What makes a great presentation great? Great presentations don’t ‘just happen.’ Yes, there is a theory behind the presentation process. Great presentations are carefully crafted on many levels to ensure the presenter captures and keeps the audience’s attention. After all, isn’t that why we make presentations in the first place? There are three critically integrated parts to an excellent presentation that will make it high impact, memorable, and game-changing. Before you even begin to create your presentation, you must consider all the underlying components and your intent for the presentation. To meet all three requirements, you must understand how the audience processes the presentation.
Top 10 Things That Can Go Wrong and Often Do
(To name only a few)
Three Presentation Essentials
The Power of the Non-Verbal Aspect of the Presentation
The audience sees the presenter and the presenter’s body language and energy. That’s reality. Body energy/language is reflected in both your body and your vocals. As a presenter, you are a sight and sound show. That visual image creates the initial impression of, “do I want to listen to this person, and do I believe what the presenter is saying”?
If there is any disconnect between the visual presenter’s body and vocal energy message and the delivered verbal information, the audience will experience ‘message dissonance.’ ‘Message dissonance’ is the confusion experienced between what I see versus what I hear. This is NOT an image you, as the presenter, ever what to impart. Why? Because we know that our senses will more often believe what they see before they believe what they hear. Therefore, you must plan to ensure that both your body and vocal energy and your verbal message are in synch. This requires careful verbal message preparation and rigorous practice to ensure your physical skills are integrated with and reinforce your verbal message. When these two messages are out of synch – your presentation is in trouble. Always consider the power and pull of the non-verbal component of the presentation.
How do you get and keep the audience’s attention? Always remember that, during the presentation, the audience has a sensory experience. It is sensing the following three messages:
Your verbal message – what you are saying
Your physical body and vocal energy message – how are you saying it
Your graphic message – your billboard
All three messages must work together, or your presentation message will break down. We know that the audience will decide very quickly if your message is one they want to devote their mental energy to or not. Today, this is extremely important – especially when the audience has so many other things they can be doing and numerous devices they can use that won’t let the presenter know that the audience has already checked out. Haven’t we all show up for a presentation with a list of things we can do if the presentation is bad? I know I have!
Understanding the essentials of presentations is the first step to creating great presentations. The next three blogs will focus on each topic in more detail.
In our blog series on presentation skills, we focus on the elements of great presentations and provide a framework to follow that allows you to control your message, creating the intended impact at the highest possible level. Just click here to read all of our presentation skills blogs.