8 Tips That Will Make Your Presentations Great

I spent one day and a half with eight executives from a national association helping them develop their presentation skills. We dissected every aspect of presenting from how you open to how you close. We worked on storytelling, creating engagement and adding humor. I had them speak in front of their peers and we filmed them, critiqued them and improved together.

Here are the Top 8 Tips (according to the executives) That Will Make Your Presentations Great.

1. Focus on the audience. Forget perfection in your presentation and aim for connection with your audience.
2. Develop your presentation and then your power point. Remember your power point is meant to support your message – it is not your presentation.
3. Turn you presentation into a conversation by adding “You” focused questions. (Questions that contain the word “You” making it about the audience)
4. Craft stories that are struggle to solution. Hook them with the struggle (emotionally) and help them with the solution.
5. Remember this rule: If it’s not necessary to say, it’s necessary not to say.
6. Anchor your points with metaphors and analogies – comparing the unknown to the known.
7. Add appropriate gestures and movement that enhance your message – making it more visual and memorable.
8. Rehearse; record yourself and videotape yourself. Practice makes perfect.

As you apply these tips you will make your presentations more engaging, more memorable, and more persuasive.

Knock em dead!