Limit Your Subject

Limit Your Subject

Limit your Subject

With most presentations, you won't have the time you need to say everything you want to say. So you have to prioritize. It’s your job to know what to say and, just as importantly, what not to say.

 Understand your Audience
Knowing who you’re talking to – your audience – is as important as knowing what you’re talking about – your subject. Your audience’s knowledge level, experience, learning style, and attitudes will – or should – affect how you shape and present your material.
Find the answers to these questions:

  • What does you audience already know about your subject?
  • Are they experts like yourself or neophytes?
  • How much knowledge can you take for granted?
  • How much background will you have to explain?
  • Will they understand basic jargon?
  • What is their learning style?
  • Are they accustomed to sitting through lectures and holding their questions to the end? Or will they expect to interact with you, asking questions throughout your presentation?
  • Do they like lots of PowerPoint™ slides and handouts? Or are they expecting you to be more interactive?
  • What are their opinions, prejudices, preconceived notions, agendas?
  • What is their stake in the subject?
  • How will your presentation affect their research or work?

Determine your Objective
What do you want to accomplish? What do you want your audience to do as a result of your presentation?
Do you want them to

  • Challenge your assumptions or data or to confirm them?
  • Implement your procedure or technique?
  • Renew your grant?
  • Approve your proposal?
  • Give you the go ahead for the next step of your research?

Once you know what you want them to do, ask yourself what they need to know and to feel in order to do it.

  1. Prepare your Outline

If possible, break your presentation into three basic sections. (You can divide each section into more, smaller units.)
Here are some 3-section outlines you might find helpful:

  • The problem, its causes, and the solution.
  • The illness, the symptoms, and the treatment
  • The current situation or standard operating procedure, the problems associated with it, and an alternative
  • The state of your research, questions raised by your research, and the next steps
  • A product, its composition, and its application

Once you’ve “clumped” the various elements of your talk into their major sections – I strongly recommend three sections, but you could have as many as five – add an introduction and conclusion.

  1. Create your Slides

Now you can turn on PowerPoint™ and begin creating your slides.

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10 Tips for Using Visual Aids

Visual aids are an aid to communication, not a substitute for it. People have become bored by PowerPoint slides, so you have to work doubly hard to keep them interested.

There are times when it's best not to use PowerPoint. (See When NOT to Use PowerPoint.) When it is helpful to use PowerPoint or other visual aids, follow these guidelines:

  1. Plan your presentation before creating visual aids.

Know what you want the audience to do as a result of hearing your presentation. Then figure out what they need to know to do what you want them to do. Then create a simple outline that logically and clearly develops your main points. Finally, create visual aids to support your message.

  1. Use visual aids sparingly.

They are aids to your presentation – not its sum and substance. Use them to highlight and support your key points.

  1. Make them visible to the entire audience.

Projecting an image people can’t see is as senseless as speaking so softly people can’t hear.

  1. Talk to the audience, not to the aid.

Look at the audience at least 80% of the time. Avoid turning your back to the audience.

  1. Avoid laser pointers.

Your aid should be so clear that your audience can easily follow along. Use your hand, if necessary. (If you absolutely have to use a pointer, set it down after you are finished. Holding on to it will only encourage you to use it for every point on every slide.)

  1. Explain the content of the aid when you first show it.

As soon as you show people an object, they will look at it – even if you’re talking about something else. Don’t make them divide their attention.

  1. When you finish with the aid, remove it, cover it, or turn it off.

(See above.) When using PowerPoint, tap the B key and the screen will go to black. Tap any other key and the screen light up again.

  1. Limit the amount of material on any one aid.

Use each slide to convey a single point. Bullet points – no more than four or five per slide – explain, illustrate, or substantiate that one point.

  1. Avoid clip art from well-known sources.

It’s almost always boring and amateurish. DO use images, graphs, and charts, whenever possible and appropriate.

  1. Be prepared to give your presentation without your visual aids.

Murphy’s Law -- "if anything can go wrong, it will" -- applies in spades to anything involving technology and an audience. Have a backup plan in case something goes wrong. Take a hard copy of your slides.

