August 23rd, 2007 in Communication, Featured

18 Tips for Killer Presentations

Jerry Seinfeld has a skit where he points out that studies show public speaking is a bigger fear than death. That means, he claims, that if you are going to a funeral you are better off in the casket than doing the eulogy. While there isn’t a lot you can do to melt away your anxiety, a the best start is simply to make a better presentation.

Becoming a competent, rather than just confident, speaker requires a lot of practice. But here are a few things you can consider to start sharpening your presentation skills:

10-20-30 Rule - This is a slideshow rule offered by Guy Kawasaki. This rule states that a powerpoint slide should have no more than 10 slides, last no longer than 20 minutes and have no text less than 30 point font. He says it doesn’t matter whether your idea will revolutionize the world, you need to spell out the important nuggets in a few minutes minutes, a couple slides and a several words a slide.
Be Entertaining - Speeches should be entertaining and informative. I’m not saying you should act like a dancing monkey when giving a serious presentation. But unlike an e-mail or article, people expect some appeal to there emotions. Simply reciting dry facts without any passion or humor will make people less likely to pay attention.
Slow Down - Nervous and inexperienced speakers tend to talk way to fast. Consciously slow your speech down and add pauses for emphasis.
Eye Contact - Match eye contact with everyone in the room. I’ve also heard from salespeople that you shouldn’t focus all your attention on the decision maker since secretaries and assistants in the room may hold persuasive sway over their boss.
15 Word Summary - Can you summarize your idea in fifteen words? If not, rewrite it and try again. Speaking is an inefficient medium for communicating information, so know what the important fifteen words are so they can be repeated.
20-20 Rule - Another suggestion for slideshows. This one says that you should have twenty slides each lasting exactly twenty seconds. The 20-20 Rule forces you to be concise and to keep from boring people.
Don’t Read - This one is a no brainer, but somehow Powerpoint makes people think they can get away with it. If you don’t know your speech without cues, that doesn’t just make you more distracting. It shows you don’t really understand your message, a huge blow to any confidence the audience has in you.
Speeches are About Stories - If your presentation is going to be a longer one, explain your points through short stories, quips and anecdotes. Great speakers know how to use a story to create an emotional connection between ideas for the audience.
Project Your Voice - Nothing is worse than a speaker you can’t hear. Even in the high-tech world of microphones and amplifiers, you need to be heard. Projecting your voice doesn’t mean yelling, rather standing up straight and letting your voice resonate on the air in your lungs rather than in the throat to produce a clearer sound.
Don’t Plan Gestures - Any gestures you use need to be an extension of your message and any emotions that message conveys. Planned gestures look false because they don’t match your other involuntary body cues. You are better off keeping your hands to your side.
“That’s a Good Question” - You can use statements like, “that’s a really good question,” or “I’m glad you asked me that,” to buy yourself a few moments to organize your response. Will the other people in the audience know you are using these filler sentences to reorder your thoughts? Probably not. And even if they do, it still makes the presentation more smooth than um’s and ah’s littering your answer.
Breathe In Not Out - Feeling the urge to use presentation killers like ‘um,’ ‘ah,’ or ‘you know’? Replace those with a pause taking a short breath in. The pause may seem a bit awkward, but the audience will barely notice it.
Come Early, Really Early - Don’t fumble with powerpoint or hooking up a projector when people are waiting for you to speak. Come early, scope out the room, run through your slideshow and make sure there won’t be any glitches. Preparation can do a lot to remove your speaking anxiety.
Get Practice - Join Toastmasters and practice your speaking skills regularly in front of an audience. Not only is it a fun time, but it will make you more competent and confident when you need to approach the podium.
Don’t Apologize - Apologies are only useful if you’ve done something wrong. Don’t use them to excuse incompetence or humble yourself in front of an audience. Don’t apologize for your nervousness or a lack of preparation time. Most audience members can’t detect your anxiety, so don’t draw attention to it.
Do Apologize if You’re Wrong - One caveat to the above rule is that you should apologize if you are late or shown to be incorrect. You want to seem confident, but don’t be a jerk about it.
Put Yourself in the Audience - When writing a speech, see it from the audiences perspective. What might they not understand? What might seem boring? Use WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) to guide you.
Have Fun - Sounds impossible? With a little practice you can inject your passion for a subject into your presentations. Enthusiasm is contagious.

What tips do you have for making killer presentations? Add your thoughts to the comments or write about it in the How To.

WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY

Scott H Young

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Nathan Ketsdever says on August 23rd, 2007 at 11:03 am

Practice & presentations are about stories are both HUGE.

Putting yourself in the shoes of your audience as much as humanly possible is also HUGE!! The “why should I pay attention? What is the important/significant to me?” One way is getting that input that is both a) practice and b) audience centric is asking a friend to watch and give suggestions (or at a bare minimum sending the outline to a friend to check out and critique)

Nice post!
Michael L. says on August 23rd, 2007 at 11:41 am

Edward Tufte has a similar list for use without PowerPoint. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see it: Tufte’s Tips for Successful Presentation.
Rick says on August 23rd, 2007 at 5:39 pm

Wow. Fantastic. I love this article
Ricardo Vidal says on August 23rd, 2007 at 8:04 pm

I’d add another tip to this list.

