There used to be a time when a presentation was like an oral book report.

You stand up, deliver it, and sit down.

Today’s audiences demand more authentic presentations that require a different approach.

• Avoid lecturing.  While lecturing has its academic benefits, younger audiences tune out.  Start every presentation with an off-the-cuff discussion of the benefits that participants are there to get.  If you’ve done your homework, you should have already isolated these areas.  Let them tell you what they want to learn.  Not the other way around.
• Allow interruptions and questions.  Any college professor will tell you that the more students weigh in – either with positives or negatives – the more the atmosphere for learning improves.
• I love this one.  I do it.  Ask each participant to quietly jot down the one thing they want to get out of the meeting.  Near the end of the presentation, ask them to look at their note and see if they are indeed getting that benefit.  If not, encourage them to tell you what you missed.
• Avoid PowerPoint.  Presenters like it.  Audiences hate it.  I use slides for pictures or videos only and then I make my notes available on Google Drive after the presentation.  But the notes are only available for a few days, which encourage participants to download them immediately after the meeting or miss out.
• Most important in communicating with today’s audiences – don’t try to sell them your point of view.  Most people are self-absorbed these days.  The job of the new age presenter is to navigate through subject matter that may be compelling to them – not dictate.
• Tell the group at the outset how long the presentation will be and tell them you intend to stick to it.   And then stick to it.  The mind can only absorb what the seat can endure.

Audiences dislike most presentations almost as much as presenters hate to put them together.

Presentations are an opportunity to activate many minds through new thinking instead of the best thinking of the presenter alone.

Subscribe to these Day Starters for free here.

Share them with friends and family by forwarding this email or posting to social media.

Don’t want to get these emails anymore?  Choose the link below to unsubscribe.