How to deliver a presentation like a pro? [Excellent example inside]

There are three pillars of any presentation.

• Content,
• Slide design, and
• Delivery

Most books and articles talk about developing the content and designing professional slides. Delivery is often the most ignored topic in almost all of them. But how we 'deliver' a presentation is very crucial. You might have a good story and slides but your delivery might fall flat. You might fail to excite and engage your audience.

I came across one presentation which stands out because of its delivery. It is a short demo day investor presentation by Ralph Garvin Jr., a start-up founder. Ralph's slides are okay and his story is okay, but his delivery captures our attention. His delivery stands out. You remember it long after you have forgotten his data. You start to care about the problem that Ralph is trying to solve as a startup founder.

It is a 2 minutes 46 seconds video. Watch it here:

• His hand gestures are very powerful. His gestures are natural too, and they come out of his involvement and passion.
• He 'snaps' his fingers at around the 18-second mark. This gets the audience excited and involved. It is a high point.
• He does not speak monotonously. He slows down sometimes. He pauses often. His delivery style is dramatic and it works.
• He even 'sighs' at 0:38 when there has been an accident.
• He stresses on important words and phrases to enhance their meaning. The way he says, "What could I have done? And the answer.. is.. NOTHING!"

Overall, he speaks like he is talking. His speed is normal. He stresses important words. He pauses to let you feel the emotion. He speaks slowly and it becomes easier to understand. Overall, a phenomenal delivery.

Death by PowerPoint: What 90% presenters fail to do?

I was an Area Sales Manager (ASM) in a leading consumer goods company where I sold cooking oil and hair oil. Every quarter all ASMs had to make a presentation to the head of sales. We were supposed to talk about what we had achieved in the last quarter and our objectives for the next. These presentations were long but very important.

The night before the presentation every ASM used to stay back in the regional office. Our boss (Regional Sales Manager) was kind enough to provide free pizzas and we used to work till midnight tweaking our decks. Our review would start 9 in the morning. We somehow survived and scraped through those meetings. Those were difficult times.

Today when I conduct presentation skill workshops across the country I always ask the participants, “How many of you rehearse before delivering an important presentation?” Guess how many hands go up?

Under 10%. Less than 10 presenters out of 100 actually rehearse their presentations! No wonder they have stage fright, they are nervous and do not enjoy the process of delivering the presentation.

They have worked very hard in their jobs, they know what they are talking about but the inability to rehearse and fine-tune their presentation affects the overall audience experience. They fail to make a great impression.

All you need to do before every important presentation is to complete your slides a few days ahead of schedule and then use the last few days to rehearse your presentation 5 to 10 times. The higher the stakes the more you rehearse.

What’s the best way to rehearse? Press F5 (put your slides in slideshow mode), stand out and start talking. Move about the room as you would do eventually in the board room (venue).

Back in 2012 I saw a good presentation at a press conference. This CEO was confident, composed and well-prepared. I asked him how many times had he rehearsed his presentation and he replied, “Ten. I have presented this 10-minute deck ten times in my office board room.” When you have presented ten times already, the final presentation becomes your eleventh.

Brian Miller is a magician. He was invited to give a TEDx talk in 2015. He delivered a superb talk and it has since been watched by over 3 million people on YouTube. I interviewed Brian and asked him, "How many times did you rehearse?" His reply stunned me. He said, "150 times." Read his fill interview here: Interview with Brian Miller: How to prepare a TEDx talk? For him it was an opportunity of a lifetime. If you too have something very important, make sure you atleast rehearse 5-10 times.

Mark Twain once said,” There are only two types of speakers in the world – The nervous and the liars.” Everyone is nervous before an important presentation. You might be presenting to get hired by a prospective employer or you might be presenting to a big client to win their business. You ought to be nervous. It is natural. You are worried if you will do a good job. You are worried if you will remember everything you should be speaking about.

The only cure for stage fear is practice. Practice your presentation a few times and you will become comfortable with your content. You will stop looking back the slides and start looking more at the audience (this will help you engage better with the audience). When you know your content, you will start to improvise. You will not worry about overshooting the duration because you have rehearsed already and you know that you did not cross the time limit in the last three rehearsals.

