What Goes into Great Presentations: Public Speaking, Visualizations and Confidence! (Part 1 of 4)

Presentations come in all forms, be it meetings, sales pitches, or simply asking your friends to go watch the newest movie. We all hope for different outcomes in these encounters. Support from your colleagues and boss for the latest project, a client purchasing your services, or your friends being convinced enough to go to the cinemas.

Or.. Maybe you don't get the outcome you wanted.

So we want to find out, what makes an effective (impactful) presentation from one that's not? First, understand this, everyone goes through 4 processing phases when presented with new information.

Awareness Getting to know the issue or information at hand
Understanding Grasping and piecing together information presented in logical sequences
Internalization Digesting the information internally, and relating it to personal experience & knowledge
ACTION Making a decision considering potential consequences and risk.

So identifying the desired outcome (from action) that you hope will come out of a presentation, will drastically alter how you decide to deliver your presentation.

An impactful presentation evokes emotions and thoughts. Emotions are your brain's neon signs of saying "remember this" - the foundation towards your call for ACTION.

Within the business world, action impacts business results. Understanding that the impact of a presentation goes beyond what is shared in a (meeting, elevator, or even the toilet!) room is what makes it imperative in the world today, so that we can shape business results with a target in mind.

This is the point of this series *which will be released weekly, so stay tuned!* - to peel apart what goes into creating a giving a lasting presentation, and taking the audience on their processing journey. First and foremost, here is an anatomy containing three core aspects of any presentation:

Public Speaking

The ability to communicate ideas verbally in an interesting manner

Visualization

The ability to illustrate through captivating graphical elements

Confidence

The ability to deliver a message with ease and comfort.

Let's take a quick look at these aspects from a bird's eye view.

1. THE GREAT MYTH OF PUBLIC SPEAKING: SPEAKERS ARE BORN, NOT MADE

Nothing could be further from the truth than this statement. We've all heard the claims, that some people are just born with the booming voice, are just has that stage presence when standing in front of a crowd, but as in any other case, practice has a lot to do with it.

From the way we verbalize, move and communicate with the audience, there are always new ways to improve. Intonation, timing and reading reactions from the audience are just some parts of presentations that trigger subconscious reactions from listeners.

2. VISUALIZATION: WE ARE PROGRAMMED TO READ FASTER THAN LISTEN

Nothing turns off a member of the audience faster than a wall of text and endless bullet points. Worse still, can you imagine giving a presentation riddled with typos and incorrect data sets?

The other half of a presentation is engaging the audience visually with (accurate) content that are pleasing to the eyes, and are packed with rich and key information so that the audience can quickly understand the gist of a presentation.

3. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE CREATES CONFIDENCE

Ever had the jitters or stage bugs? Endless sweating combined with stuttering and voice crackles? No shame in that. Happens to the best of us. But what we do know is, practice is the surest way to get rid of it, or at least minimize it.

Take a look at the greatest presenters, all of them have had their fair share of practice before coming onto the world's largest platforms and putting forth their ideas. Be it being rehearsing in front of mirrors, to making sure all equipment on hand are ready, we pay tribute to the age-old saying, practice makes perfect.

Remember this, there's no silver bullet or a set of rules to great presentations. Every great presentation takes a convergence of these three facets.

We know that the best presentations are memorable and lasting. As we explore more on this topic to reveal some know-how and tools, we will keep iterating a core belief, that anyone can learn to create great presentations.

Thanks for reading!

YK has developed a comprehensive 1-2 day training on Towards Impactful Presentation conducted in some of the biggest organizations in Indonesia. This post is the 1st of a 4 part series that explores what goes into developing and giving a great presentation - giving readers an exclusive sneak peek into the training curriculum. For more information please contact support@yongkurniawan.com