When you are fortunate enough to be asked to make a presentation of any kind, always consider it a command performance. Seize the opportunity to show off your talents (but not in an arrogant way).

Throughout my career, I encountered many people who treated their presentations as a necessary but unwelcome job responsibility. It was as if they considered their presentations to be annoyances that interfered with their “real” work. And like a trip to the dentist, they were glad when it was completed, and the pain subsided.

I held the opposite view. I have always believed that presentations provide you with an opportunity to showcase your knowledge and expertise; to lead, guide, and inform others; and to contribute to an organization’s success.

For that reason, I always put a lot of thought and effort into my presentations—whether they were short presentations to a small group of employees or more in-depth presentations to a much larger group. Larger groups were often employees of a large division or department, a large “town hall” type meeting, or a presentation addressed to thousands of the company’s agents. As my career advanced, I also had numerous opportunities to speak at industry meetings and eventually was honored to deliver a few college commencement addresses.

I gave the same level of attention to my preparation for each presentation, no matter what the audience or venue. In this blog, I provide you with some useful tips on your own preparation.

Speaking Skills Are High on Employers’ Wish Lists

Did you ever notice, when watching interviews or presentations delivered by high-ranking corporate executives or government officials, that in most cases, they are very articulate, and their remarks are well-structured? There most certainly is a positive correlation between success and speaking ability.

In a 2018 survey conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, executives and hiring managers said good verbal communication is the skill they want most from job candidates. This skill outranked others that get far more public attention, such as critical thinking, solving complex problems, working in teams, and writing well. More than 80 percent of the executives and hiring managers surveyed said good verbal skills were important, and fewer than half said recent college graduates excel in this area.

A primary reason why schools don’t focus on this important skill is that schools are not generally required to test for it. This means that, most likely, you will need to develop your own speaking and presentation skills.

This is an area in which new employees (especially those re-entering the workforce after an absence) can most easily position themselves for career success. In the sections that follow, I will point out ways in which you can benefit by greatly enhancing these critical skills. If you are re-entering the workforce after an extended absence, you probably were schooled in an earlier era, when there was more emphasis in schools on communication and public speaking skills. If so, that may give you a head start and an early advantage.

What Makes a Great Presentation?

A lot goes into a great presentation, and there are several key steps that need to be executed with utmost professionalism and attention to detail. This advice is relevant whether your presentation is scheduled to be three minutes long or three hours long. I have actually found that it is often more challenging to deliver a highly effective short message than it is to deliver a much longer presentation.

That has been true for centuries. In 1657, the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote this famous statement in a letter that later appeared in a collection called Lettres Provinciales: “I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”

I have learned how to be an effective presenter the hard way—by making many mistakes in my early career presentations. I have written this book to help you to avoid my mistakes and learn from my successes. You might not implement everything I have suggested, but by reading my weekly blog series and being aware of what works and what doesn’t, you should benefit significantly.

Here are a few preliminary recommendations as you begin to plan for your presentation:

1. Know your audience. It is important for you to know the interest level of the audience you will be addressing and their level of knowledge and competency in the subject matter. You can’t always gear your remarks to everyone in the audience, but you want to make sure the majority of those in attendance will understand what you are saying and will be glad they attended the session.
As an actuary, I often was overly technical; used PowerPoint slides that were much too dense with numbers, charts, and graphics; and assumed that my audience had technical actuarial knowledge that, often, they did not have.

2. Be familiar with the venue and how much time is allotted for your remarks. To the extent possible, in advance of any presentation, make sure you are familiar with the room, the acoustics in the room, whether or not you will need a microphone, and whether or not the set-up in the room will accommodate slides or other audiovisual aids. Find out this information before you begin to construct your remarks.

It is important to know the amount of time you will be allotted. I always resisted presentations that were expected to be longer than twenty or twenty-five minutes because I was aware of studies indicating that no matter how good your presentation is, it will be difficult to hold an audience’s attention for longer than that amount of time. If a much longer time is required, as it would be for a seminar or a class you are teaching, include several scheduled breaks.

Guidelines vary on how often you should give your audience a break. The International Institute for Facilitation and Change (IIFAC) offers these recommendations:

• • For multi-hour sessions, schedule a break at least every ninety minutes. More often is preferred.
  • Breaks should last fifteen to thirty minutes, depending on the size of the group and the meeting context.
  • “Bio breaks” of five to ten minutes allow participants time to go to the bathroom, drink water, and stretch their legs. But the facilitator needs to make it clear that this is not a long break and that the meeting will resume promptly.

3. Key points. Identify in advance the four or five key points you want your audience to remember. In an oral presentation, a list of dozens of ideas won’t be memorable and will only frustrate members of the audience. I have given numerous presentations to college students about how to enter the workforce. In those presentations, I typically cull down the number of fast-start tips or strategies to no more than five.

4. Research. It is best to speak on topics for which you are considered an expert. If you have any doubts about your command of a particular topic, then you will need to do some research to better prepare yourself. If there will be a question-and-answer (Q&A) session at the end of your remarks, then try to think through, in advance, the questions that are most likely to be asked, and be prepared with answers. Have a friend or colleague watch you rehearse the speech, provide useful advice, and ask questions that audience members might ask. If you get a question for which you don’t know the answer, don’t be afraid to say you don’t know the answer but will get back to that person with an answer. Never try to wing it with an off-the-cuff answer that you aren’t very confident about.

5. Maximizing memorable impact on your audience. Your presentation should focus on the topic you’ve been asked to discuss. I once was given a great tip on how to structure a presentation to have maximum impact. The tip was to deliver the key message three times. At the beginning, tell your audience what you plan to discuss; then in the body of your presentation, discuss it; and at the end, close by recapping what you told them. In this way, the audience knows what’s coming, they hear it, and then they are reminded of your key points.

That advice is echoed in the old adage that says, “Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em, tell ’em, and then tell ’em what you told ’em.” I believe this is true—being clear about the key message you will discuss helps your audience understand and retain the main points. Repetition is the key to retention.

As you are preparing your presentation, keep your overall objective in mind. Is it purely informational? Is your objective to persuade them to subscribe to your point of view? Is it to trigger specific actions by those in your audience? It may be a combination of two or even all three of these outcomes.

6. Visual appeal. If visual aids are called for, whether you use PowerPoint, Prezi, or another presentation program, make sure your presentation has a lot of visual appeal. Where appropriate, include interactive elements, such as links to YouTube or other videos, to hold the interest of your audience. On each slide, include an interesting heading/title and a few bullet points. Avoid filling the slides with text or excessive amounts of numbers. Text-heavy slides are difficult to read, especially for the people in the back of the room. Include photos, a pleasing color palette, quotes, and other appealing visuals.

A study of more than two thousand professionals in the United States found that the key to creating engaging content is to combine a compelling narrative with stimulating visuals and dialogue. The survey dispels the common belief that people’s attention spans are shrinking in this era of Twitter and texting. The survey found that people’s ability to maintain focus has actually improved over time, despite an ever-growing mountain of available content.

7. Delivery. Practice your presentation until you can deliver it comfortably without reading from your notes. Be enthusiastic. Showcase your knowledge. And again, keep your original objective in mind as you are speaking.

8. Clarification. Allow a few minutes for a Q&A session. Giving your audience a chance to ask questions, and then answering them concisely but thoroughly, will provide clarification about any details your audience didn’t fully understand.

Next week I will post Part 2 of this blog that will provide some very important final advice.