TAKEAWAYS

• Good message + good slides + good delivery = Good presentation. It is important how you deliver your message.
• Finish your slides a few days ahead of deadline so that you free up time for rehearsals.
• The higher the stakes, the more you rehearse. 5-10 times is good enough for any presentation.

7 ways to ensure less people Sleep in your Presentation

What makes people sleep during presentations? They are bored. They don't find anything new and exciting. The presenter is lifeless (devoid of passion). They just had lunch and its cozy in this boardroom. They've had a long day at office. Yawn...

Here are few things you can do to ensure fewer people sleep when you present.

1. Keep it short - Long presentations induce sleep

When people know they are attending a short presentation, their likelihood of sleeping is less. As per molecular biologist John Medina, our attention span is only 10 minutes. Since most presentations cannot end within 10 minutes, your best chance is to stay as short as possible and create an engaging presentation. How? Read below.

2. Engage them

Even though our attention span is only 10 minutes, we still watch TED talks (most of those are 18 minutes) and we still watch movies. To engage your audience, ask questions. Show a video. Bring in a new speaker. Make them do an exercise. Maybe move their bodies or stand and do some action. Make your presentation a conversation. A one way street will always make them sleep. You are not here to deliver a sermon.

How do you tell a story in your presentation?

Every presentation book and blog asks us to say a story in our presentation. Easier said than done. Do you share stories in your presentation? How do you come up with these stories?

I'll await your answers on this.
To me saying a story is the toughest thing in a presentation.

Presentation Lesson from Night Safari, Singapore

Last week I was in Singapore and I was attending the 'Creatures of the Night Show' in the famous Night Safari. The show was all about animals performing interesting acts on stage in front of a large audience. The show ended with an important conservation message. Such messages are usually boring and difficult to make people to care and act.

In this case, the message was: segregating the waste. We should throw aluminium, paper and plastic in separate garbage bins.

This message can be given simply. We request you to throw aluminium, paper and plastic in separate garbage bins. It is good for the environment.

But this would be lame. Plus, how do you make people pay attention, care about the message and finally act upon it?

What the host did was awesome. She threw some coke cans, paper and plastic cups in front of us and asked an animal (otter in this case) to come. The first otter picked up the plastic cups and put it in the bin marked 'plastic'. Then the second otter came and put paper in the bin for paper. Then came the third otter.

The message was simple. Even animals know what to do and what is right for the environment. We all got the point :)

Power of the _____

In every speech or presentation, there comes a time when you make your most important point. Or there can be 2 or 3 places where you say something very important and you desire extra attention from the audience.

What do you do in such a case?

You can pause.
You can pause just before making that crucial point. A silence for even 10 seconds will get everyone to pay attention again.

You can also pause after you have made that point. This will let the meaning of the message sink in. You need to give the audience some extra time to digest what you have just said. Since what you are saying is new, they need to listen, then think about it. If you do not pause, where is the time for the audience to think over.

In every presentation you make, decide beforehand some slides where you will pause. Pause before and get everyone to pay attention. Then make that important point. Then pause again and let the message sink in.

Pause > Message > Pause

Your audience: Alive & Kicking

Day long conferences are fertile grounds for presentation led boredom. When bored, people check their email or take a quick nap. The extra cool air conditioning makes matters worse and induces sleep.

The time that is most vulnerable to a sleepy audience is the post-lunch session. After a good meal in a 5 star hotel, people cannot be blamed for sleeping unless the next presenter is Steve Jobs or Sachin Tendulkar.

I attended the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference in Gurgaon, India sometime back and what they did was noteworthy. Just after lunch, when the audience was susceptible to falling asleep, they brought in...

Watch the pictures and continue reading...

Photos: Nielsen India's FB page

It was remarkable. Not a single person in the audience could sleep. Moreover it was a pleasant surprise. The performer made everyone dance, sing and what not. He played drums, his team danced and the audience was given simple instructions and people moved their hands, moved their bodies and shouted on top of their voices. It woke everyone up and established a very nice connect.

For people who follow cricket, notice that Rahul Dravid is there in one of the pictures.