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Designing PowerPoint SlidesFor an Oral Proposal

PowerPoint™ slides are an essential component of most oral proposals.
To avoid the most common mistakes — too much information on one slide, poorly designed and hard-to-understand graphics, and endless pages of bullet points — follow these rules:

  • Review the Request for Proposal or speak with the Contracting Officer to find out what, if any, restrictions the customer has placed on the number and type of slides you can use during the presentation.
  • Plan your presentation strategy and your central message before creating your visual aids.
  • Have a professional designer create your slide templates. (The appearance of your presentation is too important to trust to amateurs or to generic templates.) Keep the template simple and uncluttered.
  • Use the first slide to identify your organization, the customer, the proposal, and whatever disclaimers or restrictions your legal department deems necessary.
  • Use the second slide to present an overview of your presentation — the topics you’re going to cover and who’s going to be addressing them. (Unless the customer has drastically limited the number of slides, always use an overview slide.)
  • Use some visual devise to let people know where you are in the presentation. You can place a slide at the beginning of each new section or insert some type of identifying marker on each slide.
  • Address only one major point per slide.
  • Allow one slide, on average, for every minute to a minute and a half of speaking. (Some slides – section markers, for example – may take only a few seconds. Some slides may take as long as two to three minutes.) If you end up with more than one slide per minute of the time you have available, reconsider your strategy.
  • Each slide should address one or more of three questions:
  1. WHAT? What is the main point of the slide? What are you talking about? What issue are you addressing? The answer to this question is often reflected in the title of the slide.
    For example: “Transition Plan” or, even better, “Our Transition Plan Ensures Continuity of Service”
  2. HOW? How are you proposing to accomplish what you say you’re going to do? The answer to this question typically makes up the bulk of the body of the slide.
    For example: You could show your proposed schedule for interviewing and hiring new staff during the transition phase.
  3. WHY? Why are you doing what you’re doing the way you’re doing it? Why would the customer want what you’re proposing? How does it benefit the customer? The answer to this question is best placed in a highlighted box at the bottom of the slide.
    For example: “Our plan gives you uninterrupted access to the services you require from day one.”
  • Make each slide so clear that you don’t need to use a pointer to explain it.
  • Use the last slide as a summary of your main selling points — why your team and your proposal are best able to provide what the customer wants and needs.

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How to Develop Confidence Speaking

The ability to give a speech is one of the most valued business skills today. And yet most people report that giving a speech is their number one phobia.

Try these 10 tips to get over your nervousness and to develop confidence while speaking.

  1. Expect to be nervous.

Even experienced speakers get nervous. Instead of trying to eliminate your jitters, turn them into energy you can use to boost your delivery.

  1. Prepare.

Know what you are going to say – and why you want to say it.

  1. Practice.

Speak to supportive audiences in small forums where less is at stake – at a staff meeting or a PTA meeting. Join Toastmasters or take a Dale Carnegie course.

  1. Breathe.

In the thirty seconds before you begin speaking, take three slow, deep breaths through your nose, filling your belly. As you breathe out, say silently to yourself, “Relax.”

  1. Rehearse.

Stand up and walk around as you practice out loud. Don’t memorize your speech or practice it word for word. Talk it through, point by point. Imagine you’re explaining your main ideas to someone who likes you.

  1. Focus on your audience.

Stage fright is rooted in self-preoccupation. (“How am I doing?” “Am I making any sense?”) Stop focusing on yourself. Focus, instead, on your audience. (“How are you?” “Are you getting this?” “Can you hear me?”)

  1. Simplify.

Most speakers try to accomplish too much in a speech. Then they worry about leaving something out or losing their train of thought. Aim, instead, to communicate what your audience can hear and understand in the limited time you have. Keep it short and simple.

  1. Visualize success.

Practice relaxation techniques in the days before your presentation. Lie down or sit comfortably in a quiet place. Breathe slowly. Close your eyes. Scan your body, consciously relaxing any tense muscles. Imagine your upcoming speaking engagement. Picture yourself speaking with confidence.

  1. Connect with your audience.

Make the audience your allies. Talk to individuals before your presentation to get to know them. Look them in the eye as you speak to them, one person at a time. If your audience sides with you, your job as a speaker becomes much easier and you can relax.

  1. Act confident.

People won’t see how nervous you are. (They can’t tell if your palms are sweating or your knees are knocking or your heart is pounding.) So don’t tell them. Smile. Stick your chest out. Look confident, even if you don’t feel it.

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How to Overcome theFear of Public Speaking

"According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two? Does that seem right? To the average person that means that if they have to go to a funeral, they'd be better off in the casket than giving the eulogy."
-Jerry Seinfeld

When you ask people what they fear most about giving a speech, they list any number of reasons.

