A high-profile brand or the name of a speaker with a high position helps to fill conference rooms. People are drawn to the "stars" to be in trend and learn about their mistakes and victories. Only at the end of the speeches, the participants give such speakers far from the highest marks.
VisualMethod, a presentation and infographics studio, asked entrepreneurs and corporate employees what disappointed them most about conference presentations. It turned out that when experienced speakers ignore the organizational slides and go straight to the description of the process or case, trust is lost. Some respondents even called such behavior of the speakers arrogant (“did not introduce himself at all”) and inattentive (“one thing in the topic, but another in words”). We talk in detail about which slides are important to remember.
Why is it important
Even if you spoke 1000 times, these 5 slides in your presentation should be mandatory:
- topic of speech
- self-representation
- speech structure
- summons
- presentation results and contacts
If the presentation includes a block of answers to questions, make a separate slide for this to focus the audience, or use a slide with the results of the presentation.
By accumulating the experience of speaking, the speakers concentrate more on the essence of the presentation, believing that only the results and personal experience of the speaker are important to the audience. Of course, this is essential, but regardless of your status and the results of the work, it is valuable for the audience to receive reinforcement of the importance of what is happening and a sense of ownership. Organizational slides help you tune in, immerse yourself in the topic, and understand why your presentation should impact the professional lives of your listeners. Even if your speech is a monologue, organizational information creates the effect of interaction between the speaker and the audience in the hall.
Get hooked on the topic
Every presentation starts with a title page. Usually something general is written on it, although initially the first slide was created to explain the relevance of the topic to the audience. Why is this happening? Our clients, who often speak, admit that they receive the theme from the organizer or, if they formulate it themselves, then this happens a few months before the event and in the absence of time, a sketch theme appears. Over time, it appears on all posters, banners and mailing lists, and when it comes to preparation, it seems like it's too late to change something. VisualMethod suggests always formulating a topic with a designation of its benefits to the audience. Even if it will be slightly different from the announced one. So you can capture the attention of people from the first seconds.
Use the active voice to formulate the topic and be as specific as possible. For example, the wording “Developing a proposal” sounds weaker than “3 proposal templates that will help you sell consulting services.”
Find a common interest with the listener. Before a speech, a good speaker will ask the organizers who will be in the hall and what are the results of surveys on topics that are relevant among visitors. Such a conversation takes five minutes, but it helps to save time on preparation, because you will know exactly the expectations of people and select interesting information for them. If you are giving a single presentation throughout the year, you can link your topic and the interests of those present in just one sentence.
Even when there is no information about those who will be in the hall, it is enough to ask 2-3 clarifying questions about the occupation of the audience before the start of the speech and pick up an argument why your information will be useful to them.
Maintain your expertise
After you have formulated the topic, people have the following question: why exactly can you be an expert and why should you be trusted? This reaction occurs automatically and, without receiving an answer, the listener can listen to everything with interest, but he will have doubts that in this particular case the information is trustworthy and what he hears should be put into practice. Therefore, we recommend that even “star” speakers tell why they have the right to voice this or that information. How to do it naturally without sticking out "I"?
Some event formats require the host to represent the speaker. In this case, it is important to give the facilitator the correct information and relate it to the topic of your presentation. For example, we advised one of our clients at a conference for entrepreneurs to talk not only about their last job at the largest company in the country by the number of employees, but also about previous experience in a small office. After the speech, the speaker received a comment that he understands the problems of small business, although earlier in the “question-answer” block the question “well, this methodology works in big business, but what about small business?” When you clearly understand who your audience is, you can choose examples from your activities that will resonate with the interests of the listeners.
If you represent yourself, dedicate a separate slide to this. This way you can only state the connection between your experience and the topic, and people will read other facts themselves - and you will not look like a boaster. There is such a thing as a “triangle of trust”. To inspire trust, you need to connect three aspects: your experience, the topic, and the interests of the audience.
The first way to do this is to use a stereotype. Looks like that:
My name is _______, I'm _______ (Position): _______________ stereotype. If you are a commercial director, your view might look like this:
My name is Peter Brodsky (name), I am a typical commercial director (position), who approves several commercial proposals per month and receives feedback from clients (stereotype). In this way, you confirm that you have the right to talk about drafting commercial proposals and understand what people in the room are doing if you speak to people with the same position.
The second option is previous experience. If you were speaking to developers who, for example, create services to automate the distribution of commercial offers, you could say the following:
My name is Peter Brodsky (name), and every day I spend 30% of my time in the development team, because I believe that the future lies in process automation. If you have experience in development, then you can say even brighter: I am a developer and always have been. The code is in my blood. But it so happened that I managed to build an algorithm for working with commercial offers and increase sales by 999%, and now I work as a block manager. This is also good, because I see both sides of the process.
