do they know about the topic already? What is it that they want or need to hear? The more you can find out about your audience the more accurately you can pitch your presentation to meet their needs and desires. When addressing a mixed audience try to define two or three different segments of your audience and create two or three alternative scenarios.

Having established why and who, it is then time to start thinking and researching what it is your going to say. Having a structure to fit the points you want to make in to is very helpful. One structure I have used successfully many times is to start by outlining the problems with the current way of doing something and the describing a vision of success, a picture of how it could be if things were different. Then go one to describe how this vision could be attained, summarizing all the benefits of the approach, inviting the audience to join you in achieving this vision which you can then restate at the end of the presentation. Don’t be tempted to add in everything that you can think of, maintain a structure. Three key points backed up by evidence or anecdotes is usually sufficient for most presentations.

It is at this point that many people make the mistake of opening PowerPoint and creating lists of slides titles and bullet points. While bullet points may be a useful way to document the points you wish to make in a speech, they do not make good visual aids.

How to Say it

Having pulled all you material together and being familiar with the main point you wish to get across, you can now turn to planning how you are going to convey this information. Are you going to stand and talk? Will you have any props to help get the message across? Will you use visual aids and if so what will they be? Are you going to tell a story? How will you involve your audience? Will you ask them questions?

Rehearse your presentation by saying it out loud. Sitting at your desk clicking though a set of slides is no way to rehearse a presentation. You need to say it out loud to become familiar with your material and to become accustomed to saying the words. By rehearsing a presentation out loud you can develop the phraseology which will work best in the spoken form, rather than the more formal style of language we use when we are writing. A single rehearsal will improve your speech by up to 80%.

You don’t need to have anyone listening to you especially the first time through, although it can help to tape record or video record your presentation rehearsal so that you get a clear view of what you actually sound and look like. I often turn off the radio and rehearse a presentation in the car on the way to the location. It is a great way to rehearse and the presentation and make sure you know what you are going to say, plus it is fresh in your mind when you arrive.

Preparing to say it

Finally, you need to put yourself in the right frame of mind for giving a presentation. If you do not feel confident you need to address it. Tell yourself that being nervous is OK, in fact, if it is an important presentation it is perfectly normal to feel nervous, you just want to recognise that you are nervous and put it to one side, while you get on with the job in hand.

Use confident boosting techniques like telling your self that you are “Poised, prepared, persuasive, positive and powerful “ and that you feel, “composed, confident, convincing, commanding and compelling”.

To counteract a dry mouth, suck a mint beforehand. Use breathing techniques to ensure there is sufficient oxygen in your bloodstream or take some gentle exercise beforehand. Wear clothes that make you feel good. Remember, the facts will only take your audience so far, it is your passion for the subject and your emotion that will lift your presentation to new heights.

Make sure you arrive at the venue, nice and early, so that you have time to get set up and familiarise your self with the surroundings, before your audience arrive. Work out where you are going to put any notes, or props you intend using and think through how any equipment you are going to use will work. Check any pens have ink in them, check your laptop to ensure the screen save, or instant messaging won’t pop up in the middle of your presentation and make sure your mobile is on silent.

Don’t rely on an off the cuff presentation, just because you know about the topic doesn’t mean you can effortlessly give a quality presentation, it takes time, it takes thought and it takes practise.

• The verbal – i.e. the words you use
• The vocal – i.e. the way you say those words
• The visual – i.e. what people see while you are saying the words

You may think that the words you choose are the most important part of your presentation but by saying the same words with different vocal intonations you can convey different meanings. If you reciteyour presentation in a monotone voice and a constant pace most of your audience will get bored and stop listening. So the vocal aspect is in many ways more important then the words you choose. Of course the words do matter as nobody has ever made a multi-million pound sale by reciting nursery rhymes, no matter how well they recited them.

Is the visual impact more important the tone of voice? If you believe the old proverbs like “Seeing is believing”, “I saw it with my own eyes” or Confucius saying “I hear, I forget, I see I remember…” , then you would have to assume that it is.

Personally, I find it difficult to keep up a conversation while the television is on, because I am constantly attracted to the visual stimulus of the TV, rather than the aural stimulus of the other person’s voice.

