Whenever I work with my staff on their presentation skills and ideas, inevitably many questions come up.
One reason these questions have such prominence is that not knowing what to do can make us feel self-conscious. And if you’re at all worried about what the audience is thinking about you or your actions, then you’re not 100% focused on giving a powerful presentation.
Given how important skills are to the impact of a presentation, it’s frankly surprising that speaking and presentation coaches so rarely describe — in a detailed way — which actual skills are most effective, i.e., recognizable and support your message.
Whether presenting a speech to an auditorium of 100+ people or a small conference room, public presentation is a significant part of any PR practitioner’s role.
It takes some practice and skill-honing to fine-tune every aspect of public speaking. Here are a few places to start.
Read the room
Imagine you’re delivering your presentation or speech to one person, and that it’s an intimate conversation, not a packed room. This will help your words ring personally and give you a connection with the audience. Make eye contact with each person in the room, or with sections of a larger auditorium.
You may have prepared a stellar speech or presentation but if you get up there and people are looking at their phones, frowning in disapproval, or falling asleep, you have to recalibrate.
Before you draft your words, know your audience and write for them. While presenting, if their body language is concerning, take a break and ask questions.
In a smaller setting, ask if they follow. Do they want to debate a point? For larger settings, you’ll have to rely on the non-verbal feedback you receive to adjust on the fly.
At its heart, presenting is about message delivery. Your message must be delivered clearly and concisely. Ensure there’s no confusion by speaking precisely, with intent and authority.
Some presentations will require more polish than off-the-cuff remarks, but all public speakers can benefit from an approach that will allow them to slow down and to personally connect so their messages are understood clearly.
Punctuate with pauses
Many of us rely on filler words: like, um, uh, so, you know, and others. These words can distract your audience, or worse, undermine your message. It’s hard to extract them from your public speaking, but with practice, you can cut your reliance.
One approach is to use a pause instead. Pausing allows you to gather your thoughts or take a breath. Practice this and you’ll find yourself relying less on filler words.
It can also emphasize key messages. Pause to make a point. After a question. In-between topics. During a list of items.
When you take a beat, your audience has time to fully absorb your message. The bonus is that you feel more pulled together and confident.
Use your stage
When you get in front of a room, pause. Take in your surroundings. Then begin. You need a transition beat. This allows you to center yourself, but it also establishes your presence for your audience.
Use your stage or space with intention. When you move, move with purpose. Your gestures need meaning behind them. Talking with your hands just to move them is not as impactful as staying still until you have a specific point to highlight.
For certain phrases, you’ll want to choreograph arm or hand movements, or use those points to walk to another part of the “stage.”
It helps to have several specific phrases memorized to coordinate phrases with body gestures. Rehearse each section without memorizing each word. When you know your points – and their order – you can smoothly move from one thought to the next.
By stringing your story together in this manner, you’ll drive your message with power and emotion behind individual thoughts. Craft your speech with intent, using specific action words to add momentum to your story.
But, don’t get hung up on memorizing each sentence. Focus on the transitional phrases that weave your mini-points together. Think bigger story instead of every detail.
Rely on your storytelling abilities. When people know their material inside and out, it shows. Their passion and excitement make their material more interesting to listeners.
Gesture with intention
The main differentiator between gestures that are distracting and those that are effective is that effective gestures are intentional. Think about a time when you were totally distracted by someone’s hands as you watched him present.
Do you recall what was distracting about his movements? It’s probably that he kept making the same repetitive motions over and over, which added nothing to what he was saying. This can get tiring to watch (it can become almost like watching a tennis match).
Clearly, these kinds of repetitive movements are more aptly described as a nervous tick than an intentional motion designed to support what is being said. If you think of your presentation as a conversation with the audience, it can help you to feel less nervous and more natural about what to do with your hands.
Whether you’re pitching, presenting or keynoting the main stage, you want hand gestures to be purposeful, varied and emphasize your message in a natural way.
So what are some effective gestures to use throughout a high-stakes presentation?
There are two types of gestures, both of which can be effective:
Conventional gestures
Conventional gestures are more or less universally understood and can be considered almost as generalized sign language. What makes conventional gestures effective during a presentation is that everyone in the audience will understand your intention.
Descriptive gestures
Descriptive gestures are, just as the name suggests, literally physical descriptions. What makes this type of gesture effective is that it helps the audience create a vision that corresponds to your words. Here are some examples of descriptive gestures and when to use them:
- Small, medium, large: You can use this one to literally show different levels when doing a pricing comparison, for instance. You could say, “we offer the premium package at the highest level with all the bells and whistles,” then “we have a basic package, which is good for companies that aren’t ready for a huge transformation,” but “our top-seller is this package right in the middle.”
- Growth: Whenever you move your hand or gesture in an upward motion, it indicates growth or increase. You can use this gesture to literally show the direct sales or job growth is headed. Or picture the “hockey stick chart” used to demonstrate rapid growth. You can make this shape with your hands to show, rather than tell, how your work will benefit stakeholders.
Itty-bitty
If you are making a small point or talking about a problem, challenge or issue that could arise, you can show it’s small by making the “itty-bitty” gesture.
You can emphasize that this is not something your audience should take too seriously by holding your index finger and thumb close together. Making this gesture while you’re talking can actually reduce anxiety in your audience.
Keep your text simple
Use bullets or short sentences, and try to keep each to one line; that is, without text wrapping.
Minimize the amount of text on your slides.
You want your audience to listen to you present your information, rather than read the screen.
You can remove articles such as “a” and “the” to help reduce the word count on a line.
Polish several times
Just like some well-worn shoes, a good presentation often needs a few rounds of dusting before it’s all shiny and sparkly.
Start Messy. Don’t be afraid to start messy. Using a non-linear writing tool like Milanote allows you to explore and outline your initial ideas in a flexible way before you even open up Powerpoint or Keynote.
Arrange your ideas side-by-side and discover new connections that you didn’t see before.
Edit ruthlessly. At first, you might have a huge amount of information and will wonder how you’re ever going to get it down to six words per slide. That’s OK.
Keep editing ruthlessly until you’ve pared your message down to the bare essentials.
Get someone else to look at it. A fresh pair of eyes can work miracles when it comes to refining your presentation. Get a trusted mentor or colleague to review your work.
If you don’t know anyone who can help, an online writing assistant like Grammarly can help you weed out a lot of problems.
The bottom line
As we change at a faster and faster pace, skills adequate yesterday are no longer are good enough. And with digital disruption facing an increasing number of industries, most firms must come up with the best ideas for change or move to a slow failure. The myths of new ideas must be set aside to let the new idea facts take over.
