Truth 43 - Involve your audience

Some presenters believe that ‘winging it’ is their way of improvising. This may work for you but it’s not fair to your audience. It’s highly likely that your audience will see that you are unprepared, and they won’t thank you for it.Solution – Don’t rely on your charm or talent. Do the work.

How do you want your audience to feel?If you don’t have a very clear answer to that question, it’s highly unlikely that you will feel it yourself.If you don’t feel it the moment you begin to craft and deliver your presentation your audience won’t either.There are two types of presenter. The mindful minority understand the power of intention.Solution – Set a clear and meaningful intention for how you want your audience to feel emotionally.

The mediocre presenter believes that their slides are their presentation. PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides or any other visual aid software is not your presentation. High-quality presentation software can help your presentation audience receive your content more effectively. This software exists to help rather than replace you as a presenter.Solution – Remember that your audience have come to hear you, not to see your slides. If visuals don’t add significant value to your audience, don’t use them.

‘The prerequisite to a brilliant presentation, before focusing on delivery, is to ensure that your message is supported by rich, relevant and rewarding content.’The primary purpose of any presentation is to share information with your audience. Disorganised, boring or irrelevant content is the fastest way to annoy, bore or lose your audience.Solution – Make your presentation content rich and compelling

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin FranklinSolution – Prepare, prepare, prepare.

Death by PowerPoint is something every presentation audience has experienced. It’s broader than the bullet point phenomenon. Imagine a slide fraught with text, numbers, charts, or data. A slide crammed with data is annoying and unnecessary.Solution – One idea per slide; no more. Don’t clutter slides; less is more.

What do you want your audience to do when you have finished presenting?If you don’t have a very clear answer to that question, it’s highly likely they won’t do anything at all with the information you share with them.Solution – Set a clear and meaningful objective for exactly what you want your audience to do at the end of your presentation. Make sure you tell them.

The moment a presentation audience sees a list of bullet points their hearts sink.Bullet points are a signpost that they need to brace themselves for a long, boring presentation.Solution – Use images instead! If you have to use bullet points have as few as possible and keep the short!

Mindful Presenter is far more than a training and development business helping people to speak with greater confidence and impact. We are in the business of helping people to connect with each other. Connecting themselves and their ideas with others in a way that is calm, creative and compelling. Mindful Presenting is the route to connecting emotionally as well as intellectually with your audience?What do you do?

Public speaking and high impact presenting is about how we make people feel. It's not simply about sharing knowledge and data, that's easy. The five most important words in presenting and public speaking is Please Make Me Feel Something. Imagine your audience silently screaming those 5 words out to you from their own minds.