If you want to be a successful blogger and grow your business, then you are going to have to hone your public speaking skills. Knowing how to make a business presentation is a necessity for any successful blogger. Unfortunately, too many people still improvise and reproduce bad behavior. A presentation must deliver a message and be fun for the audience to follow if you want to be respected while on stage at an industry conference, or during a webinar. Here are some things to consider the next time you prepare your presentation.
Identify The Objective Of Your Presentation
No public speaker can start a presentation without having thought about the message he or she wants to convey. Delivering a great presentation requires that you have a clear message that the audience will:
- Pay attention to it
- Understand it
- Respond to it
These are the three components that are essential to measuring the success of a presentation. Whether you are going to give a talk on digital marketing or the best resources businesses should be using, you need to make sure that the key points you are delivering are specific and focused. The speech given at your event will only be successful if the audience, at the end of your presentation, will remember exactly what you want them to remember.
Prepare your presentation
An oral presentation should be prepared thoroughly, but preparing does not mean learning everything by heart! Good preparation involves mastering the structure and sequence of your presentation, so as not to show indecision to your audience nor resemble a recitation.
However, you must have rehearsed your presentation “blank”. You will give yourself a spectacle like a comedian or an actor. Both of them spend hours rehearsing to make it perfect. Without going that far, it is inconceivable to improvise. The repetition will also allow you to adjust your timing.
Speakers are sometimes advised to memorize the first and last sentences of their lecture. The first sentences condition the attention that the audience will bring them, while the last ones condition the volume of applause. A lot of times, and sadly, brilliant presentations leave a bad impression because the ending was not rehearsed well. If you pay attention to many keynote speakers at events, you will see that the end of their speech is well thought out, clear, and does a great job of summarizing their theme.
The four audience attention phases
Treat your introduction to grab the attention of your audience. Take action in four steps:
1st Step: Start with a metaphor, a story, a striking element or even a question.
2nd Step: Make the link between your catchphrase and the subject of your presentation
3rd Step: Briefly introduce yourself and state the objectives of your speech
4th Step: Tell your audience what they can get out of your presentation
There is a curve of attention as a function of time. A listener's attention reaches its maximum after five minutes of presentation, only to slowly decrease and drop after twenty minutes. It is therefore crucial that the main message is exposed right after a short introduction, when the audience is focused. The next quarter of an hour should be devoted to an argument that supports the main message. No need to be too long: you have to be convincing!
Argumentation is essential, but it must be kept short and brief. It does not take more than three arguments - if they are strong - to sufficiently support the message you want to get across. A scattered argument distracts the public's attention.
Sales presentation
If your presentation is focused on trying to convert the customer into buying something from you, then it is essential that you focus your efforts on no more than three key selling points. Once again, you do not want your audiences to be overwhelmed and get distracted. Very often, sales pitches can try to squeeze in too much and this can drown the customer with too much information. This is why most of the best sales speakers focus so much of their efforts on one to three (at most) selling points.
Create appealing slides
Information seen and heard is retained at 70% by its public. But if only one communication vector is used, this score drops to 40%. Voice and transparency, however, should not be replicas of each other.
A good slide is autonomous. What he says must be able to be understood outside the presentation as such. Finally, our two experts agree on the fact that a good transparency must have a great visual range.
Communication through body language
Stability and gaze are two key elements of non-verbal communication. By stability we mean the ability to impress your audience with your body. We pass in the animal register, the bodily communication pure and simple. You have to be able to appear unwavering in front of your listeners. This is the only way to sound really believable.
On the side of the gaze, you have to look your audience in the face, all the time. With a frank gaze, the audience cannot be indifferent to the words that are spoken.
Avoid common PowerPoint mistakes
Common mistakes caused by PowerPoint are:
- Systematic use of lists or bullet points (aka Lists poison presentations).
Not only is the listener able to read them seven times before the speaker has orally reviewed them, but in addition he usually only retains them partially, if at all!
Your audience can read. They don’t wait for you to read the slides, which in addition will make you turn your back on them. On the other hand, if the slides show only continuous text, the time interval that the audience must devote to assimilate it is far too large compared to the attention that should be given to the speech itself. It is for this reason that it is generally recommended to favor the visual (photo, graphic illustration) over transparencies, which can be assimilated more quickly.
- Bad taste animations: It is not because you know how to make figures or texts appear with effects that you will prove any expertise.
- Overloaded slides: too much information kills information. Your slides must be visual and clear!
Power Point is just a tool; in no case does it replace speech. A speaker should only use slides after having structured his speech on paper and rehearsed it orally. A bad slide is worse than no slide at all!
Motivate your audience
People are looking for new ways to feel inspired and be motivated. This is why so many inspirational speakers are booked at so many events. While it is important to educate your audience, you also can learn a lot from these professional motivators and how they tell a story. “People are generally stuck in their way of doing things and need some information to help them move in a new direction” says Steve Adams of Motivation Ping. “If you want people to respect you as a blogger and listen to your next presentation, make sure you are able to motivate them in a meaningful way.”
About the Editorial TeamThe Editorial Team of MyBloggerLab consists of a group of Professional Blogger geeks Led by Syed Faizan Ali (Founder of MyBloggerLab).
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