“How Come Your Presentations Are Not Boring? Easy. You know some very useful tricks.”

Take-off

When you’re about to start, don’t introduce yourself like everybody does: “Good morning. My name is Peter Novak, Undersecretary for Internal Affairs. Today I’ll talk about … “

Grammatically there’s nothing wrong with it, also the vocabulary is OK, the problem is that it doesn’t really motivate your audience to listen to what you’ve got to say. And this is exactly what a good speaker is supposed to do at the beginning.

Instead rather do the following:

1. Give them the purpose or objective of the presentation (or a meeting);
2. Explain why everybody’s there, in other words, give them the benefits of a presentation;
3. Introduce yourself at the end;

When someone else introduces you as a speaker, make them use the same principle.

What to Do With the Questions

My suggestion is as follows.  If you’re a bit uncomfortable, let alone really nervous, because you’re not used to holding presentations, kindly ask your audience before you launch into the content to ask any content-related questions at the end. Allow questions of not understanding well whatyou’ve said (e.g. Did you say 19 or 90?).

Managing the Content

- “Signposts”

Your audience wants to feel safe. They want to know what you’re going to do next, where you’re going to take them. For this reason don’t hesitate using special verbs, called “signposts”, which give directions of your speech:

Move on to (make next point)
Turn to (change direction)
Go back to (refer to an earlier point)
Recap (repeat the key points)
Expand on (give a wider perspective)
Sum up (give basics)
Digress (depart from the original plan)
Stick to (not to depart from the original plan)

- Linking words

Make your speech coherent. Linking words are made to be used not only in writing, also in speaking: therefore, however,  nevertheless, furthermore, moreover, as a result, consequently …

Landing

You’re about to conclude your speech. You might think to yourself that it wasn’t so bad after all. Nevertheless, all you want to do is escape from “the stage” and disappear. Your audience, however, expects you to make yourself available for potential questions and clarify.

Now …  The purpose of the Q&A session is to leave the stage as a winner. If you allow them to see you a bit anxious they might “eat you alive”. For this reason rather invite them openly to ask any questions they may have:

“I’d be very happy to answer any questions you may have about …”

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. And if they don’t  break the ice yourself, don’t leave the stage, because you’ll be perceived as a loser:

What’s even more important is to conclude the Q&A session powerfully by always, always, always asking the last question yourself and – of course – replying to it perfectly:

When talking about concluding your presentation, which is these days almost always supported with slides, avoid making your last slide as: “Thank you for your attention” or something similar. It would be better to either make the last slide as “Q&A” and leave it like that or using it for putting on your contact details.

Apart from everything said also remember that you do not communicate only verbally, but also non-verbally. Therefore, pay attention also to appropriate body posture and gestures you use during the presentation.

Enjoy your presentations!