Making a Striking Impression In Delivering Your Presentation

Delivery

The actual delivery of the presentation is not something that one can teach in a book. For most presenters that chief problem is to overcome the speaker’s rigidity: you must often have seen how someone who talks in an animated, interesting and persuasive manner suddenly becomes wooden and monotonous when he/she steps onto the platform. It could be helpful if you think of addressing the audience as a single person. The aim would be to use the same movements of the face, head and body, the same range of vocal pitch and volume, the same gestures, the same pace and pauses as if you are talking to a couple of friends over a drink. You have the characteristic to do this – just remove the barriers that is keeping you form doing it naturally.

Dealing with Nervousness

Everybody gets the “jitters” and some people verge on terminal panic at the prospect of speaking in public. The following ideas will help you.

• Breathe in – consciously imagine some relaxing scene – breathe out.
• Be yourself and speak from your own convictions.
• Take the perspective that you are going to have a conversation with a few friends. It is the idea of a formal presentation that frightens you.
• Be prepared – have your materials ready.
• Know your material sufficiently well as not to have to cling desperately to your notes.
• Mentally rehearse the layout of the room, walking to the stand, looking at the audience and being relaxed.
• Know your first 4 or 5 sentences by heart.

Starting Off Your Presentation

• People remember the beginning and the end of a presentation. If you do not open and close with impact, your presentation will slide into the big black hole somewhere in the universe where low-grade presentations go to die. Once your audience has decided it is not really worth listening, it is hard to get them back. Prevention is very much easier than cure.
• Stand a few steps away from the person introducing you, so that you are ready to step up to the podium.
• Hold a silence of a few seconds before starting – it focuses people’s attention on you and gives you time to remember your opening lines.
• Make eye contact straight away and include everyone in the room.
• Control your opening words so that they project at a lower pitch than normal, as compensation for the likelihood that anxiety will raise the pitch of your voice.

Click here to download a handout with guidelines to keep in mind when delivering a presentation.

Effective Closure

• Your last chance to get people influenced. USE IT! Close with impact!
• Before closing, look down for a second or two, keep a moment of silence - this will prepare the audience that something big is coming.
• Look up and make eye contact straight away and include everyone in the room - retaining the silence for a moment longer.
• Control your closing words so that they project at a lower pitch than normal.
• Close off with your striking conclusion leaning slightly forward, making eye contact (you should know it by heart) and including everybody in the room.
• Then stand slightly back, retain eye contact, another moment of silence and invite questions (if relevant) or simply say, I thank you.

Dealing With The Question and Answer Session

Announce at the beginning when you would like the audience to ask questions – at the end or during the presentation.

The more the audience has understood, the more questions they will ask. A sure sign that people are still grappling with your ideas is that they are not yet ready to ask questions. This is because they have not yet seen enough of the picture to recognise where the gaps in their understanding lie. Questions, therefore, are a good thing.

When you listen to questions, look at the person asking it, in order to grasp more of the issues than just the words (words constitute only 7 percent of a message). Give the person enough time to finish his question.

You might find yourself tempted to change your body language when answering questions. Observe whether you have changed from exuding confidence to presenting uncertainty and anxiety and choose which you would prefer to project. Don’t rub your hands together nervously, but keep relaxed.

Remember that, in your preparation, you tried to anticipate what questions might be asked. If you have prepared for the worst, everything else will seem easy.

If you receive a question which is complicated and confusing, re-state it more simply to check that your intended answer will be on the right track. This process also defuses any hostility which might have been present and gives you more time to get your answer ready.

If you think people in the back row did not hear the question, repeat it for their benefit. This also gives you more thinking time.

Be honest. It is perfectly obvious to the audience when you are lying or ducking and diving around an issue. If you don’t know, say so and state when and how you will supply the information.

Remember to keep eye contact with everybody and not just with the person who asked the question.