Are you looking to become an influential presenter
Not sure where to start?
Ok, so you have been asked to do a Presentation in 3 weeks’ time about the results of a recent project you and your team have successfully completed.
What’s the FIRST thing you do?
Like most people, you would put it aside and not think about it until 3 days before the Presentation.
You then panic, open PowerPoint and find whatever slides have been used in the past and make tweaks so it’s more appropriate for your Presentation. This is definitely NOT the right thing to do and it’s better you spend some time planning your Presentation and set the objective of what you want to achieve. A good way to do this is by completing the sentence “At the end of the Presentation I want the audience to ….”
Watch this short video presentation to learn more, or keep reading below.
Designing brilliant PowerPoint presentations is more important than ever.
Follow these tips and you will be well on your way to having a PowerPoint presentation that delivers real results.
The first thing most people do, when they are asked to create a presentation, is open PowerPoint and start typing away or searching for slides they have used in the past that may be appropriate to re-use on this occasion.
Well, I can tell you, this is not the right way to go because PowerPoint presentations: like anything else worthwhile, will be better if you spend time planning what you want to achieve, and how to achieve it. After all, as the saying goes, if you don’t know where you want to go, any path will get you there.
So, where do you start?
Well, the first thing you need to ask yourself if what outcome would I like from this presentation?
The best way to frame this is by completing this sentence.
”At the end of the presentation I want the audience to…”
You should complete this sentence stating what you want the audience to think, do or feel. For example, your sentence may say “At the end of the presentation, I want the audience to make appointments to discuss their particular needs” if you are a financial advisor presentation to a group of people. If you are presenting in response to a Request for Proposal, or Request for Quote, it may be “At the end of the presentation I want the audience to agree to take us to the next round of discussions”.
This last point is very important: don’t set yourself an unrealistic objective.
If you are selling a high value item for example, to have your objective state “At the end of the presentation I want the audience to buy our product” may well be an impossible if the buying process is a long, complicated one and there is no way they would ever buy it as a result of the presentation, no matter how good your presentation was. Your objective, in this instance, should be what is the best realistically achievable outcome for the presentation.
I can’t tell you how important the objective for your presentation is…out of that everything else will develop, from content and structure to the call to action.
More on that in our upcoming videos…bye for now.
Lee Featherby (@mrpresentations)