Learning Pyramid

I came across this pyramid at Jan Schultink's blog. Ignore the percentages and just look at it as a hierarchy (an order of effective to less effective). We (and that includes our audience) learns most by teaching others. This is followed by practice, then discussion and finally lecture.

What does this mean for presenters like us?
If we lecture in our next presentation our audience will not remember much. If we add a bit of demonstration, the learning will become better. Demonstration reminds me of Steve Jobs. In most of his presentations we find a demo.

There is something else we can do; Discussion. When we discuss a topic with our audience, they learn more than when we give a one-way lecture. I feel this is a significant point. If we can move from one-way communication to a two-way discussion, our presentations will become more effective.

Presentation FAQs #8: Should I stand or move around while presenting?

If you are presenting to a large crowd, I recommend you move around while presenting. This way you are closer to the audience and enables better eye contact.

If you are presenting in a conference room to a very small crowd, you can choose to stand still on one side of the screen. For which side, click here.

Having said this, do what naturally comes to you. If you are not at all comfortable moving around, you can choose to stand at one place. I recently attended Nielsen 360; a marketing conference wherein most presenters except two were moving around. The guys who did not move also did well. Finally what matters if your confidence, your preparation and your content.

Finally, my answer is: try to move around. If you just can't, forget everything and stand still.

His name was Velu

Last year I attended a conference in Mumbai where many speakers their thoughts about a variety of marketing topics. I do not remember most of the stuff that was spoken about. I mean, it has been more than 7-8 months. But one thing I do remember. It was a story and it goes something like this...

I was a new Area Sales Manager in Hindustan Lever Limited. My National Sales Head was visiting my market. I was going to take him to a small town, so we were going to spend a lot of time travelling in the car. Expecting questions, I had prepared myself well. I had memorised all my sales numbers and growth rates. I even studied the climate and geography. What are the food crops and cash crops of the area and how was the monsoon this year? I was ready for most questions. I was also nervous.

During the entire trip to the small town, the sales head did not ask me anything. When we reached the distributor point, we met the distributor and his salesmen. There was a delivery boy standing nearby. After the sales men took orders, he was the one who used to drive the auto and deliver the stocks to the retailers.

It was here that my Sales Head asked his first question. "What is the name of the delivery boy?" I was totally stumped. What is he asking? Since I did not know his name, I could not answer.

Later the Sales Head told me. If I would have called the delivery boy by his name and shook his hand and introduced him to the Sales Head, the delivery boy would have felt recognised and proud. No one gives him the respect he deserves because he is poor and just a delivery boy. But it is because of these people, that our business is flourishing. He is an important part of our front line sales team (though he is not our employee but works with our distributor).

Moral of the story: Respect the people at the front-end of our business. If properly motivated, they can make a big difference.

---

I do not remember the nitty-gritty of the story. Like what was the name of the sales head or which town did they travel to. But I remember the essential details and the moral. I remember the nervousness of a new sales manager and how he expects to impress his boss. He is ready with this numbers and out of the blue, he is asked the name of a person who he thought was inconsequential.

This in the words of Mr. Prakash Iyer was his first big lesson in sales. This story is also a lesson for us. It is a lesson for presenters. After 7-8 months, no one will remember your bullet points and all the numbers and statistics. But if you share a good story, your audience will never forget it. Your story and your lesson will remain in the minds for a long long time to come.

By the way, the young sales manager did find out the delivery boy's name later on :-)

Avoid turning your back towards the audience [Part 2]

Last month, I shared a tip which will help you avoid turning your back to your audience. That tip is helpful when you are presenting on a stage. The solution I offered was placing TV screens in front of you and projecting your slides on that screen.

But that tip does not answer this question. What would you do to avoid showing your back while presenting in your conference room?

I faced this problem this Tuesday while presenting to my team. I turned my back to look at the slides more times than I should have. This was wrong and the solution I figured out was... 

placing my laptop in front of me.

When I face the audience, the screen is behind me and my laptop is facing me. This way, when I want to look at the slides, I can do so by looking at the laptop instead.

Keystone Habit of Presenters

Last week I read a very interesting book. It is called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. The book talks about how habits form and how they can be changed. In our life, most things we do are not thought. We do it without thinking. They have become a habit. Charles also shares one interesting concept in his book. It is called 'Keystone Habit'.

