1. Planning and Delivering Presentations
Bart Flewelling April 2016
Planning and Delivering Presentations

2. Summary
Objective: How to Put Together and Deliver an Effective Presentation
Understanding Your Message
Understanding Your Audience
Combining Message with Audience Effectively
Presentation Delivery Best Practices
Common Pitfalls
Questions

3. Understanding Your Message
Who is contributing to your message?
Stakeholders—your teacher, your boss, your peers
Customers—your audience
Presentations lost in translation—Credibility
Can you boil down your message into one sentence?
Can you create a max of 3 bullet points outlining your objectives?
Do you have passion, or at least some strong feelings, about your topic?
Technical or specialized information
Calibrated to the audience
Presented in the most simple manner possible

4. Understanding Your Audience
Think of your Audience as your Customer
You have a message and an objective, but they may not understand it or share it if you do not focus on them and their needs
The Audience are also Collaborators
In your anticipating their needs and validating them, they dictate the course of the presentation
Who is in the Audience and who is important?
Decision makers whom you might be trying to persuade
Members who need to learn something from you and apply it

5. Putting It Together All presentations must at least be interesting!
The Why—why should the audience care about your message?
Getting the audience’s attention
A Story, Demonstration, or Visual Aid
A Joke, or a Shocking Statement
Storyline Approach
Current State and Future State
Call to Action
Visual Aid Best Practices
Avoid Distraction, Practice and Simplify
PowerPoint, the “Deck”

6. Delivery Best Practices Overview
Preview, View, Review
Tell them what you are going to tell them
Tell them
Tell them what you told them
Time: 60/40 guideline
S.O.F.T.E.N
Nerves
Questions from the Audience

7. S.O.F.T.E.N. Model S: SMILE! O: OPEN F: FORWARD T: TOUCH E: EYES
Be genuine and SMILE! Your audience will naturally light up, smile back, and feel connected to you!
O: OPEN
Open body posture, gestures, and positions are welcoming and inviting.
Avoid crossing arms or legs as your audience interprets these as signs of disinterest, disagreement, or distress.
F: FORWARD
Forward body positions show interest because we move closer when we are interested or attracte
Avoid moving away or keeping distance from your audience—it shows we are not interested in them
T: TOUCH
Touch in a social environment has a wide acceptance range, as in business, a handshake or high-five
E: EYES
EYES are the focal point of interest and the key indicators of mood, trustworthiness, and non-verbal body language
N: NOD
Nodding the head up and down means YES, acceptance, politeness, or respect in many cultures
S-O-F-T-E-N your approach and you will enjoy more “YES!!” from others!

8. Common Pitfalls and Solutions
Nerves
Deep breathing exercises
Don’t add, simplify!
Practice!
Audience Issues
Questions from the audience
Bored or distracted audience, other interruptions
Technical problems
Time—there is never enough of it

9. Review Understand your message Make it easy on yourself
Build credibility by being a subject matter expert
Make it easy on yourself
Simplify Your Message
Simplify Your Presentation
Calibrate the message to your audience
Anticipate their needs and validate them
Get feedback, anticipate questions
Practice, prepare!
Take pitfalls in stride