Is Your Message Clear?

If you want your audience to understand and remember your content as much as possible, be sure to incorporate visuals to help explain your ideas. As you’re going through your slides, think of how you can add pictures, graphs, or illustrations to prove your point and emphasize your main message. Where do you find visuals? It has over 1.5 million free images and videos that you can use to spruce up your slides. You can also add visual appeal to your presentation using Canva, which has a ton of free infographics, slide templates, and other design elements you can customize. Not necessary by any means, but nice to have as an option. Once you’ve completed your first draft, go through the content of your slides and trim the fat, which means get rid of anything that isn’t needed. If a point, word, or image doesn’t directly contribute to either goal, delete it. A lean presentation is a powerful presentation. When reviewing your slides, it’s a great time to consider different perspectives and how your audience might respond to each one. For this reason, it’s important to come prepared. Think in advance what their objections might be, and plan your responses accordingly.

The Greatest Discovery

It’s much easier to handle resistance when you’re ready and expecting it. This might be one of the most underrated and overlooked aspects of public speaking. If you make a great first impression and start off on the right foot, your entire presentation will flow a lot more smoothly. The first thing not to do is mention anything about the technology being used for your presentation. This can make you look nervous, unprofessional, or unsure about what you’re doing. Can everyone hear me okay? How’s the microphone working? My goodness, these lights are so bright! The next thing not to do is point out how nervous you are. People think that looking vulnerable in front of their audience will make them seem more approachable, which is true, but mentioning your nervousness should never be the first thing out of your mouth. There are so many of you here. I wasn’t expecting this! So, I’m pretty nervous. Public speaking isn’t really my thing. You want to start with a strong opening line to get people’s attention. That means nice thank you statements don’t make the cut here either.

Make It Like A Memory

Save these for the end of your presentation. Thank you for having me today. Thank you for inviting me to speak. I appreciate your time today. One of the best ways to start a presentation is with a story. Stories engage people’s imaginations and immediately get their attention. We like when presenters get straight to the point, so there’s value in immediately telling people what you’re going to be talking about, especially when you do so in a way that gets them intrigued. There’s one thing you need to know today. Make sure your opening line isn’t just repeating your title slide. It should be something a little zestier. After all, it’s harder to dislike someone who has just made you laugh. When it comes to humor, feel free to get creative.

Look What You've Done

I trust that you know what’s appropriate for your audience! This is another excellent way to instantly get their brains involved, creating interest and making sure they’re ready to listen to you. People tend to remember the first and last things they heard the best, so let’s look at the most effective ways to finish your presentation. It’s best if your final slides are persuasive and extremely easy to understand. This slide can include a quick recap of your main idea or your call to action. Then, you can move on to the positive, explaining how much better the future would look if your solution was implemented. So, at the end of your presentation, offer your listeners a little bonus gift to take with them. Is your message clear? Make any necessary adjustments to ensure it sounds natural and has a good flow. Maybe you found yourself starting to slouch near the end. On the next practice round, you’ll be conscious of maintaining a confident, upright posture throughout. Maybe you thought your voice sounded monotone and your face was mostly expressionless. There’s also a chance you’ll watch yourself and think, Wow, that was perfect! Not a single thing to improve on. And because I like you so much, I must say that it’s in your best interests to get a second opinion. The feedback was invaluable because the coach pointed out things she would’ve never caught on her own. Now, I understand there may not be a presentation expert in your life who can help you practice and provide quality feedback. If you’d like, you’re welcome to reach out to me for advice on your next presentation. I’ve helped people from many different industries knock their presentations out of the park. If we end up working together, you can send me your slides, a video of yourself presenting, or we can set up a Zoom call to rehearse and provide live feedback. I promise to get back to you within a couple of days. Additionally, feel free to message me if you want to dive deeper into any of the other communication skills you’ve been learning about. Your goal is to make this as close to the real thing as possible. Shower and get ready as if it’s the day of the presentation, and put on the same clothes you will wear to present. If it’s in person, going to the same location to practice would be ideal, but this won’t always be an option. If you know you’re going to be standing, practice standing. If it’s virtual, make sure you have your lighting, camera angle, and background set up as if it’s showtime. Think of yourself as an elite athlete practicing for a playoff game. Or a famous actor getting ready to film a massive scene in their new movie. It’s now final preparation time. Imagine everything going perfectly well.