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Leadership and lecture are inseparable. In the world of business, information and instructions flow down the levels of hierarchy through the mode of presentations, beginning from the top position – occupied by the CEO.

Everyone in an organization, including the CEO, is assigned with certain roles and responsibilities. And, at some point or other, he may have to address people from the presentation’s platform. Therefore it is better to prepare for bigger roles.

We intend to make this job a bit simpler for you. Here are some tips that can help you deliver an effective presentation.

1. Make sure the hardware’s working fine

Before the meeting commences, send a team from the IT department to install the hardware – projector, screen, mouse, laptop, etc. Arrive at the venue early to ensure that you have personally tested if everything is set in order and all technology equipment and audio-visual support are working well.

Also, it is good to give a mini presentation to just chairs to ensure that everything goes as per the plan.

2. Start with a concern or question

Don’t waste time in unnecessary discussions that are not relevant in the context of the presentation. Throw a question straightway, raise a concern, present a problem or bring a shocker – anything that makes the audience think, be curious, concerned or even scared.

Getting the audience interested from the word ‘go’ can be a great start for your presentation.

For instance, if you are gathered to discuss sales strategies for the quarter, start with a pie chart or bar graph of the sales for the previous quarter. Similarly if you are venturing into a new business, you can start with the challenges (supported with facts).

3. Avoid handouts

Some people do prefer to distribute handouts or the printed copies of presentation. I personally find this conventional practice a big hindrance in the successful accomplishment of the objectives of presentation.

With the complete draft and information in their hands, the participants tend to read the message ahead of you. It kills their interest as they already know “whats’s up next”. If you have lost your audience before you have even started, your presentation may end up as a mere lecture of no significant consequence.

Therefore, rather than distributing handouts, you can upload the complete presentation on slideshare.net from where everybody can access it whenever they want, without bothering about misplacing the hard copies or damaging the CDs.

And of course the global message of ‘save paper’ has always been a concern to consider.

4. Ask questions and invite ideas

Make your presentation interactive by promoting a two-way communication. Ask relevant questions but to the right people. Questions arouse interest and engage audiences.

Present your point supported with substantial facts and invite suggestions and ideas. Don’t impose your opinion. Appreciate good ideas.

You can also consider a modification or addition to your slides if required. It encourages the audiences to feel comfortable allowing them to pay attention and come up with suggestions.

5. Use your time effectively

In business, time translates into money. Value time and try to conclude your presentation within the pre-decided window. If you stretch the time unnecessarily you will be wasting your time and making your audience impatient.

Use the time effectively. Cut irrelevant discussions short. Postpone individual concerns for some other time. Plan efficiently and then stick to your plan.

6. Patience pays

Patience is a virtue of leaders. You need a lot of it during presentations. Irritating questions, repeated requests to visit the previous slides, difficulty in understanding a concept or an irrelevant argument – these will test your patience in many ways.

Be patient and try to get in some humor in the course of your talk. It will help create a healthy atmosphere and get your audience involved.

There are so many other elements of a delivering a killer presentation that you can learn with experience. Improvement is a continuous process and everybody learns from experiences. The more you experience, the more you learn.

You can also learn from other’s experiences through CEO peer groups. At a CEO conference or CEO group, you will get to meet expert and experienced leaders who would share their experiences with you, therefore making you wiser and more experienced.

Unless you have done a good job selling value throughout the buying process, it is unlikely that even a great sales presentation will turn the tide. However, even if you have done a superb job selling value, a bad presentation at the end might be enough to lose a deal you could have won.

There are some basic techniques that can minimize that misfortune from occurring:

• Be ruthless about clarity. Sales presentations must be compelling, engaging, or memorable.
• Add emphasis to key points. Present targeted success stories and examples.
• Weigh the importance of each portion. Sometimes you need to triage on the fly.
• Customize the sales presentation. There are no generic customers hence there are no winning generic presentations.

But there is a fifth area where the game is often won and lost and it’s one we find account executives often spend less than sufficient planning time – getting the Q&A session right.

The Q&A session is a full-fledged part of any sales presentation. And, it requires the same attention to preparation as the rest of the presentation.

Some tips:

• Most questions can be anticipated. This means that salespeople can plan and rehearse answers. It is not only what you say, but also how you say and what you don’t say that makes the difference.
• If you don’t know the answer, don’t fake it. The best approach is some variation of “I don’t know but I’ll find out.” One of these pops up in almost every presentation.
• Focus on information that is fact-based vs. personal opinion. If it is a fact based point you need to make sure that the backup information is in a “hip pocket.”
• Don’t back away from a challenging or confrontational question. But – never argue. Rather, begin your response by asking a simple question that helps you to better understand the concern – like “Could you just tell me a little bit more about that?” It is often the case that you don’t quite understand the challenge or the reason behind it, hence without a more information it is difficult to come up with a compelling answer. Plus, this approach gives you a little more time to think.
• Follow the 6-second rule. Don’t panic if you don’t immediately get a question. Wait 6 seconds – it might seem like an eternity but it’s very like one will pop up. If you actually don’t get any, considering proposing a question yourself – “In similar situations we often find the client will ask about the onsite support that is an important question because…”

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©2013 Sales Momentum® LLC

Energy is a critical element for any motivational speech, whether to a rally of thousands or to one potential customer or employee. So how do we express that energy and translate it to our audience?

Two elements express energy: the movement of your body and the pace of your words.

Let’s first check out movement. Movement is very important to any presentation, both to combat your public speaking nerves and as a way of keeping audience attention. Your body movement is a way of setting a mood, either good or bad. So let’s use that movement to create an atmosphere of energy and excitement.

The Magic of Movement:

Be a moving target.

Move with energy and purpose. Take long steps and use large arm movements. This conveys to the audience that you are telling them an important and exciting idea or fact.

Make use of your entire space.

If you have a full stage, travel to one end to discuss one point and look directly at the people in that part of the audience. Then go to the other end, then the center, etc. If, on the other hand, you are locked behind a podium or table, or even seated in front of a client, make good use of all the dimensions of movement, even if you can’t go very far with your feet. Lean ahead, step back. Deeply bend your knees, reach up while on tiptoe. Reach around the podium to your left, lean on the podium with your right elbow. If you are seated, use your tailbone as a pivot and cover all the dimensions.

Pick Up Your Speaking Pace:

Ralph Nichols, one of the first people to study effective listening, discovered a surprising fact: listeners stayed more attentive and gained more information and understanding from fast-paced speakers than they did from their slower or moderately paced colleagues. His studies showed that the reason for this is that people can listen about three times faster than the average person speaks. What happens then is that about two-thirds of the listening time is available for thinking about something else… and pretty soon, the ‘something else’ becomes more interesting than the speaker.

So, to keep your audience’s attention, the answer is this: speak faster than you do in day-to-day conversation. This pace has the added advantage that it makes the audience feel they might miss something if they get distracted. When they are that focused, your energy becomes their energy and they buy into your message.

Both your movement and your speaking pace are critical to creating energy in the audience, yet there is another factor which is perhaps most critical of all:

The most significant way to transmit energy to your audience is to truly care about your subject.

In our presentation skills coaching, we often tell the story of safety advocate Ralph Nader, who is definitely not a flamboyant presenter, but who has such concern for his subject that his emotional energy immediately draws you in.

Unleashed energy can be extremely powerful.

Leashed or unleashed, energy is a significant key to motivating an audience, selling a product or project, raising funds or presenting a new policy. It also establishes you as a ‘want-to-hear’ presenter