Here are the most common reasons people list for being afraid of public speaking with suggestions for what to do to overcome that fear.

  1. "I'll be boring."

If you're not boring in real life, there's no reason for you to be boring as a speaker. Fear is the culprit. It makes you self-protective. When you're afraid, you draw back into yourself. Your focus narrows to what is immediately around you, and all you can think about is survival. You lose your creativity, spontaneity, and humor. Control your nervousness, and your natural liveliness will surface.

  1. "People will laugh at me."

If you do or say something that amuses people, they will laugh — even if you don't want them to. So laugh with them. Then they're not laughing at you, they're laughing with you. And they'll love you for it. Laughter is the most potent antidote to fear. While fear shuts you down and makes you cower in the corner, laughter pumps you up and gets you energized.

  1. "People will see how nervous I am."

So what? People expect you to be nervous. Being nervous is only a problem if you're so nervous that you make the audience nervous. Don't call attention to your nervousness. Just go on with your speech.

  1. "I'll forget my next point."

Since so many speakers do forget their next point, there are lots of strategies to compensate for it.

  • While preparing your presentation make sure your main points flow logically from one to another. Make the connections really tight.
  • Take a moment, take a breath, and think. If you give yourself half a chance you'll probably remember what you were going to say.
  • Back up and try again. Repeat the previous point, the one you just summarized. Doing so will often lead you on to the next point.
  • Refer to your notes. Even if you speak without a podium, keep your notes nearby. They're your security blanket.
  • Tell your audience you've drawn a blank. They'll understand, and their understanding will make you relax, which in turn will help you remember. Ask, "Where was I?" and someone will tell you.
  1. "I won't be able to answer people's questions."

You don't have to have all the answers. You just have to know how to get the answers so you can say, "You've stumped me. I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know how to find it. If you give me your business card, I promise I'll get back to you with what you want to know."

  1. "I'll freeze."

This is most people's biggest fear. You're standing before a room full of people and you freeze. Your mind goes blank. You can't remember a single thing you were planning on saying.
Here's the secret. Say something. Say anything. The longer you stay silent — trying to remember exactly what you had planned on saying — the more stressed you will get. And stress is like ice water on the brain. Say, "You know, I've completely forgotten what I was going to say." Your audience will identify with you. They may laugh. Then you can laugh. Oxygen will return to your brain and begin thawing things out. Refer to your notes, if necessary. And begin again.

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Connecting with Your Audience

To project a sense of confidence and authority, you have to be in touch with your own inner strength.

You can use this three-step process to connect with yourself and with your audience at the same time. (You will also gain confidence and build rapport with your listeners.)

 Ground Yourself.
Feel your feet on the ground. Distribute your weight evenly across an imaginary triangle on the bottom of your feet (the heel, the ball of your feet, and the outside pad beneath the little toe). When you are grounded, you will feel calm and centered, and you will project strength.

 Breathe.
Consciously take two or three slow, deep breaths. Doing so will make you present to the moment and will reduce your anxiety (which usually has to do with the future).

 Speak to One Person at a Time.
Don't think of speaking to the entire audience all at once. You'll freak yourself out. (And you won't connect with anyone in particular, since you're thinking about everyone in general.) Choose, instead, to look at one person at a time. Speak to that person as if you're having a conversation. Then, shift your attention — and your eye contact — to another person.

The Seven Biggest Presentation Mistakes

Giving a speech isn't as difficult as it's made out to be, as long as you keep a few basic principles in mind. Know what you want to accomplish. Understand the audience's needs and motivations. Organize your material simply and clearly.

But it is easy to make mistakes when you're giving a presentation. Here's my list of seven presentation mistakes to avoid...

  1. Boring Your Audience

Bore your audience and they’ll tune you out. Then nothing you say, no matter how important you think it is, will make any difference. If what you’re saying doesn’t excite you, don’t say it. Take a different approach, coming at your topic from a different angle. Be a contrarian and refuse to say what everyone else is saying.

  1. Lacking a Clear Focus

Talk about too many things, even if they’re related in your mind, and you’ll confuse your audience. Even when people look like they’re paying attention, they’re only half listening. So keep it simple. Focus on one core idea?

  1. Not Addressing the Audience's Concerns

Show your audience in the beginning of your presentation how it affects them. Don’t tell them they SHOULD care. Show them how your idea will help them solve a problem, achieve a goal, or satisfy a need that’s important to them.