Presentation friendliness
Can the material be put across easily in the time you’re allowed? It doesn’t make any sense to include material that’s too complex and unwieldy. Sometimes it might be necessary to compromise and provide the audience with a handout or a link where they can get the relevant information after your talk if they’re interested, rather than try to show or explain something that’s unsuitable for the presentation medium. For example, trying to show lines of computer code to an audience – even if they are fanatical programmers – is going to send most of them to sleep. It’s much better to demonstrate what the code can do and tell those people who are interested that you will show them the code personally after the presentation.
Attitude
Finally, whether you enjoy giving a presentation is largely down to your attitude. If you think it’s going to be awful, you’ll probably be proved right. If you think it’s going to be great, the presentation will probably be great too. So you need to go into the presentation with the feeling that it’s a conversation with friends. Your audience might be people you don’t know yet but they’re going to be friends after you’ve finished because you’ve got something to tell them that excites you, and you’ve put in the preparation time so it’ll excite them too.
Remember: you are in charge. You’ve been asked to present. The result is in your hands, nobody else’s. Show them what you can do!
Key take-aways
Think about the things you will take away from Step 1 and how you will implement them.
| Topic | Take-away | Implementation |
| How to get motivated about giving a presentation | • Giving presentations can benefit my career. | • I’ll look for an opportunity in the near future. |
| Deciding what type of presentation is needed | ||
| How to analyse my audience in advance and use this information to improve my presentation | ||
| How to make sure the presentation has a realistic goal | ||
| How to get help | ||
| How to prepare the presentation material | ||
| How to talk | ||
| How to look | ||
| How to give a good impression |
CHOOSE YOUR TOOLS AND STRUCTURE
‘The best way of learning anything is by doing.’ — Richard Branson, businessman and entrepreneur
Five ways to succeed
Think what your audience wants from your presentation.
Give your presentation a clear structure.
Take time to prepare your visual method.
Get feedback from friends and colleagues in advance.
Do a dry run of your presentation.
Five ways to fail
Use lots of acronyms.
Cover your slides with too much text.
Assume your audience knows a lot about your topic.
Patronise your audience.
Talk for longer than you are scheduled for.
You can improve your chances of giving a successful presentation by paying attention to its structure. There are many ways to construct a presentation but here are three approaches that can be effectively used for most situations.
The Classical approach
This is based on the idea that the best way to get a message across is to repeat it. Our brains sometimes need time to adjust to a new concept and this method allows the audience to familiarise themselves with it. Here’s how it works.
1 Tell ’em what you’re going to say
In the introduction, after saying who you are and what your subject is, outline the main points you want to talk about.
2 Tell ’em
In the main body of the presentation, clearly outline each of your main points, making sure that you provide supporting evidence for each of your ideas. Use signposting language (see Step 4) so that your audience can see that you have finished one topic and have moved on to the next. That will help to retain their attention.
3 Tell ’em what you said
At the end, give your audience a summary of the key points of your presentation and what you want them to do with this information.
The FAB approach
The FAB (Features, Advantages, Benefits) approach appeals to the heart as well as the mind of the audience and is particularly powerful