He says, some habits are more important than other habits. These keystone habits, if changed in turn influence all other habits and transform the individual. Example, for some people going to the gym or doing Yoga is a keystone habit. If such a person starts going to the gym, he also becomes careful of what he eats. He will start going to office early and he becomes more punctual in his life. He might also start working more seriously and take less breaks at work.

We all have our keystone habits.

After reading the book, I started to apply it to making presentations. When we asked to make a presentation, we do a lot of things out of habit. We don't even think about it.

Some people waste hours choosing the right template. Others might spend too much time in slide beautification. We all have things we constantly do. We know they are not adding much value but we continue doing them. Sometimes we might not even know we are stuck in such habits which are wasting our time and making us less productive.

In the context of presentations, I believe the keystone habit for most presenters is 'rehearsal'. Most people do not rehearse before their final presentation. If you can change just this habit and start rehearsing, it will positively affect all other habits related to presentations. Think about it.

Rehearsal is a very powerful thing. When you rehearse your presentation, you touch all other aspects of your presentation. You get a chance to set the flow right. You can come up with new and better content and better arguments. You can check on your slide design and animation. You can get thoughts on how you can shorten your presentation without losing its effectiveness.

Rehearsal is a keystone habit. In order to become a better presenter, do just one thing now. Start rehearsing before every presentation. Rehearse at least 5 to 10 times and see how it transforms you into a much superior presenter.

To rehearse is to do a mock run. You can do it alone or present to a friend/colleague. You stand up, put the PPT in slideshow mode and present it as you would do eventually to your audience.

Getting ahead of yourself

Two days back I attended a presentation in my office. A sales person was pitching for a sponsorship.

She wanted to talk about 4 things on a slide. When the slide appeared, it contained 4 lines of text. She started talking about the first point. After 30 seconds, she reached point 2. But by then I was at point 4 :-)

If you have to share things one after the other, do not display all the text at once. Your audience will always jump ahead of you. Instead of listening, they will be busy reading. It is unavoidable.

Use animation. Click and line 1 appears. Discuss it. Then click and line 2 appears and so on.

Too much light affects you

Event managers might want to make the stage look very bright. This may result in too much light falling on the stage. When too much light falls on you, you will not be able to see the audience, resulting in zero eye contact. This will affect your connection with the audience.

If you find too much light falling on you (as a presenter), ask the organisers to reduce it. Take charge of the room. After all it is your event and the outcome matters to you most.

How to avoid turning your back towards the audience?

Most of us have to look at the slides while presenting. Even if you have rehearsed well, you might look back at the screen a few times. For the vast majority, which does not rehearse well, looking back is common. You do it many times in a presentation.

When we look back, the audience hates it. Eye contact breaks and it looks odd. It also indicates you don't know what's up there. How to avoid this situation smartly?

Solution: Have a laptop in front of you (on the podium/lectern).
When you want to know what's up there on the slides, don't turn your head, just look the laptop. This method is good but it restricts you free movement on the stage. You cannot get too far away from the laptop.

Smarter Solution: Get a screen placed in front of you.
Possibly two to three screens (depending on the size of the stage). Here is an image to clarify what I am saying.

Look at the three screens in front of the presenter. I have used a yellow arrow to indicate the screens. The event manager places a large screen TV and connects it to your laptop. The TV screen and the large projector screen (behind) display the same slide.

If you are in a small conference room, manage by looking at your laptop. Do not turn your head back. Avoid turning back more than 2/3 times.

If you have a larger gathering and employ an event manager, request for such TV screens to be placed in front of you. It will ensure you don't turn you head and show your back to the audience. Imagine how odd it will be if this presenter (see same photo) turns his back to the audience and looks at the slides. Avoidable!

3 Reasons why you must practice your presentation early on

Presentation wisdom suggests the following process for making any presentation. Plan your content -> Make your slides -> Practice your delivery with the set of slides. This model, which is recommended by so many experts, is wrong.

Practice is required at the last, once your slides are fully ready. But practice is also required in the middle. As soon your first basic set of slides is ready, you need to practice.

