Craig Wise

In honor of Ricky Gervias’ recent performance as MC for the Golden Globes, I wanted to take moment to examine the importance of of presentation delivery.

Successful presentations require strategic forethought, a firm understanding of the subject matter, as well as a good picture of your audience’s expectations. However, even presentations with solid content and crisp design can completely miss the mark if the presenter’s delivery is poor.

More than any communication form, successful presentations rely heavily on delivery. By “delivery” I’m referring to the presenter’s presence in the room (or on the stage). Is she loud enough to be heard? Does she look her audience in the eye? Or, does she keep her head bent to read from cue cards?

The four delivery principles I’ve outlined below have been integral to holding my audience’s attention. More importantly, these principles will help ensure that your message reaches and persuades your audience.

1. Know your message. Practice it. Then deliver it. This sounds obvious, I know. But I’ve witnessed too many presenters stutter through every word on their slides like they’re seeing them for the first time.

Standing in front of an audience is very different from reading your slides aloud. You should practice giving your presentation—with an audience if possible. When time is scarce, I have presented slides to my dogs, though they’re easily distracted. But I always stand and deliver the slides to somebody before the big day.

The practice run is a great time to reorder your slides, if needed, and a perfect way to time the length of your presentation. Practicing really helps with those final adjustments to best reach your audience.

2. Don’t read every word on the screen. Slides are not cue cards. When you read from the projected slides, you give your audience permission to skip ahead. They might also check out altogether.

The slides your audience sees should reinforce or support the words you’re delivering, not simply repeat them. If you’re talking about important figures or statistics, put the most important numbers on the screen, highlighting the information for your audience.

Seth Godin, a well-known marketer, believes that slides should never be wasted on bulleted lists and statistics. He feels slides should use only imagery to deliver the emotion of your story.

While I don’t agree that bullets are a waste of presentation space, I do agree that slide imagery can quickly convey emotion. Imagine using this image of a broken-hearted little girl to highlight the importance of a healthy work/family balance.

3. Don’t just stand there, be somebody. If you stand in one spot as you talk about your slides like a drone relaying the news, you’ll lose your audience quickly.
Move around the room, talk directly to audience members, look them in the eyes, and invite questions as you share your information. These methods help your audience feel like they’re an active part of the presentation.

If you suffer from stage fright, as I do, ask a friend to sit in the audience. Even if you only speak to your friend, the rest of the audience will feel more engaged knowing your unafraid.

During my first few presentations, I became very anxious when an audience member pitched in her own ideas. How dare she interrupt? I soon realized that her interjections had been a great sign. My audience felt engaged, and they cared about some portion of the information. The best way to bring about this kind of engagement is to simply interact with the people in the room.

4. Wake’em up by breaking up. Keep your content alive (and your audience awake) with stories and media.

The average adult’s attention span is 20 minutes. In short, you have less than twenty minutes before you lose everyone in your audience. Personally, I begin to wander when a particular topic drifts into the seven minute range. I start thinking about what I’m doing after this presentation or what I could be doing instead.

To avoid these attention-deficit pitfalls, give your audience a break every 7 to 10 minutes. Design your supporting points so that no content block lasts more than seven minutes. You also can break up your statistical message points by telling a brief story about one of the people in your demographic.

For example, during carbon-emission leadership presentations I always tell the story of a chief executive officer who began riding his bike to work two days a week to reduce his own footprint. How often do you get to mention seeing your boss’s knobby knees?

In our media-driven age you shouldn’t be afraid to use audio/video clips to keep your audience engaged. But you should make certain that the media you choose is pertinent to your presentation.

So, there are my four delivery principles for successful presentations. Do you have experience with these? I’d love to hear how you have applied these principles or to learn about other practices that work for you.