Ten Tips for Delivering a Great Presentation

By J.D. Solomon
JDS Strategic Communications

1. Rehearse — Practice your presentation until you can do it confidently without notes. Videotape yourself so you know what you’ll look and sound like to your audience. The purpose of rehearsal is to get comfortable delivering your presentation, not to memorize your speech. If you don’t rehearse you’ll be forced to read from your notes, a sure sign of insecurity.

2. Take the power of your position — As soon as you are introduced, you become King of the Room. The audience grants you this role out of a desire to be informed or persuaded by an expert. Your job in this mini-drama is to play the role convincingly by exuding confidence and knowledge, and by making frequent eye contact. If you fail to take the power of the position you’ve been granted, your presentation will impress no one, regardless of its content.

3. Take and pass the baton, simply — Think of the power of the speaker’s position as a baton, which must be symbolically passed from one speaker to the next. These hand-offs must be accomplished swiftly and simply. Once introduced, you “take the baton” by thanking the moderator by name; then you acknowledge the audience with a quick greeting. A simple “good morning” or “good afternoon” will do. Avoid lengthy and formal greetings to ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, distinguished speakers. When you are finished with your presentation, acknowledge the audience with a quick “thank you,” and then pass the baton back to the moderator by turning to him and saying his name with a slight upward inflection.

4. Keep the lights on after lunch — It’s mid-afternoon, the lights are dimmed and you launch into the first of your 15 slides. Guess where half your audience will be by the time you get to your fourth. If you have any control over the timing of your presentation, choose a morning slot, when people are fresh and alert. If you have the bad luck to be presenting after lunch, keep the lights on, even if it means sacrificing the visibility of your slides. Remember, if your listeners are going to remember what you say, they have to stay awake.

5. Give your audience a roadmap — Begin by telling listeners what you’re going to say and how many things you’ll talk about: “I favor the acquisition of Acme Widgets for five reasons.” Your audience immediately knows your position on the issue, and can track your progress as you go. Help your audience follow your presentation (and stay awake) by providing signposts along the way: “The third of my five reasons concerns corporate culture.”

6. Step away from the lectern and keep your hands in front of you — Experienced speakers walk away from podiums to display confidence and connect with their audience. Inexperienced speakers cling to podiums like a drowning man grasps a life buoy. Summon your courage and step away from the lectern. (But don’t stroll around the stage; stay in a small area and turn your body to connect with different segments of the audience.) When talking without a podium, keep your hands in front of you, in a box framed by your breastbone, your naval and your shoulders, with your elbows slightly bent. With a little practice, your hands will move naturally within this imaginary box as you speak. Move them outside the box only to emphasize important points.

7. Avoid PowerPointlessness — Resist the temptation to use a series of slides with a detailed outline of your presentation; remember, you want your audience to stay focused on you, not the screen. Instead, use slides, sparingly, to display points you want to comment on. Avoid lengthy text and detailed charts; keep your slides simple and clean. Above all, don’t use silly clip art, animated transitions or flying text effects; there should be a special place in Purgatory reserved for the PowerPoint programmer who invented those features — and any speaker who uses them.

8. Check your fly before you arrive at the podium — Everyone has a secret fear about public speaking, usually involving some kind of personal embarrassment. Whatever your fear, confront it discretely before your turn to speak by checking your appearance and reviewing your notes. Also, take a moment to empty your pockets; the power of pocket debris to insert itself into your hands during a presentation is almost impossible to resist. Remember that you are King of the Room, and kings neither fret about their looks nor fidget with their pens and paperclips.

9. Your brain won’t let you down — What’s the worst that can happen during a presentation? You lose your train of thought and completely forget what you are supposed to say next. You’re so flustered that when you glance at your notes you can’t find where you left off. Panic is approaching fast. What to do? Nothing. That’s right; stand still and stare silently at one person in the audience. Faced with the prospect of making you look like an absolute fool, your brain will immediately re-boot itself and retrieve that missing bit of information. Your mind will, however, exact a bit of vengeance by misleading you into thinking that the rebooting process took, like, five minutes; in reality it will have taken no more than two or three seconds, and your audience will simply think you’ve paused for effect. And remember, even if they sense your stumble they want to forgive you because you are King of the Room.