Taking 2 full days off to dedicate towards Effective Presentations sounded as good as a martini during a killer hangover. My presenting skillz were already strong, after all, I speak all of the time and most recently won an Elevator Pitch contest district-wide. Not to have a cockiness quotient, but how much improving did I need?
Whoa baby. After our first order of business, giving a 5-minute prepared speech, to start Day 1, boy was I in need of a presentation overhaul. I have a feeling you want to know the skinny on the course. Let me break down the essentials for you.
Ask For It
Do you present now without asking something of your audience? STOP. Every presentation needs to end with an ask. A meeting Wednesday at 2pm, a signed contract by the end of business day, a phone call with me tomorrow at noon. You ask for it in the beginning in your overview and at the very end more specifically. When you ask for it, make sure you are not a Vague Scheduler.
My first comments to the instructor: “PowerPoint sucks. I never use it and never will.” Again. WRONG. He taught me PowerPoint is just the outline to give the speech structure, I am the one presenting material. Too many facts, stats, and wordy BS are often on PPT and not needed AT ALL. If I were presenting this blog post, it would be 1 slide that had 3 bullets, spread out, large font that said: Ask For IT, PowerPoint, and Summarize. I would verbally tell the rest. If everything is listed on the slide, why would we need to speak at all?
Summarize
At the end of your overview, at the end of each point, at the end of all 3 points, then again after you answer questions. Summarize. Repeat and remind them. Repeat and remind them. Repeat and remind them why they asked you to present and the 3, 4, etc. ways you are helping your audience get to their goal. Example: “To bring this full circle, your organization asked me to speak today about helping you Go Green, and we discussed office recycling, paperless archiving, and document management.”
If you are given the opportunity to take a course to improve your speaking, I highly recommend it at any age or job tenure. We get comfortable and often figure the dialogue during a presentation will hide messy or unstructured content. We are talking directly to an audience, over emails or any other communication, face-to-face means the most. It’s the closest we get to our audience. Let’s get FRESH and make it count!
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