Today, across most organizations, nearly every working minute trans
lates into a dollar earned, or a dollar spent. To ensure your internal meetings and presentations fall in the “dollar earned” column, it’s critical to understand not only what you want to say and present, but also what your audience wants (or expects) to hear.
All too often, presenters get into a practice of what I call “eat and running.” This happens when a presenter is so intent on delivering the messages they want to deliver, they forget about their audience and what they want to achieve. The following tips will help keep you out of presentation eat-and-run territory:
1) What are you trying to achieve? Most clients initially answer this question by saying, “I want my audience to know x.” But sadly, no one in a fast-paced office cares about “knowing,” they care about “doing.” Do you want your audience to take a training course, submit ideas, advocate for a policy, or use less paper? Don’t forget to articulate what you want your audience to DO with your information with a specific call-to-action.
2) Speak plainly. Jargon – especially “business school chatter” – rarely earns a presenter credibility, and often complicates his/her message. When folks lose themselves in “deltas,” “workstreams” and “realized productivity,” their audiences do, too. Speak plainly to maintain your audience’s focus – not because you need to “dumb it down,” but because you trust they’re smart enough to apply it in a business context.
3) Less is more. Make sure every page of your presentation is working for you, and cut the rest. I recently reviewed a 40-page PowerPoint presentation for a client. After a healthy debate, we agreed that only three of his slides were critical to his message. By eliminating the others, we saved him – and his 10-person team – roughly 37 minutes. That’s roughly seven collective hours that were diverted to actually getting the work done.
4) Consider your audience’s priorities. While your presentation or message might sit at the top of your priority list, it likely lands in the middle or bottom of your audience’s to-dos. Be aware and considerately conscious of competing priorities for your audience’s time, attention and focus, and build your presentation accordingly.
At one time or another, we’ve all left an eat-and-run presentation thinking, “That’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back,” which is never great for morale or the bottom line. Keeping these presentation tips in mind will help you be a more effective presenter and simultaneously earn you respect (and appreciation!) from your audience.
