Five easy steps to epic presentations (ABCDE)

So, here’s how to ensure your next one is epic!  It’s as easy as ABCDE…

• Ask questions.  Everyone prefers interactivity.  It turns one-way presentations into two-way conversations.  So when preparing your presenter notes, always include questions to ask your audience.  That way, you’ll ask questions!  And, that way, they’ll answer them.  You now have an interactive conversation
• Build slides.  When presenters show wordy slides, audiences read ahead. Always.  The only way to stop them reading ahead?  Use slide builds.  When you click to bring up your next point, it means they can only see the point you’re currently talking about.  This is an obvious thing to do.  But most people don’t do it.  Which is weird.  It can be hard enough to keep people engaged… why give them extra things to read, to distract them?!
• Compelling start. Your start is your first impression.  It MUST be brilliant.  So script and practise it.  Identify the best words to engage them.  Then practise saying them out loud until you become epic at saying them!  Grab them early, and everything should be fine.  Lose them then, and it definitely won’t be
• DO at the end.  When you want your audience to DO something after you’ve presented… you’ll have to ask them to DO it.  So, make your last slide a Call To Action slide.  Call it “our immediate next steps” or some such. State what you want your audience to do next.  If you do, they’ll probably do it.  If you don’t, they definitely won’t
• Excitement.  If you aren’t excited about your content, nobody will be.  So make it as exciting as possible.  Deliver with passion and enthusiasm.  Use excited words – “I’m excited to share this with you”, not “here’s this week’s update”.  Sound like you care
• All these points are obvious. But most presentations don’t do any of them! No questions. All-at-once slides. Boring starts. Last slides saying “thank you” or “any questions?” No excitement – anywhere.

You’ll be making a presentation soon.  Will it be epic?  It could be.  It’s as easy as ABCDE.

Action Point

For your next presentation, incorporate as many of ABCDE as you can.  Both you and your audience will enjoy it more. And you’re more likely to deliver a presentation that works.

For lots more tips, go to www.andybounds.com/tips