This leads me to believe that the visual is more important than the vocal, which in turn is more important than the verbal aspects of a presentation. This also tallies with the research Alfred Mehrabian carried out in the 1960′s which showed that in one on one conversations the words contributed 7% of the message, the way they were said was 38% and the visual aspects were 55% of the communication.

However, more important than any one of these dimensions, is the fact the every dimension has to be synchronised with each other. The brain is very good at spotting things which are out-of-place, or not in sync with each other. If for instance, as part of your presentation, you introduce an exciting new product you need to do so in an excited tone of voice. If you yawned as you said it the words and the tone of voice would contradict the words and it would no longer be believable.

Similarly if you display a slide which says one thing and you talk about something else, or even talk about the same thing but use different words, the audience will become confused and not know which to believe, you or your slides. There are two ways round this, either say exactly what is on your slides (very boring and not good practise) or have slides with minimal text so they can’t contradict you.

In normal everyday conversations the intonations in our voice and the associated body language all come quite naturally, we don’t really have to think about it, unless we are trying to cover something up. The same is true when you are presenting. Assuming that you believe what you are saying, you need not worry about using the right tonal expression or having the right body language, just let it come naturally. It is only when you are thinking something different, from the words that you are saying, that you need to make a conscious effort to control your body language and control your tone of voice.

My advice is to make sure you only talk about things you believe in, or believe in everything you have to talk about.

There are three different ways to end a presentation just as there are three different types of presentation. The types of presentation are to entertain, to inform or to influence. Every presentation must fall into one of these categories. These are not mutually exclusive types as it is well-known that to effectively inform people in a presentation it also has to be entertaining and to influence people you often have to inform them about the situation and the options available. However, every presentation must have a dominant purpose which is to inform, entertain, or influence.

Entertainment Presentations

For a presentation which is purely there to entertain your audience, e.g. an after dinner speech, the best way to end is to leave the audience on a high and tell them your name. Just like a stand up comedian would do. That way if they enjoyed the presentation they know who to ask for when they want to re-book you or buy your Christmas DVD.

Informative Presentations

Informative presentations are when you tell people all about something but leave it up to them to decide what and how they will use this new information. In this case the best ending is a summary of what you have been talking about. In this style of presentation it is quite likely that you will have a question & answer session at the end of the presentation. In this case you can summarise before the Q&A session, but I would always recommend re-stating the summary at the very end after the Q&A.

Influencing Presentations

This is the most common type of presentation used in business these days. The purpose of the presentation being to make your audience do something or think something differently from that which they would have done prior to the presentation.

In this case it is imperative to end with a “call to action” in other words, to tell them what you would like them to do or to think in the future. In many respects this call to action is the whole reason for the presentation and they should leave your presentation with the call to action ringing in their ears. For this to happen it must be the last thing you say before you sit down, after any thanks and Q&A.

As with the Informative presentations, you may want to issue a call to action at the end of your speech but before the Q&A session, but if you do, always re-iterate the call to action after the Q&A, so that it is the very last thing you say.

If you scored more lefts than rights the right thing to do is to come on a presentation skills course.

If you scored more rights, well done, keep up the good work and keep spreading good presentation practise.

Finally, never present on the morning of 1^st April

Fool

With small audiences gaining that participation is relatively easy but the larger the audience gets the harder it becomes. The other day I came across a new product from a dutch company which will change this forever. It is called Shakespeak and essentially what it allows people to do is interact with your PowerPoint presentation using their mobile phone.

In PowerPoint you can set up either a multiple choice closed question or an open question, then when you arrive at that part of your presentation, everyone can phone in their answers, using SMS, an internet link or Twitter. The responses are then shown on the next slide, as a chart or a list of text.

There is no need for any expensive polling equipment, as everyone has a mobile these days, all you need is a laptop with an internet connection running PowerPoint.

The service is very easy to use and enables you to find out exactly what your audience are thinking there and then. You no longer have to rely on their body language or facial expressions to work out if they are interested in what you are saying, you can ask them. In educational sessions, you can check if they are understanding what you are teaching, by dropping in the occasional question. New product launches could be made more interactive by asking how people might use the new product. Sales presentations could prompt for current problems that need to be addressed. Rather than leaving people feeling uncertain you could prompt them to send in any questions they might have, so that you can answer them there and then.

Answers to open questions can be up to 160 characters long so there is ample space to pose a question or express a sentiment.

So get your thinking caps on about what questions you could be asking your audiences, make you presentations more interactive, more memorable and more effective. You can even try Shakespeak for free, just download it from their website.

By the way, I have no association with this product or the company, I just think it is a great new tool.

Using bullet points in your presentations is:

• Lazy
• Ineffective
• Futile

They rarely help the overall communications process which the presentation is trying to achieve.

While it is true that the human memory is better at retaining visual information rather than aural information, using bullet points distracts the listener from what the presenter is saying while they read the bullets. Then when the presenter repeats what the audience has just read, it is old news. And we all know how boring it is to hear old news repeated!

If, in an attempt to be more interesting, the presenter rephrases the bullet points in his oration this just ends up confusing the audience as they hear one thing but see something different.

So using bullet points in your presentation is a “lose-lose” situation.

Why do so many people use bullet points? I believe they are a bi-product of the presentation’s development. When you are developing your thoughts for a presentation is very useful to write down short bullet points and to be able to re-order, add and delete points as you think through your presentation. The result being a sheet or sheets of paper covered with a long list of bullet points. The problem comes when people transcribe these bullets into the presentation software.

This usually happens for one of to reasons:

A)     The presenter doesn’t know any better.

B)     The presenter feels that he/she needs the reminders to help them present the information and keep the presentation on track.

In the latter case, I would suggest that the bullet points are transcribed on to the speaker’s notes, not the slides. That way the speaker can be reminded of what to say, without broadcasting it in advance to his audience.

Using the slides to remind you what to say turns the whole process of giving a presentation on its head. Rather than the presenter leading the presentation with the visual aids supporting what he says, it makes the slides lead the presentation with the presenter demoted to the role of describing what the slides say. In the worst cases the presenter becomes completely redundant as the audience can read the slides and understand the points themselves. The “presenter” would have been better off sending everyone an email, far more efficient.

Hopefully, I have now convinced you that bullet points are not good for your presentations. This raises the next question; what else should you put on our visual aids, or should we do away with the slides altogether?

Personally, I believe slides can help get your message across and help to make it more memorable. After all it was Confucius who once said, “I hear I forget, I see I remember”. What should go on the slides though? Well the clue is in the name, “visual aids”. Your slides should conjure up strong mental images which reinforce what you are saying.

The best example of this I have come across was in a presentation about global warming. The speaker was making the point that what happens in relation to global warming is all down us as individuals. To illustrate the point that one person can make a difference he put up a slide with three images: “American policemen beating up a black person”,”Martin Luther King” and “President Barack Obama”, what a change in one generation!

So I appeal to your better judgement, Ban the Bullets, be more creative and make your presentations work.

If you agree with me the bullet points should be banned from professional presentations, please add you name in the comments box below or take my poll

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

This seems like the ideal quotation to apply to your presentations. The best presentations, or for that matter, demonstrations are the ones that say what needs to be said and no more.

There are three types of presentation, informative, influential and entertaining. In business, purely entertaining presentations are rare, except for after dinner speeches. So let us look at the other two types, informative and influential.

Influential presentations usually have a single goal, to get you audience to do something or feel something differently at the end than they did at the outset. To change their behaviour. If all that was required was to tell them to do it and they would capitulate then there is no need for the presentation, just the final call to action.

Where there is some reluctance to change the presentation needs to overcome this inertia by stating the case for change. Another article I read recently “How facts backfire”, discusses how if someone has a view on a subject and you set out very clear, indisputable facts that they were wrong, you might think that they would change their mind. Well research shows that many of us don’t! In fact, we often became even more strongly set in our beliefs.

Here are a few quotes from the article:

• Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds.
• And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information.
• But instead, it appears that misinformed people often have some of the strongest political opinions.

My thanks to David Gurteen for highlighting this article, in his January newsletter, and to The Boston Globe for publishing it.

