We’ve all been victims of poorly presented information. Whether through seminars, meetings, or from an employee excited to share a ‘revolutionary idea’ that they have come up with. Ultimately, these occurrences rarely offer us anything more than boredom or worse, confusion. Read on to discover how to effectively present your ideas through clear communication and impact.

In this article, I will be supplementing consultant advice with tips and tricks from Jon Moons’ How to make an Impact: Influence, Inform, & Impress with your reports, presentations, & business documents. Without further adieu, here are the solutions to your written and spoken presentation problems.

 

Communication

You don’t have to be a great communicator, yet, to have a great impact. The types of people who come to mind as leaders in presentation and communication are of the likes of Simon Sinek and Rene Brown. They are people who have been presenting to others for years, and in the most intense of situations (often involving ridiculous audience sizes). of the world. They seem to be born for it: a great voice, physical command, and oozing with confidence.

Luckily, you don’t have to present to thousands of people, yet. But, if you do, these tips and tricks are designed for each setting – to provide you with the toolkit for ultimate impact!

Let’s assume that you’re starting from the beginning. Whether you’re a student, apprentice, or are already a seasoned professional who needs to simply jump back onto the horse, let’s start with the secret recipe for presenting with impact:

 

Preparation, Confidence in ideas, & Feedback; The Holy Trifecta of Great Presentation

 

A) Preparation

Know your subject inside out! You can do this by teaching it to others, or simply slipping it into conversation. Reframe the information and see what people react to and don’t react to. By practising through informal situations, you give yourself a chance to ease yourself into it.

 

B) Confidence

Only about 8% of people feel comfortable speaking in front of a large audience.

Preparation will already provide you with a certain level of confidence but to take it up a notch, you need to start presenting your ideas more often. Make it a habit and gain the ‘fail fast’ perspective, meaning that you’re embracing your mistakes and learning from them.

It may also help to remind yourself that everyone has stood in your shoes at some point in their career…

 

C) Be open and ask for feedback!

Try to avoid functioning on the presumption that other people expect absolute perfection. Indeed, most people want to help you but for them to help you, you need to let them. Asking for feedback from trusted colleagues or friends is a great way to holding a mirror up to yourself.

You can use their recommendations and advice to adjust style, pace or the tone in which you’re delivering.

 

Make an Impact

Information is powerful only where clarity and impact are presented.

Impactful communication encompasses the ability to convey clear, precise, and targeted messages that are received and understood by the recipient.

 

Clarify

Through simplifying business proposals, meetings, and presentations, they are more likely to succeed. In addition they become not only a time saver but a money saver too by offering clear, actionable insights that can be implemented.

If that doesn’t sell it to you, clarity in presentation demonstrates clear thinking. Clear thinking really does impress people because in todays world it seems to be an exception.

 

How to clarify your information

START WITH THE END	– Lead with your main point – Answer the first question that’s in the mind of your audience – WHY am I here?
KILL YOUR DARLINGS	Sometimes you may include a piece of information, visual, or paragraph because you are proud of it, but does is really serve to answer any of the questions that your audience has? If not, scrap it.
CLEAR LANGUAGE	Drop the thesaurus! Allow the information which you present to be accessible and easily digestible.
STRUCTURE	If Spoken: – Have a clear ‘story arc’ which answers the Why, What, How, When, Who questions. – Don’t overwhelm with statistics and numbers, if this is unavoidable, use visual aids like 2D graphs (3D can distort proportion of data). If Written: – Make the content ‘scannable’. – Avoid large paragraphs – Make use of tables

 

Impact of Storytelling & Audience

Storytelling is how you galvanise your points and make them memorable. It is where you form abstract connections between data and individuals by using emotion. Therefore, you should know your audience pretty well; at least the handful of reasons why they may be reading your proposal or attending your presentation.

 

Discover impact through emotional connection:

 

• • Who are you writing/presenting for?
  • What do they really care about knowing?

 

Your pitch may be providing a solution to a pain point that the audience wasn’t even aware that they had. This is where emotional connection comes in. Your solution will provide the audience with a path to better their personal or work life. Emotional connection is the motivator, thus, you must be able to define it.

 

• • Is the motivator money earning or saving, market defence or expansion, energy saving, or time-saving?
  • What would that lead to? More time with families, more longevity in the market, increased bonuses etc.

 

Storytelling is how you form trust between yourself and the audience. It’s worth remembering that they are consuming your content because they believe that you have something valuable to say. For this reason, make your point valuable!

 

Conclusion

85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills, including public speaking.

 

It is the details and the way that you care about them that make up a big picture. Being able to place your data or ideas into workplace or human context is a valuable skill to have. Transform the trajectory of the way you interact within work with these tips.

If you still struggle with your communication and impact, we offer tailored one-on-one coaching sessions flexible to your needs. These coaching sessions are designed to build confidence and allow you to communicate with impact. To discuss availability, please contact us here.

 

Resources:

• • How to make an Impact, Jon Moon
  • Everybody Writes, Ann Handley