How To Put Together A Killer Presentation

HOW TO PUT TOGETHER A KILLER PRESENTATION For many people, it doesn't get more daunting than the thought of delivering a presentation. The best way to combat any anxiety is to ensure that you have total faith in the message you're putting across. If you're confident that you have great, easily digestible content, structured in a way that will hold the attention of your audience, you're bound to deliver a killer presentation. Here's how to put one together.. BEFORE WRITING YOUR PRESENTATION ASK YOURSELF WHY? What's the objective of your presentation? It may be useful to write this reason down. This will act as a constant reminder that you can refer to when putting your GET FOCUSED presentation together, ensuring that you never drift off topic. Write a one sentence (around 15 word) summary of your presentation topic before you even think about developing any of the content. This will force you to focus, define your core concept and minimise any unnecessary fluff. CONSIDER YOUR AUDIENCE It's no use working up a presentation if the content or tone isn't appropriate for the intended target audience. Before you begin writing, you should consider the following, allowing for a tailored presentation: Gender. Will your content change if your audience is mainly male or female? The age range. How might your writing style differ for younger and older people? The size of the group/ audience expected Is it a captive audience or one there out of interest? Is the audience new to the Can you use humour or subject or do they have some prior knowledge? will this be deemed inappropriate? RESEARCH Research of your subject matter will likely form the basis of your presentation content, so ensure that it's appropriately detailed and from credible sources. However, don't get too carried away! People are only able to follow a limited number of complex ideas when they're delivered verbally. A relatively short list of carefully chosen resources is all you need. USEFUL CONSIDERATIONS THE VENUE THE TIME Visiting the location beforehand means that you'll be familiar with the room size, seating plan, projector If possible, the morning is the best time to speak because people are generally at their most alert. In the afternoon, your audience may be feeling a little tired or lethargic. You may need to ensure that your availability and the likelihood of any outside distractions. This means that you can tweak your presentation if need be. For instance, if no projector content is upbeat and interesting is available, you may need to adapt what you say as you'll have no visual aids to back up your points. enough to hold their attention! WRITING AND STRUCTURING YOUR PRESENTATION 1 2 3 KEEP A COHERENT STRUCTURE Your presentation should have a clear beginning, middle and ending (again, the rule of three). Simply put... Beginning (Introduction) - Tell them what you're KEEP IT SIMPLE going to tell them Present your idea by providing no more than three central concepts. Middle (Body) - M Tell them More than this and your audience will likely forget the logic and flow of your content. This helps to avoid the dreaded 'data dump', when your Ending (Summary) - E Tell them what you told them audience is simply overwhelmed with the quantity of information. FACT: In Latin, 'Omne Trium Perfectum' means 'everything that comes in threes in perfect' or 'every set of three is complete' Ethos 3, award winning presentation experts FACT: Structured presentations are 40% easier to retain than freeform presentations Matt Abrahams, Stanford lecturer and public speaking expert WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME? When being presented to, there's a good chance your audience will be thinking "What's in it for me?". REINFORCE WITH VISUALISATION To make sure the WIIFM factor is clearly addressed, a good structure to follow when presenting a concept As well as ensuring you're written content is up to a high standard, take (likely in the middle section of your presentation) is... time to add as much visual interest as possible to your presentation to hold your audience. WHAT? What are you talking about? SO WHAT? A L.lı ?! Why is this worth talking about? FACT: 90% of information sent NOW WHAT? to the brain is visual. Visuals are processed 60,000x faster in the brain than text How can this be addressed/acted on? 3M Corporation THE 10/20/30 RULE When compiling your presentation, Guy Katasaki's 10/20/30 rule is a simple and effective method to make sure it's killer. | 10 (20 DA 10 SLIDES 20 MINUTES 30 POINT FONT Ten is the optimal To ensure your audience if engaged throughout, 20 minutes is the optimum Using a 30 point font means that you can better number of slides in presentation because an summarise your content and avoid having too many length a presentation should be. If you're allocated a longer slot, fill average person cannot comprehend more than ten topics in a short words on your slides. If you include too much text, the audience will simply read the slides ahead of you and you'll become out of sync. space of time. the rest of the time with questions and discussion. space of time. 10/20/30 SOURCES 1.blog.slideshare.net/2015/12/07/3-tips-for-writing- 5.guykawasaki.com/the-only-10-slides-you-need-in-your-pitch compelling-presentation-content 6.blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33423/19- 2.www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/18-tips-for-killer- Reasons-You-Should-Include-Visual-Content-in-Your- presentations.html Marketing-Data.aspx 3.bakercommunications.com/blog/dont-do-a-data-dump- 7.www.slideshare.net/ethos3/the-rule-of-three-for-presentations avoiding-information-overload-in-presentations 8.mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/vcipolla/archive/Presentations/ 4.www.skillsyouneed.com/present/prepare-presentation.html MakingPresentations.pdf LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU WWW.LONDONSPEAKERBUREAU.COM O+ III