The cardinal rule in dealing with the media is to make sure they know who is in control.

We have a lot more people giving presentations now, which is wonderful because we can share what we know and learn from a broad and diverse group of people. 

The downside is that for the most part people are NOT trained on how to give effective presentations, and sometimes people make poor assumptions that can have unfortunate result. 

This is often particularly true for Subject Matter Experts who think that because they know so much about something that qualifies them to teach other people about it. As you have likely experienced, this is not always the case.

That’s not to say that SMEs can’t become competent presenters, but it does require some effort. 

Here are three important rules for you to follow as you begin to learn about giving effective presentations:

1. Revere Your Audience
2. Focus & Simplify
3. Your speech (or performance), slides, and handouts are three different things

REVERE YOUR AUDIENCE

While you need to be self-aware, you also need to be attentive to the people you are speaking with. They are not there for you. You are there for them. 

That means paying attention to their body language (even virtually), watching out for raised hand, open microphones, and people trying to speak but keep getting interrupted. 

New and sometimes even experienced presenters often speak too quickly, trail off, swallow the end of their statements, and mumble. This can be due to anxiety, their personal speaking tendencies, or getting lost in their own head. When you are speaking for an audience, you need to articulate everything. Slow down. This will help you cut down on filler words and control your anxiety, and help your audience keep up with your content and understand what you’re saying.

However, do NOT speak at the same pace throughout your presentation. Engaging speakers know the importance of varying their intonation, volume, and pace. This is essential for good story telling and good story telling is often critical for an engaging presentation. 

Be comfortable with silence. Take pause for a few seconds. To help a point sink in, gather your thoughts, or just add drama, this can be a powerful tool if used properly. 

FOCUS & SIMPLIFY

A lot of people learned about giving presentations in school. The objective there was often to show how much you knew. This is true in middle school all the way up to graduate school. But how you present in an academic setting is generally not how to effectively present in the professional world. In school it’s really more of an examination. In that setting, you’re trying to prove yourself. When you get your PhD your presentation is literally called a defense. 

That is absolutely not what you should be doing when presenting in the professional world. Your goal when presenting is to enlighten or education the people you are speaking with. 

It is not your goal to show them how much you have learned about any given topic or how complicated something is.  Your job, in fact, is to make it seem simple.

Boil it down. Find the essence of what your audience needs to know and stick to it. 

This is the hardest part of putting together a presentation and if you’re not willing to do it, then don’t bother. Regurgitating all the information you gathered through research or your professional experience is unprofessional and unfair to you audience. 

If you find that a subject is just to vast or complex, then split it up into more than one presentation. It is your job to organize the information in a way that is accessible and engaging, so that your audience does not have to go through all the trouble you had to when you were learning about it. 

If you just feel strongly about making sure your audience knows there is a lot more to learn about your subject and where to learn more, that’s what handouts are for. 

YOUR SPEECH, SLIDES, AND HANDOUTS ARE 3 DIFFERENT THINGS 

Slide decks in general and PowerPoint specifically have gotten a lot of negative attention over the years, but the truth is slides, when used properly, are an important learning tool. 

Not everyone is an auditory learner, for example. Slides can help a lot of people better understand your content.

And sometimes, a point you are trying to make can be greatly aided by allegory or imagery. Slides can help ground and guide your audience, and add depth to your message.

The problem is that people so often misuse slides. Lazy or untrained presenters will simply gather research, dump it into PowerPoint, and then use that document as both a teleprompter during the presentation and a handout for after the presentation. It makes for an insufferable experience for the audience. 

Think about the common practice of people requesting a presenter’s slide deck to an audience after the presentation. A slide deck should be virtually useless on its own. It is only with the actual performance of the presenter that slides should have any real meaning. 

Think of it this way:

Speech 

Your speech contains your core message. It is your most powerful tool because it where you can tell stories, show emotion, and appeal to the audience. That’s where people will be most engaged in the subject and will have the greatest influence on your audience. Show your personality when you deliver your message. 

Slides

There are certainly instances when slides are not necessary and could actually weaken a presentation, but keep in mind that slides can have serve an important role. Slides can help convey information in a DIFFERENT way. It is an accessory to your core message that can illustrate or encapsulate your message. They can help take the burden off of the audience of trying to keep track of where they are in the structure of the messaging so they can better focus on what you are saying in the present moment. 

Content on a slide should be minimal or nothing at all.  You do not want your audience to have to read and listen to you speak at the same time. Any words you have on the slide should be conceptual, not lengthy statements that are essentially reiterations of what you are saying. Also, a good rule of thumb is that if you find yourself using sub-bullets, you’re doing it wrong. Slides should not be granular. 

That is where handouts come in handy.

Handouts

Handouts are the reference material for your audience. 

It allows them to refresh their memories, retrieve information later, or dig into the details as they like or when they need to. 

When people got into the unfortunate practice of using their slides as their handouts, they set everyone up for failure. Because now, all that detailed information started going on slides, and in turn, presenters reading off their slides rather than engaging with the audience. 

So rather than getting a fully fleshed out presentation that took advantage of the unique benefits that performance, slides, and handouts had to offer, it was all just someone reciting their handouts. 

So, yes, it’s no wonder people have come to hate presentations and slides.

One final note about handouts. Remember that there is no rule that says supplemental material can only be sent to an audience after the presentation. It can be a good idea to send content to an audience before a presentation so that they can really hit the ground running during the event itself. Just make sure it’s not too onerous and complex. This gets us into flipped classrooms and blended learning, which is a subject for different time.

Conclusion

It’s great that so many people want to share their knowledge and expertise with other people, but as a presenter you should take the time to understand how to convey your message. 

Presenting and public speaking are big, complex skills. They can make a big difference in how you can help people and share important messages to a lot of people. Having even a basic understanding of presentating and communication can go a long way. Get out there and do some good.

What is the cardinal rule of public relations?

Which of the following wire services does not guarantee use of materials?

Why are the print media important to public relations professionals quizlet?

Which of the following is a benefit publicity has over advertising?