So, facts are not enough to overcome this inertia, you need to gain an emotional buy in to that change which is strong enough to overcome each individual’s pre-held beliefs.

Once you have written your presentation go back through it and ask yourself the question “Do I need this bit? Does it directly help to sustain the call to action at the end?” and of course the better you understand the pre-held beliefs of your audience the more likely you are to be able to address those beliefs and overcome them.

For purely informational presentations, where you are educating your audience but are not concerned by what the do with this new found knowledge, then you will have no call to action at the end of the presentation. In this case perfection, is achieved by only telling them what they need/want to know and nothing else. Don’t teach them things they already know or dive in to too much unnecessary detail. This means you need to have a good understanding of what you audience already know, and the level of knowledge they would like to reach.

Which brings us back to one of the prime principles of a good presentation: “Know thy audience”.

 All the best with your presentations.

Graham Young

1. Ask your audience what they would like to see.

Demonstrations don’t have to be a one-way affair. Ask your audience what they are particularly interested in, this will make them more involved and more likely to pay attention.

2. When they come back with a generic response, find out what problems they are currently experiencing.

If they don’t know what they want to see, ask them what problems they have with their current system, what aspects cause them most trouble, or what their ideal systems would do for them.

3. Do not show them how your technology works, very few are interested in how it works!

Don’t fall in to the trap of showing people how your system works. You may be impressed by the technology, you and your colleagues may have spent many hours developing the neat bits, but your prospective customers don’t care. They only care about how it will make their lives simpler, easier or more profitable.

4. KISSS – Keep it simple, short and slow

If you don’t know what your audience are interested in there is a temptation to show them everything in the hope that they will see something of interest. This scattergun approach rarely works and is more likely to kill your audience through boredom. The best demos are short sharp and to the point. However don’t go too quick, you may be familiar with all the screens and know where to look on each page, but your audience have never seen them before and will take longer to understand exactly what each page is for and what the important aspects of each page are.

5. Sit where people can see you, and where you can see them, don’t hide behind your equipment.

Even though your technology is displayed on a massive screen, you are still the most important visual aspect of your demonstration. Make sure you can be seen and that you can see your audience so that you can judge from their body language the level of interest in what you are demonstrating. Eye contact is as important in a demo as it is in a stand up presentation.

6. Show them solutions to their problems.

Assuming you have found out what problems your audience are facing the best thing you can do is to show them how your technology solves those problems, This creates a vision of success which they can buy into and which will be of enormous help when it comes to establishing the value of your solution and closing the sale.

7. Grab their attention, do your best bit first.

Don’t build slowly to a climax, some people will get bored and stop listening before you get there. Start with the best bit of your demo, the most impressive part, so that you really grab the audience’s attention. You can then go back and show the build up if need be.

8. Demonstrate the benefits, don’t show them features.

I have a simple rule if you mention a feature, you MUST always accompany it with the benefit that that features provides to your prospective customer. Never leave it for them to assume the benefit of a feature themselves, they may not make the right assumption.

9. Make the data topical and personal

Make sure all the data in your systems is up to date and relevant to your audience. Do not type random characters into fields, use personal info relevant to the people who are watching you. In particular do not have “names” like demo1, demo2, test1,test 2 or dates that are 4 years old from when you first created the demo.

10. Never demo anything you haven’t tried in practice.

No matter how well you know your software and technology, never show something you have not tried in the rehearsal. Any untried course of action may not work as you hoped, which may lead to confusion of your audience or worse failure of the demonstration.

Finally a bonus tip:

11. Ask them at the end, if the demo has helped them to see how your technology would have a positive impact on their business / life.

When you have come to the end of the demo, always ask if the demo has helped them to see how your technology could help them in the future and ask if there are any other aspects of the technology the would like to see. Never assume, always ask, not only will you gain valuable feedback for future reference, a positive response will help establish a positive impression in the minds of your prospects.

Has this helped you?

To learn more about how to give an effective demonstration why not run my one day Effective Demonstrations Workshop in your office for you and your colleagues.

Why OPERA?

Well OPERA is an acronym based on the first letters of the 5 key aspects of a software demonstration.

