3 Essential Executive Presentation Tips for Maximum Impact"

Why do senior leaders fail to deliver great presentations?

Time and time again, good leaders fail to deliver good presentations. I'm sure the intention is there to deliver well and whether it's a lack of skill, arrogance, or mis-placed confidence the consistent output we hear about is of formulaic, slightly tired, cliche ridden, poorly delivered, uninspiring monologues. Sound familiar? It doesn’t have to be this way.

We see over and over situations where a leader might be entirely confident when presenting internally but goes to pieces on the big occasions. Internal Town halls and all hands have a familiar audience, and the authority of their position gives them the confidence to know they can get the message across without too much thought. Perhaps it is also that the expectation is lower on both sides (sadly). But, put that same leader out of the comfort zone, presenting at a customer event a conference or to potential investors and panic sets in. We sometimes get called in less than a week before an event in order to rectify the situation.

So, this blog is intended to capture three things’ leaders could do to build their skills and punch up a level.

Good doesn't just happen. 

To present well, you need to make time to practice. Malcolm Gladwell talks about 10,000 hours of practice. That might work for sports stars or musicians who must hone very specific skills but realistically 10,000 hours is a high bar and while that may make you a terrific presenter (assuming you have a good coach) you may not have any time left to do anything else like run your business. However, presentation skills can also be practised. A good rule of thumb is that you should run through one full rehearsal for each minute of your presentation. If it's a big presentation, record yourself doing it and watch it back. Find a private space so you can be confident you won't be interrupted and start your run throughs. Your practice has to be meaningful, it's not enough just to sit and read through your slides or mutter under your breath. You actually need to stand up and fully vocalise your presentation. Own the words you will say and get used to the way you will say them. You may find that the words you have written aren’t the words you would use and said out loud, it just doesn’t feel right. Meaningful practice will iron these wrinkles out.

Split your presentation into thirds. 

It's an old line, but it stands the test of time. Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them your core message. Tell them what you told them. By dividing your presentation into thirds, you can more easily practise on pacing, your story, and the order of your key points. You should be using one third to set up the next. That ensures you have a strong opening. A solid middle. And a powerful ending. It also allows you to break the presentation down so you can really see what you're doing in each section. Politicians do this with campaign speeches, swapping out sections as they go to freshen up a standard ‘stump’ speech.

Use talking points, not a script.

When presenting you will have a lot going on. You’ll want to deliver to time while avoiding sounding wooden or worse, as if you're reading it. You need to engage with the audience, using eye contact across all four corners of the room. Unless you are at a lectern you also must think about your movement, posture, and body language so with all that to consider, you must know your content.

Break your presentation down into thirds, as we talked about above. And then break it down into talking points. Then you can concentrate on landing each individual point before you then move on. In this way as you practice you will find better ways of landing your message allowing your audience to understand the core message of each point. This also gives you flexibility to lengthen some points and shorten others, perhaps adapting to themes that have come up in other presentations. Because you aren’t welded to a script, you can go from point to point without losing your place and use more natural language.

Using talking points to guide through a presentation you already know well then allows you to use cue cards or even a post-it in your hand to prompt you from talking point to talking point.

Of course, there is a lot more to creating a good presentation than these three points. But practise, the rule of thirds and using talking points are really the core. Often when we coach Executive Event Prep, we have professionals who know their content and are at a pretty good level so we will work a lot more on tone, body language, movement, and emphasis. Soon, with good coaching, the presentation becomes more of a performance. When someone is really practised their presentation and knows what they're doing it comes across and builds belief and confidence in the message, all because of a more polished delivery.

You only have to watch a couple of TED talks to see the difference it can make. For more tips, read some of our additional blogs on the website. Or better still, get in touch. Whatever the challenge, we can help.

At Smooth Communication, we coach professionals to deliver effective presentations and communicate clearly. We offer customised workshops and one-on-one training to help you enhance your public speaking skills and get your message across. www.smoothcommunication.co.uk