How to be sure that your audience remembers your message when speaking in public

by:  Ellen Egan

Brenda Starr

One of your main goals as a public speaker is to ensure that your audience remembers your key messages.  If you audience doesn’t remember what you came to say in your presentation, then there is little point in getting up on the stage at all.  So, how do we go about ensuring that the audience remembers what we want them to remember.

Define your key messages. First of all, as you are preparing your presentation, take the time to clearly define your key messages.  What are the 3-5 ideas that you want them to walk away with?  By the way, if you can’t put this into 3-5 clear, concise sentences, then you need to focus all of your attention on this part of your presentation.

Look at it from your audience’s point of view.  Look at your key messages and think about them from your audience’s point of view.  Why are these things meaningful for them?  Does it solve a problem for them, or perhaps make their lives easier?  If you can present your messages from their viewpoint, they are more likely to 1.  pay attention, 2.  remember what you have said and 3.  take whatever action you recommend.

First things first. Studies have shown that when given a list of things to remember, people are most successful at remembering the first and last items in the list.  This is called primacy and recency.  This means that people remember the first and last messages from your presentation and the stuff in the middle is a bit of a blur.  So, what you should do is be sure to put the most important messages at the beginning and the end.  Another option is to be sure to recap at the end and include all of your key messages.

Keep it short. If people are more likely to remember what you say at the beginning and the end, then this is a great argument for keeping your presentation nice and short.  Then there is less stuff in the middle for them to forget.   I have heard some great advice to keep all presentation to no more than 20 minutes.  I think this is fabulous advice.  If your presentation is focused, interesting, lively,  framed from the audience’s needs and short, then you will be delivering successful presentations (and enjoying public speaking at the same time).

To your success,

Ellen

Powerpoint presentations – what your audience wants to see

by: Ellen Egan

Geetesh Bajaj

Death by PowerPoint.  It’s a term we have all heard before, representing the excruciating feeling of being bored to death by a too-long presentation, delivered in monotone and at its foundations is a set of PowerPoint slides containing too much text, too many ideas and too much clip art.

PowerPoint was designed as a presentation software that would aid the presenter by providing an easy way to create slides and move away from the dreadful overhead transparencies.  However, people who lacked the skill to present and the desire to create an interesting presentation began to use PowerPoint as a crutch, a flashy way to distract from the fact that they didn’t know or care enough about their topic to make an effective presentation.

Let’s talk about how to use PowerPoint (or any presentation software) properly.  After all, presentation greats like Steve Jobs  use presentation software.  They just do it well.

people want to see presentations that are:

Short:  No matter what type of presentation tool you are using or what topic is at the center of your presentation, stick to the 10- 20-30 rule that Guy Kawasaki promotes.  Your presentation should be no longer than 10 slides.  Keep it short.  If you can’t get your ideas across in 10 slides, then you need to have someone else edit it down to 10 slides.  The “20″ part of the equation is that you should speak for 20 minutes at the most.  We all get distracted after 20 minutes.  This allows time after your presentation for Q & A.

Simple: Keep the ideas focused.  This is true for the overall theme of your presentation and for each slide.  Within the general theme of your presentation, you should have about 3 main points (no more than 5).  you should be able to get 3 main points across in 10 slides.  Keep the slides simple as well.  long gone are the days when audiences will put up with slides filled with text at a 10 point font.  Keep it to a few words per slide,  that express the ideas that you are presenting.

Understandable: Here is where the “30″ part of the equation comes in. Use a 30 point font. Then, even the person at the back of the room has a chance to read the words on your slide.

Appealing: Use words that capture people’s attention, trigger their emotions, mean something to them.  As I always say, keep your audience in mind.  Think of what would mean something to them and build your presentation from that standpoint.

If you follow these rules, your audience will thank you.  You will also find that you are much more effective at presentations  and you enjoy public speaking a lot more.

To your success,

Ellen

PS.  Here is one of the best books that I know of on creating great presentations Garr Reynolds Presentation Zen: