Great communication is a two way street!

Working with a colleague over Christmas to assist in the development of a presentation that was a  really important opportunity to build her personal brand with the audience. Creating presentations that work is a process, and hard work, so to start, we broke the task of building the presentation down into three components.

1. Twitter Pitch. Twitter has its detractors, but the huge unintended benefit for those communicating ideas as distinct from the minutiae of their lives is that it forcse us to distill ideas into 140 characters, what I call the” twitter pitch“. Applying  this discipline to the preparation of a presentation is usually the same sort of challenge as presented by developing the elevator pitch for your business. In this case, the challenge was to articulate in one sentence the central idea that was to be conveyed. Not easy.
2. Know what you want to happen. Clarifying this really has three parts:
   • Define what it is that you want the audience to know as a result of the presentation
   • Know what you want the audience to feel during and after the presentation
   • Know exactly what it is you want them to do with the information you provide, and deliver  them the means to do it. A “call to action” if you like.
3. Create a structure for the presentation that delivers on the points above. Again, there are three factors at work:
   • Have a logical, sequential structure of some sort for the presentation.
   • Gain the trust of the audience, listening but not believing is a waste of everyone’s time.
   • Do it with feeling. People rarely remember facts, but they do clearly remember the emotions they felt while the facts were being recited. I do not remember the date of the assassination of JFK, but I do remember (yes, I am that bloody old) exactly what I was doing at the time, and how I and those around me reacted to the news.

Delivering a presentation is a difficult to obtain opportunity to sell. An idea, a product, your skills, the reason your business exists, it varies, but the common point is that those in the room have given you their time and attention, their most valuable resource, don’t waste it for them, and miss the opportunity for you.

On a final note, you may also notice that all of  the above is in “threes”. For some reason I do not understand, the human brain is very efficient at remembering things in threes. If you organise your presentation into blocks of threes,  you will be better able to manage the flow, remember the sequences and words, and deliver.

None of this is easy, and rarely is a great presentation prepared alone, and it is never done at the last moment and without practise and a critical eye.

Need a critical eye, and sounding board? I can help.

Related posts:

3 simple Powerpoint tips for Christmas The cadence of a presentation Anatomy  of a successful email The power of a presentation