5 Top Tips for Delivering an Dynamite Presentation

Stand out don’t hand out

You feel the bananaflies already: presentation time is looming ahead! But do not fear, resist the urge to curl up into the fetal position and gently rock back and forth. We have 5 top tips to deliver a dynamite presentation and land that client, or earn the love and affection of your peers and mentors that we all so desperately crave.

1. Signpost

Let your audience know what you’re about to do.

This is probably the best way to communicate clearly to your colleagues and clients. Signposting lets your audience know the following:

1. What you’re going to say
2. Why you’re going to say it
3. What to expect out of the presentation

Very simply, signposting is the act of saying “in this meeting I will be addressing the following…”, “today I will be talking about…”, “now I will show you the benefits of…”. Think of signposting as the opening sentence of your next paragraph.

The opening sentence should summarise the content before delving into further detail. Signposting will keep your audience engaged because you will set and meet their expectations, letting them focus on the content and not the duration of your presentation. For a more in-depth article on signposting in presentations check this article out

2. Shortest Route Possible

Deliver only important and relevant information.

People have short attention spans. We all have a whirlpool of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours rolling in our noggins and don’t need any more to clutter it up. Write your presentation and then aim to cut the word count in half.

Present only the information needed. If people are unsure, they will ask questions. Cut down your speaking time to allow room for question time. There is no need to answer every question before its been asked.

3. Get Visual

Use colours, shapes, pictures, and movement.

We are visual creatures. We primarily use our visual cortex to navigate and understand this world, language and talking is a relatively new phenomenon in the human experience. Don’t lean on verbal communication to do all the work. Make use of pictures, gifs, videos, colours, shapes, and movement in your presentation to convey your ideas. Your audience will thank you for it with their undivided attention. For more information on communicating visually check out this great article by EZtalks

4. Make Them Laugh – Authenticity

Use humour to convey confidence, authenticity, and intelligence.

Studies show that all rational thought, ideas, concepts, and creations are derived from emotional responses. So the best way to communicate ideas is to communicate emotionally, and which behaviour is associated with the emotion we all like to feel the most? lol, that’s right its laughter.

Make them laugh. Include humour in your presentation to build rapport, trust, authenticity, and to appear as intelligent as you are. An important note: do not TRY to be funny. The best way to incorporate humour into your presentation is to take risks and not take the task too seriously. Does it really matter if you don’t hook the client? Will this mean sudden death and exclusion? Probably not, so you can afford to take it with a grain of salt and insert your own unique personality into the experience.

Your audience will appreciate witnessing a human being comfortable in their own skin and not some corporate robot eager to please.

5. Make Them Feel – Emotional Value

Make your presentation personal, talk about and display the emotional value of your idea.

We are all chasing experiences, whether it is the experience of falling in love, making money, tasting food etc, we are all looking for new emotional experiences.

Include in your presentation how this is going to provide an emotion to your audience. Facts, figures, data, and ideas only go so far. If they do not serve an emotional experience to the end user then it will not inspire the behavioural change that the presentation, or concept, has been created to achieve.

Here is an article presented by Neil Gaiman on communicating with pathos, a persuasive communication technique used by public speakers to make their audience feel.

TL;DR

Too Long; Didn’t Read

To really nail that presentation, whether it be for colleagues, clients, or customers is to signpost your information, keep it simple, use colours, pictures, and sounds, and provide an emotional experience. This will streamline value to your audience and you’ll have them eating out of the palms of your sweaty hands in no time. 

P.s Don’t ever give handouts. We didn’t like homework in school and we don’t like it today. Don’t kid yourself, the 2 page infographic you spent two days writing is going straight to the bin. If they can’t remember what you presented then that’s on you, not the idea.

-The Banana Life Team