Presentations

Effectively designed handouts can be excellent tools to add value to your audience and support your presentation outcomes. And effectively designed PowerPoint slides can achieve similar results. But, these are very different tools and one document can’t work at all for both purposes.

PowerPoint screen prints don’t make effective handouts. When the PowerPoint gurus created the tool, they figured the screen print of 4 – 6 slides/page with space for notes on each would be a handy method for creating speaker notes. While the slide copy was too small to read, it didn’t matter because the speaker probably created the slides and knew what was on them. The notes part was for key points the speaker would emphasize on each slide. Very cool idea.

But, when busy presenters who were more lazy than creative or audience-centric saw this option, they figured … ‘no-brainer handout’. And Shazam … a new genre of ineffective handouts was born. The result – Death by PowerPoint handouts.

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(As part of my Social Media strategy, I regularly engage in discussions with several presentation-oriented Linked In groups. Here’s a summary of some recent posts regarding PowerPoint.)

Often, the best PowerPoint advice I offer in my workshops or coaching engagements is not to use slides at all. Everyone uses PowerPoint and most people abuse it. Walking into a meeting room with the lights dimmed, the projector on and a title slide up often sets up expectations of more painful ‘Death by PowerPoint’. Not a great way to begin a presentation. PowerPoint can also imply a canned lecture and the absence of interactivity. Again, more negative connotation baggage.

I avoid PowerPoint in most of my workshops. About an hour in, I ask people how many have noticed the lack of slides. All raise their hands. I then ask them how many mind that I’m not using slides. No hands go up. I often get positive comments about the lack of slides.

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Before answering that question, presenters need to understand why they talk too fast to begin with:

• They already know the material and have difficulty relating to the audience that doesn’t.

• ‘Two pounds of sand in a one-pound pail.’ They don’t plan or focus their message better, have too much information for their time limit and are tempted to talk faster to get it all

• The impact of presentation anxiety and adrannelin on their internal speedometers – they don’t realize they’re talking that fast.

• Passion and enthusiasm about the topic also results in a faster rate.

• Some people have a delivery rate at the fast end of normal.

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Now that you have a powerful audience-centric Introduction and Summary, let’s focus on your Message in the Middle. As we’ve discussed, your Intro and Summary account for 15 – 20% of your total presentation time, including Q&A. Now, it’s time to ‘tell ‘em’ your message for 80 – 85% of your time with credibility, competence and confidence.

Recalling the Main Point/Sub Point organizational strategy from a previous article, you now turn that plan into action. For each Sub Point in the body of your presentation, ask yourself what information the audience needs and wants to hear to totally understand and accept it. Every fact you could share must pass the ‘Who cares?’ test … and the ‘Who’ isn’t you. It’s them.

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Here are some additional comments from an ongoing dialogue with a reader about memorizing a presentation. Practice doesn’t really make Perfect, it only makes Permanent. Only Perfect Practice makes Perfect.

Last time, I ranted about why presenters shouldn’t try to memorize their presentations. They should learn them through practice and refinement of message content and structure. More thoughts for your consideration:

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We all learned about the three parts of a speech in high school: the introduction, body and conclusion. You remember … ‘Tell ‘em what you’re gonna say, say it and tell ‘em what you said.’ Nothing new here.

Of these three components, the intro is critically important to the success of your presentation and accomplishing your intended outcomes. On average, it’s less than 10% of your total presentation time. So, with a 30-minute presentation, your intro is three minutes or less.

Since the audience is influenced most by what they hear first, a powerful intro can quickly build rapport, establish credibility, stress audience-centric value and let them know what’s coming. That’s a lot of important work to do in a very short time, so every word must count. Here’s a summary of Best Practices for your Power Intro so you can Start Strong.

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For most typical workplace presentation situations, no one expects you to memorize the message. Learn it – of course. But, memorizing takes way too much time and creates the illusion of a canned performance rather than an interactive dialogue or conversation from the platform. So, effective speaker notes are a must:

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