We all know that excruitatingly painful and mentally agonising moment of death by Powerpoint when the presenter is completely unaware of the sheer boredom endured by the audience, who having watched the 21st slide of the 100th verse of the 9th article etc, etc, etc, would rather stick pins in their eyes. Over the years we have given many presentations, been asked to speak at several events and written key speeches for others, so we have given quite a lot of thought to the subject. We have learned a few tips and tricks along the way to keep your audience engaged and interested, 5 of which we are happy to share with you. We have listed a few below and would love to hear back from you if you have some more ideas that you’d like to share with our small business community.
Tip 1
If you must use Powerpoint, or it’s equal, do NOT use the slides to help you memorise the most vital points. In other words stick to 3 main points and write your script on little cards. If you keep your cards small and positioned near you, your audience can’t see that you have a script and therefore you will look like the extremely interesting, intelligent human being and superior knowledge holder that you are.
Tip 2
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. to Help you remember your points, you can use the Speakers Notes option in Powerpoint, which will allow you to see your relevant slide at the top of the page, whilst your main points (to jog the old grey cells) are listed below. You access this under the View menu. Your screen will split into 2 and you can then type in your notes on the bottom section of the screen. Just hit File, Save as normal and your notes will be saved but will only be visible when you decide so. You can print the speakers notes too by clicking on File, Print, and on the dialogue box choose Speakers Notes as opposed to “slides” which is the default setting. Once you have printed these off, don’t forget to pop back in and reset it to print off slides again otherwise the audience will see your notes and you will destroy all your hard work in trying to make it look effortless.
Tip 3
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iybhyyG0ffQ]As in your real business or service, make sure you add the wow factor somewhere. Unique presentations are not impossible, they are challenging so spend time really thinking about your offering. Try to add something they won’t be expecting as this will make you stand out, particularly if you are one of several speakers on the day. We like to use animation and imagery to help us with our presentations. Remember a picture paints a thousand words. If you can afford it, get a presentation prepared for you by an expert. We offer a service here (starting at only 400 euros) which has helped our clients stand out. We marry animated backgrounds to your imagery, movies and text to drive home a point. We can also add music written specifically for you. These little movies will allow you to sit back for 3/4 minutes whilst you hold your audience spellbound. This breaks up a presentation very nicely and again helps you to stand out in peoples mind afterwards. You can see one of our promotional videos,made for our clients Teamwoodcraft, above. Just click to play.
Tip 4
It is incredibly tempting to attach all sorts of bells and whistles to your presentation, be prepared to be ruthless with yourself as regards timing if you set time limits to your slides. Setting this sort of restriction will put you under severe pressure and should you ramble slightly or forget a main point, the presentation will run along regardless. It’s better to use the old clicker where possible so if you do get nervous and forget something (we all do) you can click and move along swiftly to the next slide and so on. This will remove a huge amount of pressure from you thereby helping you relax more (and reduce the need to head for the nearest G and T).
Tip 5
The most important tip of all. Be yourself. Accept that you won’t have all the answers and say so. People are amazingly interested in what you have to say or they wouldn’t have asked you to speak. Never over play it, it’s best to keep something in reserve and always be able to deliver on what you say you can as opposed to promising the earth, moon and stars and failing to deliver. You are always selling your service or business so keep that in the back of your mind. People deal with people and if you are honest, open and true to yourself you will come across as genuine and people will want to do business with you.
Best of luck.