Stand up and present the slides the way you will do to the audience. Don't worry about the finishing touches. Your slides are average looking and your tables needs to be touched up. That perfect picture is still eluding you. All this decoration is for later stages. Just stand up and talk as if this is the real thing.

Practice at this early stage has 3 benefits:

1. It helps you get the flow of slides right.
2. It helps you eliminate redundant slides. It helps you edit your presentation.
3. It gives you new answers and ideas (which you had missed out during the initial planning stage).

Last week I gave an important presentation to an audience of 100. After I made my initial slides I started presenting (rehearsing in my hotel room). I stood up, took my wireless presenter and started talking.

I figured out that my flow of slides was not right at few places. When I was talking, I got a flow which was much more logical and the slides did not fit in. Hence I made changes to my slides. Move them forward and back to fit the new narrative (storyline).

I also realised that a few slides could be removed as they were not so important. Removing slides is great because it cuts down the duration of the presentation. The shorter the better.

I practised 3-4 times and during these multiple rounds I came up with some new arguments and points which my initial set of slides had lacked. The practice helped me come up with better content.

For your next presentation, plan out your content. Make a quick first draft of the slides. Practice your presentation 3 times. You can always add better images later. Make tables look better later. First practice, so that you can freeze on your content and the flow of your slides.

To make a sale you need to have...

confidence.

Yesterday, I attended another presentation. Two gentlemen were pitching for our business. They were from an agency. They were young and working for a very young organisation (hence hungry for business).

After their short presentation, when the questioning started their confidence kept dropping.

Sign #1 of falling confidence was 'lowering voice levels'. Sign #2 was 'not listening to what question is being asked'. They gave wrong answers to a lot of questions since they were not seeking clarification and not listening carefully.

When you are selling, you have to have confidence.

Whether you sell an idea to your boss or colleagues or actually pitch for a client's business, the audience will only buy if you are confident.

Suggestion #1 Even when you feel under-confident, don't let it show. If you cannot answer a question, seek extra time and answer them later, maybe next day. But never ever, drop your volume. Speak loud and clear.

Suggestion #2 Listen carefully. If you don't understand the question, seek clarification. You have all the rights to ask the audience to repeat the question. Don't be meek.

Why make slides...

Why make slides which you will not present?

Last week I attended a presentation. The presenter is organising an event in August and is looking for sponsors. His presentation had 14 slides. While presenting he just skipped the first few slides. Each of these slides had 7 bullet points and on each of this slide he said, "this is about the event" and moved on.

I wonder, why do we waste time in showing slides which are not needed. Just delete the slide and save time. Our audience will think we are not serious when we begin presenting with a set of redundant slides.

Do you have the x-factor?

Happened to attend a presentation today. Important market research presentation which will determine our new brand's positioning and promise for a new geography.

The presenter was known to us as she has presented many times before. She always does a good job. Knows her stuff and recommends what is best for the brand. She did well today as well.

In today's presentation though, she was not in her elements. The eye contact was less and the voice was not loud enough. The x-factor was lacking. Something was amiss.

Her confidence.

When you really know your stuff, have spent time preparing, know everything inside out and truly believe in what you are presenting, you speak with confidence. It shows. Your confidence impresses people. Your confidence does it for you. Your confidence makes your audience agree to you and believe in you.

Work hard on your content, design your slides well and go to the presentation with confidence. It's the x-factor that will make you successful.

"Blackberry 10 Unveiled with Abysmal Presentation"

This was the headline of a news article which talked about the launch of Blackberry 10. The reporter criticises Thornsten Heins, the CEO of Blackberry, on two grounds.

One, unable to answer basic questions asked at the launch conference
Two, lack of passion and enthusiasm.

Here is what the article says, "Heins had difficulties answering basic questions during the live presentation yesterday. He struggled in giving an answer to a question on how Blackberry had learned anything from Apple‘s success. To make it worse, his delivery lacked both passion and enthusiasm about his new product, which made the entire presentation painful to watch."

The world is watching and watching carefully. Businesses cannot afford to be lacklustre any more with their presentations. Let your presentation skills not come in way of your business.

You can watch Thornsten Heins talk here: