Presentation Secrets for Social Communicators
Speaking and presenting is something I’m passionate about. Why? Because it’s another way to start conversations and build relationships. Or, it can be, if you think about how you present. Here are some recommendations on ways to turn your bullhorn into a party hat in the presentation world.
First, Defuse the Bomb
You have less than two minutes to set up your relationship with the audience. Your audience needs to LOVE you. They have to want you to succeed. And as part of this, they want you to succeed, because they’re hoping to learn something about themselves from you.
Let me highlight that so you take it home with you: People want to learn about THEMSELVES through what you talk about in your presentations.
SUPER SECRET TIP: Tell a funny story. Not a joke. A story. Tell it EARLY. Be as FUNNY as you can muster. Self-depricating humor helps, if you’re any good at that. Be the authority, but be human.
Sneak In With Questions
You need to sneak into your audience’s hearts and minds. I love asking questions, but not so much the hand-raiser types. Sure, I do that schtick. But if I’m trying to get you engaged early, I want to ask you questions that get you rummaging through your own internal autobiography? Why? Because I want you to be connected and engaged to what I’m saying. If I’m getting you to stir up internal memories, I’ve snuck in.
Think Television, Then Break It
We are a world of TV viewers. We are used to screens. Think HARD about this when planning your presentation. First, think about slides. Slides are PART of your TV screen. Know who the other part is? YOU. Now, if you and your slides are the presentation, which is more interesting? A big glowing screen? Or you hiding behind the podium.
Use Your Body
Learn how to move. First, don’t fidget. Second, step away from the podium (unless it’s a HUGE room and the mic is glued to the podium). Get around and move. Get CLOSER to your audience. BLEND for a moment with them. You’ve been to rock concerts. Crowds go CRAZY for contact with the star. And, uh, you’re the star, bub!
A Word About Slides
Never ever EVER use pre-built slide formats. Just don’t. Know why? Because they all look THE SAME. Don’t make my eyes bleed. Don’t make me sleep. Next point: bullets are for guns. Be creative. Think about it this way: if this were a TV commercial, would YOU watch? Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is basically a slide show with Al talking and some dramatic music. Think that way and work backwards.
In format, don’t do title, agenda, name, payload, contact me. Know why? Because EVERYONE does that. Try mixing it up. Just a little. Think TV and all the various formats.
SUPER SECRET TIP: Find lots of great photos on Flickr (use advanced search to select Creative Commons photos, and add a slide near the end of your slideshow giving people attribution for their work).
Your Voice is Important
If you speak in a monotone voice with no stops and go on and on and use ums to cover the spaces where you don’t know what you’re going to say next, people will fall asleep almost immediately, and then the best you can hope is that they dream that you did a good job.
WAKE people UP! Be loud. Be soft. Use your voice with as much energy as a radio announcer or your favorite entertainment personality. Think on this. Practice it. Use shorter sentences. (Notice I do this when I blog?) And try hard to mix up HOW you’re talking about things. Ask questions. Make statements. Pause for breath. Kill “ums.”
Finish With Idea Handles
ALWAYS end a presentation with things people can run off and do. Verbs. Give people ways they can take your ideas, and use them. Giving ideas handles means letting people pick up your idea, take it home with them, and incorporate it into what they’re doing and thinking. It makes the whole time you’ve taken from everyone worth it.
And make sure folks know how to reach you, okay?
Does this work for you? Do you want more ideas like this?
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Photo credit framesmedia/dan
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Comments
I’ve seen a lot of interesting speakers but the one that I actually remember the content was by Timothy Leary in the very early 1990’s on the campus of SIU Carbondale.
Leary started with a joke that was totally appropriate for the audience, I’ll paraphrase “If I forget something it’s because I’m in my 70’s,I’m old, but being senile is like being stoned on really good sensimilia ALL the time!”
While I’m not one of those people who thinks that legalising pot can save the world, you all know ‘that guy’ and if he wasn’t passing the joint you’d probably consider him an idiot, but pot puts people on a shared level, it’s ‘underground’ and like art, it isn’t age specific, anyway, up until that point I had never considered that being a senior citizen was anything but a slow torture, leary changed my perceptions of reality with his opening remark, now that is a great speaker!!!
“Bullets are for guns.” I love it. :)
Srsly, can anything be more boring than bullet lists? Yes, reading the bullet list to your audience.
Like the idea about using Flickr pics to illustrate a point. Could maybe use short video clips, too.
Thanks!
Nothing wrong with bullets if they’re used only when necessary (which is rare, if ever - like real ones). Thanks for the post, Chris. I’ve been preparing for a big presentation Monday, and this helps.
I think back and the best speakers that I ever heard implemented the majority if not all of these points that you just brought out. This is a subject that i am very interested in so I am glad that I found your post about it. Kudos Chris!
Another excellent post, Chris. Very good tips. I agree wholeheartedly that storytelling HAS to be an integral part of your presentation. The audience enjoys hearing/seeing information conveyed this way, and I believe they are more likely to remember it.
[...] GW Anime Society wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptYou have less than two minutes to set up your relationship with the audience. Your audience needs to LOVE you. They have to want you to succeed. And as part of this, they want you to succeed, because they’re hoping to learn something … [...]
Your last paragraph on finishing with idea handles is also a PERFECT way to end off a podcast epsiode. Then again, a podcast IS like a presentation isn’t it?
I couldn’t have said it better myself. : P
And bullet haters, you’re not *always* right: http://urltea.com/1ly9
with ANY visual, ask: Does it do something you the presenter can’t? That’s why you need visuals in the first place, to do what you can’t just say. Does it ADD to the presentation or is it just a crutch?
Good stuff, Chris.
hey…its shreya…thanks for all d inspiration stuff…n ive put in her name coz we jus use d same address to sign in…u kno?? anyway, sry if dat was a weird title, i was sleepy n cudnt think of anythin else…sry!! and thanks once again.. :)
Chris,
Great post that MANY people need to read/hear and follow.
With a degree in Communication Studies, a continuing ’student’ of that discipline and someone who has been fortunate enough to have a fair amount of ‘public speaking opportunities’ I appreciate all that you wrote.
It really is incredible how much poor presentation skills can detract from a great message or idea that will never be ‘heard’ because it was poorly delivered.
I would add one section that could be the basis of an ‘follow up’ blog post:
Audience analysis; one of the most important, and yet all too often overlooked, ingredients necessary for a successful ‘public pitch.’ Jokes are great, but what college students find funny certainly isn’t to a group of VCs, yet all are equally interested in a social networking start-up, just different aspects of what’s in your head. Same with power point slides, whether you move around or not, etc…Thinking through who you are speaking too, and then appropriately tailoring every aspect of your speech to that audience. Sure, that takes time, but if you’re taking mine I would expect you to spend some of yours preparing what you’re going to stand up and say….
Great post Chris!
Chris, good job. Of all the hundreds of presentations I’ve sat though, only a small handful are memorable. That’s because the presenters in these few cases really reached out and engaged the audience as you describe.
They became the focus, bringing robust energy to a smaller number of points. The slides were just a supporting roll for people to be able to digest both visually and audibly.
You really are doing what you were meant to do - awesome advice that is presented in a great engaging way. Truly at the top of your form.
Regards,
Rick
News Flash: Telemarketing Still Goin Strong…
I was reading Guy Kawasaki’s interview with with Chris Brogan, which is all about Twitter. Brogan says he doesn’t answer Twitter’s rhetorical question, “What are you doing now?” Rather, Brogran prefers to offer what has his interest now. By the……
I’m always surprised when people sit during presentations or new business pitches. How can you really engage the conversation (and the response) if you’re not looking people in the eye? As well as monitor the energy in the room?
