How to Make a Memorable Presentation: Part III
This is the third and final part of a series that I’ve labeled “How to Become an Effective and Memorable Public Speaker.”
Speeches and presentations have one of three main purposes: They are to educate, to persuade, or to entertain. Most presentations are intended to persuade. But all great presentations will also educate and entertain. Audiences like to learn new things and love to be entertained. So all speakers need to be teachers and storytellers and performers as well as persuaders. Confidence in all those elements comes with experience. See also
Toastmasters International.
Knowing your audience and the setting for your presentation are very important. You need to know their backgrounds, education levels, professions, and a little about the history and current events of the location. Letting your audience know that you have done your homework about them by showing interest in a local site or an inside joke is a winning gesture.
There is much wisdom in the three B’s of presenting: “Be bold, be brief, and be seated.” Unfortunately, that is also the formula for being forgotten soon thereafter. To be remembered you must also be credible, organized, positive, and energized (the COPE principle), and your entire presentation must be centered on your audience (the WIFM principle, “what’s in it for me?”). You should also be charming, honest, entertaining, and witty (the CHEW principle). Put them altogether with a powerful opening and a spectacular finish (the POF principle), and you’re on your way to stardom as a public speaker. Just remember: COPE, WIFM, CHEW, and POF.
Here are several of those elements in greater detail:
Credibility. This must be earned, still a good introduction by someone the audience knows will help lift you from an unknown quantity to someone worthy of at least a few minutes of your audience’s time. You can win them over instantly with a bit of modesty combined with humor by following your introduction with lines like these:
“Thank you for that introduction, Ken. It was so beautiful I had to pinch myself to see if I had died and you were actually delivering my eulogy.”
“Thank you for that introduction, Ken. I was so impressed I can hardly wait to hear what I have to say.”
“Thank you for that introduction, Ken. I’m glad you didn’t mention my Medal of Honor or my Nobel Prize. They’re still on my bucket list.”
Organization. We are conditioned to hearing most presentations in this logical sequence: Introduction, Body, and Closing. It’s been with us for nearly 100 years. It’s still the format that we like.
--Introduction. You can introduce your subject in several different ways. It can be a dramatic statement that describes your subject succinctly. Show how it involves them; tell a story about how they are intimately involved in your subject; give them a powerful prediction that involves them. The key is “them.” You must get your audience immersed into your subject in a gripping fashion so that they are astounded by your words and want to hear more. Remember: WIFM. Also Important: Tell your audience that you are on a tight schedule, so please hold all questions until after you are finished. You don’t want anyone to derail your presentation. Ever. Then ignore any hand that is raised while you are speaking.
Once you have clearly identified the issue, and how it does or will affect them, let them know that you have the solution to their problem, or how they can take advantage of an opportunity that is coming, or how they can avoid a disaster. Highlight the three major parts of your solution and how they are the key to the success or failure of each part. Keep the story and the suspense flowing.
--Body. Lay out each step in your solution, prediction, or opportunity. Give examples, quote authoritative sources, cite statistics and their sources, link them together. Explain the effects on them. Explain the consequences of their actions or inactions. If there are implementation costs, tell them how much on a per person basis. Tell them the costs of inaction. Tell them about opportunity costs. Then move on to your closing.
Visual Aids. Use them sparingly and then only to convey crunched information that can’t be told verbally. You want your audience to remember two things: Your conclusions and you. Not your slides. You are the one who inspired them, informed them, mesmerized them, gave them hope, and stirred up their emotions and their thinking. Your name and picture, website, email, and other ways to contact you should be plastered on all handouts. It’s your moment to shine. Don’t run from it. Bask in it.
--Closing. A closing is typically a call to action. It has two end appeals: intellectual and emotional. Appeal first to their cognitive domain. Repeat costs v. benefits. Opportunity costs v. inaction. Move on to the emotional side. Appeal to pride, sense of community, testimonies from others, well-being before and after adoption, how it will affect them personally, their community, their legacy.
This is also your last chance to leave a great impression. Build your closing comments in urgency and intensity until you are ready to reach a crescendo. Then end with the most powerful statement or prediction you can reasonably support if they act positively.
Example: “You can only change what you acknowledge. You know the status quo is not working. You now have 5 good reasons for changing it to a much better way. 1. You know the need. 2. You know the costs. 3. You know the benefits. 4. You know the timetable. The last piece is also in your hands. 5. The time to act If you agree that time is now, let me hear your applause!”
“I would say this is your moment for action. Take it and make it your finest hour. [waving] I’m John Doe, and I thank you for your attention.”
“You may never get another chance to make this opportunity a reality. Let’s make it happen. [waving] I’m John Doe and thanks for your attention.”
--Question Period. You don’t really want a lengthy question and answer period. It gives those who want to see you fail a last chance to discredit you or to raise new objections. You don’t want end the presentation on a sour note or let it die on a boring note. Save one or two memorable quotes and use one of them. “Before I go I’d like to leave you with this final thought: [insert a memorable quote from your Google search of great quotes]
In both my teaching and public speaking, visual aids were absolutely necessary and productive. How you can describe a complex economic theory with only words is beyond me, that's why I hated speakers who, “read,” their presentations or had paltry visual aids to illustrate their grand ideas and theories. Once again, if you're trying to humor people or make them love you, words will do. But your stage presence and nonverbal clues will probably carry you much further. I have seen myself on videotape, and believe me, I'm far from charismatic––but still, with visual aids, I get my point across without being Mr. Wonderful.
I was having trouble in business statistics getting my students to understand the concepts from the rather dense textbook. My colleagues, in desperation, had resorted to using Cliff's Notes rather than the textbook. The associate dean called me into his office after over a third of my class dropped my first semester. Most of my students didn't do well that semester, in spite of every track I could think of to teach them. By summer school, I had a small class and was able to make copies of all of my overhead projections. I told the students to stop copying everything I wrote on the chalkboard and my overhead presentations, because I gave them every page. Instead, I told them to write notes and questions on my presentation pages. I had my best class ever. Most of the students did very well, receiving As. Visual aids do matter for mathematics, science, and technological subjects because complex concepts can be presented visually far better than verbally. By the way, I hate PowerPoint presentations that are all words.
Finally, while teaching, it's important for the teacher to be interrupted by questions because in complex subjects, if one student misses the point because the teacher didn't present it well, over half the class also missed the point, but were afraid to ask. The typical teacher of the year gets a lot of laughs, is never or rarely questioned, and inflates his grading so that he will be named, “teacher of the year.”
Ron