How to liven up your presentation

Presentation techniques are tools that help us translate a page of written text into spoken life. They are the means by which we bring words to life, spark interest, and connect with our audience. Learn the following 7 techniques and your audience will be hanging on every word you say.

1. Talk into their ears

Remember that your audience receives your words through their ears. They don’t read. That’s why you have to constantly ask yourself, “How will this sound to my audience?”. In particular, you should check for… • the use of jargon, technical and bureaucratic language, long sentences and gibberish. Avoid them. • specific meanings: “next Friday” is better than “soon”. • concrete words, not abstract ones: ‘microphone’ is better than ‘loudspeakers’. • Anglo-Saxon rather than Latinized words: ‘to speak’ is better than ‘to speak’.

2. Use conversational English

Speakers who lack the confidence to speak directly to their audience tend to rely heavily on their prepared texts. This creates the risk of speaking the written word, which may sound artificial and unclear. On the other hand, spoken English is natural and fluent. By creating the feeling of a personal conversation, a conversational style helps you connect with your audience.

Idiomatic spoken English is clearly different from written English. It allows for the occasional ungrammatical and incorrect use of words and sentences when the meaning is clear and sounds right. For example, you wouldn’t say the grammatically correct “Who is this for?” instead of the colloquial “Who’s it for?”

3. Make Everthing Make Sense

One of the most important points to remember about presentation is that written English does not always make the same sense to the listener as spoken English. When we read written English, we move at our own pace and can pause, go back, or skip ahead. When we listen, we expect the speaker to make sense to us. Notice the difference between these two ways of expressing the same sentence.

No: “The user will no doubt be familiar with the consequences of a machine malfunctioning at critical moments.”
But: “I hope you understand what I mean. You’re right in the middle of something worth saving when, Phut!, the whole damned thing goes up in smoke. Before your eyes . . .”

4. Pointer where you are going

Technique of the office Pointersor Markup, can be used throughout the presentation. Pointers, like street signs, are a way of letting your audience know in advance what will happen next in your talk. It is used to tell the audience what you want them to understand from it.

• We can label the entire conversation as we begin: “I’d like to do three things this morning. First, I’d like to look at our current situation; then our plans; and finally, our expenses.”
• we can make a sub-item: “My second area is to look at plans. First for this year; then for next year…”
• we can label any problem, “Let me give you an example of what I mean…”
• we can mark the end with “One more point before I finish…”

Audiences like signposts because it helps them know where they are.

5. Use jokes to build relationships

Jokes are a way to entertain the audience and share something with them at the same time. The point of contact is shared laughter. When a joke works, it brings you closer; conversely, if the joke doesn’t work, it pushes you apart. Jokes should be appropriate, well delivered and, of course, funny. A blue-collar joke from a rugby club evening speech probably won’t work well at the Women’s Institute’s annual conference. Equally, a poorly told joke where you get it wrong, tell it too quickly, or forget an important point is worse than no joke at all.

This joke, told by Patrick Forsyth, seems to capture the mood of the farewell speech: “I remember the day after Nigel joined us, and overheard the impression he made on two young Accounts girls. ‘Doesn’t Mr Green dress badly,’ said one. “Yes,” answered the other. “And so soon.”

6. Pause for maximum effect

Some of the best moments in a speech are, ironically, the moments when you pause. Knowing when to stop is the art of the creative pause. This can work for you in a number of ways:

• to tease the audience, perhaps after a provocative question: “I bet you’d like to know how you could make a million…”

• pause before the main point of a joke • wait for the audience to stop after laughter or general discussion

• to give the audience time to think (like when you’re looking at a new salary) • to show that you’re in complete control by holding the pause a little longer than you need to.

7. Show, don’t just tell

Turning a simple presentation moment into a narrative or story can entertain and engage your audience on a different level. It’s a way of showing them, not just telling them.

Not: “Our personal computer has three types of memory: RAM, hard disk, and disk drive.”

But: “Designing memory for this particular computer has always been a difficult problem. The first team to look at it was Rob James and Ellen Smith. After a few experiments, they found they could build one. Their problem was what to do with the hard drive. They hadn’t worked on anything like this before. They were about to give you when news came from Japan about a strange new microchip…”

Master these simple techniques and you’ll take your presentation experience to heights you’ve only dreamed of before!

If you need help improving your public speaking and presentation skills, use these resources: