Why are so many marketers and communicators such terrible presenters?

OK, OK, I don’t include you.

You are engaging, entertaining, funny, challenging and inspiring.

You open well, tell a great story, involve the audience and finish on a rousing note which makes the audience think, feel or act differently.

When you confidently press “play” your ad actually starts running. 

When you handle the Q&A you do so confidently and informatively, addressing the whole group and not just the questioner.

You don’t speak in clichés or jargon. And you never, ever say “I’m sorry, it’s the technology” – as that funny South African beer commercial you downloaded from YouTube fails to run.

But what about the rest?

I can’t tell you the number of presentations I’ve sat through at marketing and advertising events that have sent me to sleep, battered me into submission, or infuriated me to the point of explosion. 

We are supposed to be masters of communication and language – and yet I’ve seen time and time again presenters reading the script verbatim, using slides that had no relevance or interest to the audience, and losing control of technology – from complete melt-down to a simple inability to advance slides one at a time.

The oldest form of communication between groups of people – beyond the grunts and whoops of prehistoric hunters – is story-telling. The group sitting in a semi-circle, engrossed as the storyteller used images, metaphor, word pictures and, no doubt, rhetorical device and pattern to inform, inspire and entertain.

Our presentations should be like stories – with a beginning, a middle and an end. And most importantly, a point.

And everything you use – the words, your “stage” craft, your PowerPoint slides, visual aids, Q&A – should be focussed on making that point. Like great copywriting, the skill isn’t in the writing, it’s in the editing. It’s not what you put in; it’s what you throw out.

Here are three quick tips to help your next presentation make the point:

1. Write your last slide first. Or as Stephen Covey would put it, “Begin with the end in mind”. What do you want to achieve? What do you want your audience to think, feel or do when you stop talking? Everything else should be written to achieve that objective. And if you don’t have an end in mind, why make the presentation at all?
2. The three key elements of any presentation are the content (script, slides etc.), the presenter, and the audience. And most presenters start with the content. Why? That’s not the way we market to our consumers or customers, is it? We think of the audience first. What do they want? What are their interests, their demographics, their opinions? As a presenter you should start with them too.
3. Learn to present brilliantly. Do it by watching great presenters and watching how they do it. (Or by watching terrible presenters and doing the opposite – The Apprentice is a good place to start). Get someone in to train you and your team – but make sure the person you bring in has experience and knowledge of presenting in the space in which you need to operate: boardrooms, company meetings and potentially, Marketing Society events.

These three tips will in themselves make you a better presenter – and make it a bit more entertaining for the rest of us when we sit in the audience. 

If you’d like some more ideas on how to improve your presenting and public speaking, you should register for my ezine of regular tips at www.headsurfing.com