If you do not have relevant experience, then you can switch to the language of emotions and say why the topic is important to you. It will sound something like this: I myself am a buyer every day and I am ready to cry with happiness when the seller hears what I need, and does not try to sell according to the template. But that's the essence of the good company template: to train employees to take advantage of the humanity and technology of understanding the customer.
As for the slide describing the experience, the following information can be put on it:
- Position and names of companies where you worked
- Your education or special courses that relate to the topic
- Degrees, awards and certifications
- quantitative results. For example, how many commercial offers have you made in your life.
- Sometimes it is appropriate to mention clients or large projects.
The main thing: remember in time that the audience did not come to listen to your life story. Therefore, the purpose of the presentation is only to justify why it is important for people to hear your speech on this topic.
Engage in content
So you told why the topic and your expertise deserve attention, now the audience wants to know how you will transfer knowledge, what the process will be like. Indicating the content of the presentation on the slide and setting the meeting agenda is important in order to avoid disappointing people after your presentation. When you don't anticipate the structure of your speech, people create their own expectation and it rarely matches reality. From here, comments appear in the style of “I didn’t talk about that at all” or “I thought it would be better.” Help listeners with their desires and expectations by setting rules and telling them what to expect.
A good way to talk about the agenda without naming the slide “Agenda”. Instead, you can make a timeline or infographic. Indicate how long each of the parts will take: theoretical, practical, case, answers to questions, breaks, if provided. If you are forwarding a presentation, then it is better to make the content in the form of a menu with links - this way you will take care of the reader and save him time for flipping through the slides.
VisualMethod recommends not only to indicate the content of the speech, but to do it through the benefit for the listeners. For example, on the slide there is an item “how to specify budget boundaries in a commercial proposal”. As you make this point, make a promise: “After my presentation, you will know how to set budget limits in a commercial proposal.” Make sure people find your words useful to them.
As Alexander Mitta points out in his book Cinema Between Hell and Heaven, the first 20 minutes of the film spark interest in the whole story. Professionals call it the Inciting event or roughly translated “inciting event”. There is a similar approach in theatrical classics. Your introductory slides are the start and keep the whole story interesting.
Take stock
Remember the denouement at the end of a film or production: the moment when the viewer is illuminated and receives universal knowledge. This moment in your presentation will be the final slide with brief conclusions. It could be one big summary if you're talking about a truly new discovery, or 3 major rules or conclusions to sum up the whole talk.
Why summarize on a separate slide? Firstly, you help to make an unambiguous and correct conclusion based on the results of your speech. Secondly, you prepare the audience for the final presentation and give the opportunity to prepare questions.
Third, you can add value to your presentation. To do this, you need to focus on the fact that thanks to your performance, the audience learned, realized and understood something. In general, to create an effect of added value. For example, you list the names of three templates on which a commercial offer is built, and say: today you learned these three models, and using them you can clearly show your customers the benefits of working with you and accelerate sales.
The final slide should be short and really final. You should not continue further immersion in the topic after it, even if you remember some details. Use this moment to consolidate your expert status and final conclusion. What you can get to at this final point is the Q&A block, although in most cases it's best to leave it a little early and end the presentation on the note you want.
Help to contact you
Every presentation has a purpose. Entering the stage, the speaker sells the audience a product, a company, his expertise or some kind of action. Today it is rare to find a direct sale through a presentation, except in the network pyramids of cosmetics or magic pills. In most cases, the speaker collects the contacts of the audience. This does not mean that he walks around the room with a questionnaire, but he says where you can continue communication.
If you are not ready to give direct contacts, then indicate the e-mail of the company on the closing slide. For example, we use the general address [email protected], or even better, give a link to a social network where you can communicate with the audience or where useful materials appear on your topic.
If you are an independent consultant, you can also provide a general, personal address or a page on a social network through which you can be contacted.
To activate the audience, make a “call to action”. Ask for feedback on your presentation, share links on a topic, or suggest ways you can improve your presentation. As VisualMethod practice shows, about 10% of listeners are always responsive and active enough to leave a comment, and about 30% are ready to subscribe to your group's news.
PS
According to the “ancient” tradition, there should have been a mention of the phrase “Thank you for your attention!”. Saying “goodbye” is always difficult and you want to fill the awkward pause with a slide with such gratitude, but we urge you to stop on the slide with contacts. A “thank you slide” signals to the audience that your relationship is over and the goal of any business is to expand and maintain constant contact with your audience. Your contacts with this task will cope better.
Source: habr.com