My presentation ROCKS!

Jun 17 2015 | By Dario Safaric

All of us agree that knowing and presenting something are not synonyms. Imagine just how Steve Ballmer would introduce a revolutionary product like the iPhone in 2007 instead of Steve Jobs? Maybe he would shout iPhone, iPhone, iPhone…? Many, many times ideas, products or companies are forgotten just because no one can distribute the right message towards the audience. Luckily there is a working recipe how you can keep your audience’s attention and make them forget about their email’s and Apple Watch notifications.

We live in a world of distraction where you are bombed with more than 30.000 brands a day and all the time you get pushed or notified by some device or human being so to keep attention is a difficult task. My general tips how you can be better from preparation till ending your pitch or presentation are:

– Research first. Many presenters never research their audience or company. You should be polite and interested to know to whom you will present something. Learn their preferences so that later on you can use them for story tellings.

– Tailor the message. It’s not mandatory to perform always those fancy power points because many successful people never do. What you need to do is to use right and simple words to explain your selling point. Many people want to sound smart by using expert phrases or words but at the end no one understands them.

– Touchdown! You have only 8 seconds to convince the audience to keep listening! That’s why you should start with some congratulation over some recent event or success of the company/country. For instance I always include sports events since this is very neutral theme and popular (example: Congrats on beating France yesterday. It was a amazing game). Tell stories. From our childhood we all desire stories. Therefore build a good narration and make your audience want to know how the story turns out. Combine your products and ideas with stories about their real usage and benefits which only you can provide.

– Be media smart. When designing power points use the 5×5 rule where your slide should contain 5 words in 5 lines. Nobody wants to read novels during your presentations. Your slides should have more images than words. This is good because than you need to better learn the presentation and your audience will see that you are the master over your content.

To design your presentation or story takes time so don’t expect to see radical changes with only one presentation. Keep searching for the best presentation with this useful tips!