You gave me the wake up call about making it easy to contact me (thanks!) on my blog. I love these posts - thanks for the tips. I’m putting together a presentation this week - will keep these top-of-mind!
What a LOVELY post!
And true, so true.
One thing you kind of left out (just in my personal opinion) is for the people that feel stupid or awkward when they’re up in front of a group of people.
Pretending you’re Mickey (or Minnie) Mouse at Disneyland worked wonders for me before I became comfortable with the whole speaking “thing” - I thought…these people in the most ludicrous outfits EVER dancing around like fools…and people love them.
If a minimum wage, depressed worker that hates his job (because I assume everyone hates their job unless they’re doing something really out of the box) can make thousands of children and adults feel magical EVERY DAY…I can give a presentation and be fabulous just this once…
Eventually you don’t need the crutch, but it worked a hell of a lot better for me than picturing everyone naked. That just made me feel disturbed.
p.s. The Pick-Up Artist rocked. I’m so glad someone else watched it…I thought it was just me. Thanks for stepping forward *grin*
Super post! See ed tufte on power point used to show the gettysburg address. I would paste link here but I have not figured out how to cut and paste on this touch iPod….
Here’s the link which I think that John was referring too.
http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm
Oh, and for the “I really am not comfortable
speaking in front of a large group of people”
people like me, just remember this -
you were asked to do the presentation because of what you already know -
just talk about what you know, your inner passion will kick in, and
when you are done with your presentation, you’ll wonder what you even said -
but trust me, it will be good - because it the the real “you” up there.
oh, I just had another thought on this article.
You wrote that “Your audience needs to LOVE you” but that sets the stage for a contrary reaction, what happens when you break up with someone you love??
I think that instead of “love”, the audience should enjoy being around you, you should make them comfortable, be closer to a peer, an older sibling perhaps, but not an object of love as love is too powerful…
Once again, great stuff Chris! I’ll be researching and adapting (stealing!)these ideas in my next presentation!
Really nice thoughts, Chris. It’s easy to be seduced by all the multimedia razzle-dazzle into thinking that the speaker has lost his/her importance. But it’s even more critical now for speakers to be really strong in their presentations to keep the focus on the message where it belongs.
Some things I’ve told my clients about humor: Poking fun at yourself almost always wins you points in a funny story. Make the story relevant to the presentation; find some commonality between the presentation topic and the personal story. And if all else fails, throw in a chicken. Chickens are innately hilarious.
Hey I really enjoyed your article, saw it on marketing profs. This is a super minor detail, but your “about me” paragraph at the top of your homepage reads like you work for “show businesses.” Maybe I’m the only one that reads it that way, who knows.
Good stuff Chris. The two most compelling presentations I can remember in recent years (and I’ve seen thousands) were from Seth Godin and Tiffany Shlain. Seth needs no introduction, but in case you don’t know Tiffany, she founded the Webby Awards.
Both used imagery to tell their story. Tiffany must have squeezed 200 images into a 20 minute slide deck and timed her jokes, tips and takeaways perfectly to each graphic. She totally followed your “TV” tip. I was mesmerized and looked forward to every upcoming image and commentary.
I work in marketing for a software company and hope that we’re able to incorporate some of these ideas into our presentations. I’m just so freakin tired of working on the same PPT slides, I cannot believe the effort justifies the results. By incorporating your ideas I think we can flip that paradigm and have some fun at the same time.
Thanks again!
This is interesting.
Interactive, proactive and being there with sharing are absolutely IN
Positivism, leadership and the ability to lead and carry the person and walk them through is what really MAKES FOR SUCCESS
NRomanyuk1
http://www.successuniversity.NRomanyuk1.com
this interesting infact it makes me feel happy bcos am tierd of being stay without do any work and i belive this an opportinuty for me and i will do it very well
[...] are some great tips on giving presentations from Chris Brogan that go well beyond the usual advice you already know. (Tipped by The [...]
Thanks Chris…Nice thoughts…