Make Your Presentation Memorable

Good Presenters are created not born!  

Those with what looks like a natural flair are most often those who prepare more thoroughly. 

Steve Jobs is a great example of this. He prepared so thoroughly he was able to make it seem as though he was presenting totally off the cuff. The reality was that he prepared more thoroughly than most of us do – the effect – his presentations appeared totally natural and relaxed.

Thorough preparation makes you absolutely confident in what you’re are going to say, how you’re going to say it and what you want your audience to do as a result.

If we prepare like Steve Jobs then we will able to focus on communicating with our audience – often with non-verbal messages which in turn helps deliver our messages all the more effectively.

For those of us who still hold some fear of standing up and speaking in public there are a number of techniques that we can use to ensure that our presentation is viewed as successful by the audience. In this and subsequent communications we will investigate in detail what is required in order to create and deliver the highest quality presentations.

The first thing you can do in order to make your presentation successful is to prepare thoroughly. It’s like anything in life or business,  the better you are prepared the more capable you are to deal with the unexpected – and the unexpected can and does happen (especially when you least want it to).

The most important thing to consider before you do anything else is what action / change / decision do you want the audience to make as a result of the presentation. Are you trying to educate, inform or entertain them? When you know this everything else is all about making sure that you get them to reach the same conclusion as you and go along with your suggestion / call to action.
Next consider who the audience are – are they experts in the subject, do they know very little, or are they somewhere in between or a mix of all three?

You have most likely been asked to deliver this presentation (or section) because you are an expert in the subject matter. This is always a good starting point, and in itself should give you some confidence. But, it is critical to research much further into the subject, so that you build up a reasoned and credible case. You will most likely end up with much more material than you will ultimately use – this additional information could be vital for the question & answer session that inevitably follows.

Once you have gathered all of the information you may require you can now start preparing the actual presentation. There are three distinct stages – the structure (the overall shape), the content (the detail), and the delivery (how you communicate).

In the next three messages I will take each section in turn and provide detailed information on what is required for each step of the process.
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At the Bid Coach are experts in training your teams to win.

Contact Hugh at:hugh@thebidcoach.com or via www.thebidcoach.com