Presentations

There are two questions you will want to ask yourself as you begin the process of developing presentation materials.  They are:

Gear your presentation so it answers these two questions they way you want them to be answered and you will be headed in the right direction.  The sequence of your presentation is important.  Make sure it tells a story that has a beginning, middle and end.  Start by telling them what you are going to talk about then tell them about it and then tell them what you told them.  They have now received your message three different times and each was slightly different.  If they don't get it you are preaching to the wrong congregation.  Stop doing that.

The message you convey is not just in the graphics or the content of your presentation.  It is in your grooming, dress, deportment, enthusiasm, spontaneity, and your ability to connect with the audience.  Mess up in any of these areas and you are suddenly a "less credible witness" for your product or service.

It NEVER hurts to dress in business attire when doing a presentation, even if your audience is dressed casually.  The subliminal message is that what you have to say is important enough to dress appropriately.  There are lots of little things that will be noticed only if they appear in the form of failure.  These include unshined shoes, inattention to fingernails and haircut.  It amazes me that I would even have to bring up things like this.  However, I have sat through a considerable number of presentations and know firsthand that the simple things do make a big difference.

Just before you begin your presentation go find a quiet place where you can be alone for a few minutes.  Take this time to get mentally centered.  During the process recall a time that gave you great inner joy.  The simple act of recalling such an event will ratchet your smile up a couple of notches and help you begin your presentation with an absolutely positive approach and attitude.  It will show through to your audience even if it is only an audience of one.

Start your presentation on time and end it on time.  This demonstrates your respect for other people's time and may seem like a little thing but is very important.

Practice your presentation sufficiently that if the power failed or your drive crashed you could continue the presentation from memory.  This level of commitment shows through and is impressive to your audience.

Always have a printed copy of your presentation with you during your talk.  NEVER show up without one.  I find it very effective to have printed copies of the presentation to hand out to the audience so they can follow along and make notes.  Their retention increases considerably with the additional mode of communication.

Practice your presentation in front of a video camera in a room by yourself.  When you have completed your presentation on video you will know exactly how long it took to deliver and how well you did in delivery.  Look for places where hand gestures would increase the emphasis and add impact to the point being made.  Examine your grooming, stance, eye contact, posture, and level of enthusiasm.  Ask your friends to critique your presentation.  They will see things that you don't and their insights are helpful because they know you.  You will find that each time you repeat the presentation the quality of your delivery will improve.

Never fly the Red Eye and then try to do a presentation that day no matter how well you sleep on a flight.  You are wasting your time and the time of your audience if you do, especially if you cross time zones going East.

Have and use the proper tools for your presentation.  Obviously, for a small presentation you don't need a lot of remote control gear.  For a large audience, a laser pointer can be very useful and a portable microphone is very important.  It gives you the freedom to move about.  Have a portable remote control for your electronic presentation so you can advance images without having to return to the podium.

Even if you have your presentation on your hard drive in your notebook, make sure you have a copy of it on a CD-ROM so you can use it in another machine if yours fails.  Make sure your electronic presentation will run as a standalone application so you won't have to rely on particular software or a particular version of the software to make it work.

We have samples of presentations with music, motion pictures, photographs, other kinds of animation and graphics.  Because these files are huge (in one case over 240 megabytes) we have chosen not to load them here.  However, if you would like to see such an example we would be happy to upload it to you via ICQ or send you a CD-ROM copy of it.  The copy is yours to keep - no need to return it.  Click here to request such a copy.

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