O  is for Objective

P is for Presenter

E is for Equipment

R is for Running Order

A is for Audience

Lets look at eachof these key aspects of a demonstration in turn:

Objective:

You must have an objective for your demo. Why are you doing it? What do you want you audience to do after you have finished? How do you want your audience to feel?

Of course, any business objective should be a SMART objective, i.e. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.  This means having an objective of “I want them to see how it works” really doesn’t cut the mustard, for that matter neither would an objective of “I want them to buy the product”, as unless you are selling off the stand, it is unlikely that the sale will be closed with in a timeframe that meets the “Timely” element of a SMART objective.

Ideally what you want the demo to do is; either prove that the technology works, or more importantly, create a vision of success in your audience’s mind, where they can see how using your software would benefit their business. Now having such a qualitative objective is not measurable unless you ask the right questions at the end of the demo. “Has my demo helped you to gain a better understanding of your solution?” or “Can you now see how this system would be used to good effect within your business?” are good questions to ensure you objective was reached.

P is for Presenter

As the person giving the demo, your attitude to the demo is as important if not more important than the system you are demonstrating. Don’t hide in a darkened corner, make sure your audience can see you and that you can see them. Although they are likely to spend most of their time watching the screen, it is reassuring for them to be able to make eye contact with you, and to gauge the expression on your face during the demonstration. It is also very helpful if you can do the same to them. Then if they are looking bored you can speed it up, or ask them more questions. The old saying “people buy from people” is still as true as it ever was, not matter how technical the sale is. So make sure you can be seen.

E is for Equipment

Needless to say you need to know how all the equipment works if you are going to give a demo. But it pays to think through all the things that could go wrong and either eliminate them, or think up a work around in advance. The most obvious things to eliminate include: turning your screen saver off, putting you phone on silent and closing down instant messaging systems, such as Twitter or MSN to ensure no embarrassing or distracting messages are displayed.

It is not just the equipment you need to know, but the system you are demonstrating. Never try to show something in a demonstration that you have not been through keystroke by keystroke in your rehearsal. Such ad hoc activities may seem appealing, enabling you to show off your prowess in your software but if anything does go wrong you will look such a fool.

On a more general level, it pays to get there early so you are not rushed when setting up the demo. It also gives you the chance to ensure the room is tidy, the whiteboard is clean and the flip chart has a blank page at the front. My tip is to sit at the back of the room before anyone arrives and make sure there is nothing left lying around which may distract your audience. If there is remove it.

R is for Running Order

Having a running order for your demonstration is a good idea BUT it is always wise to check with your audience what in particular they would like to see (see below). The KISSS principle is a good one to stick to when you are giving a demo, Keep It Simple, Keep it Short, Keep it Slow. A demo should be no longer than it has to be. Once you have created a vision of how your system will benefit your prospective customers, stop. Even though there may be many, many other parts that you haven’t shown them, stop. By continuing on and on showing off every feature, you will not only become boring, you run the risk of showing them something they will not like, which in turn becomes a reason for them not to buy the system.

Be enthusiastic when you are giving a demo, but don’t go too fast. It is easy to assume that your audience understands what you are doing on a particular screen because of your own familiarity with the system.  Your audience has never seen it before so you need to slow down and explain what each screen is for and what you are doing. Always keep in mind that you are demonstrating a solution to their problems not telling them how to use a system.

A is for Audience

Last but by no means least, the most important part of any demonstration is the audience. The more you know about your audience the better the demo is likely to be. You are not there to show them how your system works, you are doing the demonstration to engage them in a vision of the future, a vision of how much better their life will be once they have this system in their organisation. To create that vision you need to know what they do now, what problems they may have, and establish a strong benefit oriented business case for why they need to have your system, which they can buy into. Remember at the heart of the demo is the old saying “What’s In It For Me”. You must show, through your demo, exactly what is in it for each member of your audience. You can not do that if you know nothing about who your audience is and why they have come to watch your demo.

So before your next demo, think OPERA, and you will have your audience and the salesperson singing your praises.

For more information about good demonstrations and details of my Effective Demonstration Training click on the link.