Start you presentations with a light joke. If possible, have the joke directly related to the subject at matter.
It helps loosen up the listeners and it gives you some idea of the type of audience you have before yourself.
Dave says on August 23rd, 2007 at 8:35 pm

Another thing Tufte advocates is: Getting rid of PowerPoint. His Cognitive Style of PowerPoint essay is devoted to the idea that PowerPoint corrupts critical thinking, for both the presenter and receiver, and he quotes a major company CEO sick of “PowerPoint grunts”, paraphrased as “When you come to pitch me an idea, you will use these constructs called sentences. Sentences are arranged in paragraphs that express your thoughts. Paragraphs are collected into papers.”
n/a says on August 23rd, 2007 at 8:39 pm

Does lifehack every have posts that weren’t on 43folders mere days or hours before?
Dorai Thodla says on August 24th, 2007 at 2:30 am

Some of the best presentations I have seen have just one sentence on each slide. Each of these provoke a thought, ask a question or make a statement.

Sprinkling your presentation with a few relevant visuals helps a lot.

I generally ask questions if they don’t ask throughout the presentation. It breaks the monotony of a single voice.
Daniel Kim says on August 24th, 2007 at 4:59 am

Oddly enough, practice in public speaking can be had by joining a 12-step group. After you have revealed your life’s greatest challenges to an audience that won’t take a lot of bull__it, you can speak to anyone!

. . .

Except that you will always want to start your talk with “I’m Daniel, and I am a crackberry addict.”
Lilx says on August 24th, 2007 at 7:47 am

“I’m not saying you should act like a dancing monkey when giving a serious presentation.”

Like Steve Ballmer? LOL
Derrick says on August 25th, 2007 at 10:49 am

If you need to spruce up your presentation, I recommend you use Ovation. Only works with Powerpoint 2003 and below for now though. One click later and it will look really impressive.
Matthew Cornell says on August 27th, 2007 at 12:40 pm

Great tips - thanks!
Peter says on August 28th, 2007 at 10:56 pm

All the above are good tips, however the presentation can be undone with poor spelling or grammar like points one and two for example.

TIP 19. Spell and grammar check your presentation.
Lenny says on September 14th, 2007 at 2:49 pm

hi there,

good starter, I wrote a post on this a while ago, might also be helpful to some people.

You can find it here:
http://blog.pxfx.de/2006/10/le.....mmunicate/
Paul Gibler says on September 21st, 2007 at 5:52 pm

Nice list of tips. Your readers might also like to take a look at the PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques Resource Guide that I’ve compiled with links to a range of articles, web sites and tools for improving presentations. I’ll be releasing the 5th version of the Guide early next week.
Terry Gault says on May 30th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

When I first began doing this work, I thought there was a set of rules such as: “You MUST do X, you CAN’T do Y.” Now I realize there are only guidelines. Because for every rule, I have seen someone “break it” and make it work. As someone who has sat through countless presentations, I always am delighted when someone does that.

I will echo and add these guidelines:

Change your paradigm about the sensation you are labeling as fear or anxiety. Instead of labeling it as “fear,” think of it as energy. Channel that energy.

Clarity and simplicity are critical in presentation content. I had a great presentation coach who said, “If you can’t make it clear, it doesn’t belong in your presentation.”

Don’t hesitate to say what you think. There is a common phrase at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center: “Point of view is worth 80 IQ points.”

Seek out opportunities to use humor in your presentations. I find that interaction helps in that regard. I can respond to interactions with the audience with humor and laughter.

Scale up the energy level! You will command more attention and project more confidence and charisma. I cannot stress this strongly enough. 80 – 90% of the presenters that I observe do not expend enough energy. Hence, they come across as uninvolved, uninteresting, and unenthusiastic.

Work on crafting compelling, satisfying conclusions. Tying a compelling conclusion to your main point will help your audience remember your message.

Lastly, don’t give up. As American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”
Ronak says on June 2nd, 2008 at 4:28 am

Nice tips. Covers most of the weak areas which need to be taken care of.
Al says on November 13th, 2008 at 7:13 pm

You just contradicted yourself. See tip#1 and tip#6
Rebel Industries says on December 29th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

Totally agree with your points - especially practice - the more even and conversational your flow, the more receptive your audience is. We just embarked on a new project and added something to our presentations that has proved invaluable for follow-up conversation… Ask them what they liked, didn’t like. http://rebelindustries.com/?p=.....com/?p=352
Balu says on January 28th, 2009 at 5:20 pm

Tips are really helpfull
Jeremy says on April 21st, 2009 at 7:56 pm

This is a good article in which the tips can be useful for anyone making presentations. I’d like to add that including creative visual effects can be helpful in getting certain points across, but not in a manner that becomes distracting.

I recommend SlideRocket, a web-based presentation app that knocks the living daylights out of PowerPoint 2003 / 2007 from an effects perspective.