The day you became a better presenter

I've spent 20 years observing some of the best presenters in the industry and now run a very popular training day called Presenting Creative Work. This post tells you everything you need to know so you don't have to waste a day in class with me.

A couple of things before we get started

1. I totally nicked the headline and intro to this piece from a brilliant post about writing by Dilbert creator Scott Adams. Everybody borrows, genius steals.
2. I am not claiming to be an amazing presenter. But I have worked with many great presenters, been involved with many high profile agency pitches and seen a fair few startups asking for money (including my own). And so (to continue the theme of theft) I’ve stolen what works and synthesised it into a few key themes. The workshop I run is a collection of those learnings and techniques applied practically and personally to each delegate over the course of a day. This post is a summary of that workshop. I hope you steal it from me.

Ok let’s do this.

Believe in your content

Along my travels I’ve asked many people I respect what the secret is to a confident, compelling presentation. Everyone agrees the most important thing is believing in what you’re presenting. Whether it’s Erik Spiekermann “Talk about what you know” or Walter Campbell “Have a great idea” or Sean Doyle “Just have good work” they all have a recurring theme. A personal belief in your content is critical. I would take it a step further and say, like Simon Sinek, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. Unlocking why you do what you do, or having some kind of personal manifesto or point of view about your industry (or society and the world!) will help you frame your work in a much wider, more culturally significant context. It will seem much bigger, much more important to you, and therefore much more important to those listening.

(You can do the “why” thing for companies too. Most successful brands today have a belief, a purpose or a role in society that their leaders can use as a creative filter and employees can get behind. But that’s another post.)

Be interesting

If you want to be interesting you have to be interested (HT Russell Davis). This is more of an attitude than a specific instruction. I’ve found the most engaging presentations possess a spirit of togetherness, learning, discovery and openness — the presenter sharing with the audience rather than talking at the audience.

Make it personal

Whether you like it or not, this is about you. So you might as well embrace that fact and get on with it. Find your own voice — get comfortable with who you are and the way you present. Don’t aspire to present like anyone else — just embrace the way you do it already. The best way to do this is to sprinkle your presentation with personal anecdotes, opinions, beliefs and quirky things that only you could notice. This is far more engaging and interesting than a load of generic stats and dense ppt slides that anyone could pull together.

Structure the story

Simple but often overlooked. You need to build a story. And any story needs a structure. I don’t care what your structure is (Why? How? What? When? Who? orBrief, Idea, Execution or Problem, Solution, Traction, Team or 1, 2, 3) but make sure you have one and make sure you communicate to your audience what the structure is. This means inserting simple signposts and punctuation points and pauses that tell your audience where they are in the story. People don’t really listen very well in presentations so don’t be afraid of using repetition and simplicity to emphasise your key points.

Simple

Humans are terrible at listening. They are particularly terrible at listening if you ask them to read something at the same time. If you try and talk over a slide with loads of words to read you are asking your audience to either ignore what you’re saying or ignore what’s on the slide. Usually they do both. Just use big, simple words and interesting images and talk alongside them. Use each slide as your cue to make a few key points. This more minimal approach will enable 3 things. Firstly your audience will comprehend more of what you are saying. Secondly it will force you to adlib — spoken English — which is much more engaging than written English — reading out your notes, or worse, reading out a lengthy slide. Thirdly, if you are adlibbing you don’t need notes (the slides become your notes) and that means you can use your eyes to look at other people’s eyes.

Eyes

You need to learn to make eye contact with every individual in the room. I’ve only just mastered this as it didn’t come naturally to me but it makes a real difference to how engaging you are. It becomes impossible when you’re presenting to audiences above 15ish, so in that case just try and look at zones of the room. Under 15 you should be bouncing around to a different individual’s eyes every few seconds. It can be exhausting at first but you soon get used it. On the receiving end it’s remarkable how subconsciously neglected you feel if you’re not getting eye contact. Trust me, I’ve had lots of feedback on this from my talks — usually the people that think I’m less engaging are the ones I forgot to make eye contact with.

Know your end user

It’s a techy term “end user” but it applies universally: the people that are going to see or use the thing you are presenting. How are people going to act when they encounter it? What are they going to do/think/feel? The deeper your understanding of the specific human behaviour you are trying to influence the more faith your listeners will have in your ideas.

Know your audience

Who is in the room? If you don’t know you can’t communicate with them effectively. Not knowing your audience is a recipe for inappropriateness on your part and boredom on theirs. In a pitch or client presentation the more you know about the individuals in the room, and the broader business context, the more you can tailor your message to be engaging and interesting. At its most extreme this is Googling people and stalking individuals on LinkedIn/Twitter and then saying stuff especially for them. But make sure it’s not too creepy: “You know Steve, like on Tuesdays when you go to the gym near your kids’ school.” etc.

Use the right language

Two types of language work best:
1. Nurturing. Best for out-there creative ideas and big hairy audacious goals when you want to get people to be brave or feel like they are creating this thing with you. Nurturing language gives your audience equity in the idea you are presenting. Use phrases like:
Imagine if we [ ]
What if we could [ ]
Perhaps we even [ ]
Let’s create a world where [ ]
Insert your own big cultural/industry changing shit in the gaps. Best case scenario — a client leaves the room thinking it was their idea and then does everything they possibly can to make it happen.

2. Declarative. Best when you need to talk about specific results, effectiveness or quality. Use phrases that inspire confidence and credibility:
This will work because [ ]
When we launch [ ] will happen
Our customers will love this because [ ]
Sales will be [ ]
PR generated will be [ ]
ROI will be [ ]
Insert your own well researched targets/poker-faced lies in the gaps.Don’t use wussy phrases like: “I think it might work”, “It might get some PR”, “We think it’s cool”, “Maybe it will generate sales”, or worst of all “We hope you like it…”

Never apologise

Be like the Queen Mum or Kate Moss and “never complain, never explain”. If you miss a slide, notice a typo, forget what you are saying or mess up in some way — it’s usually best not mention or even acknowledge it — and absolutely don’t apologise for it. Nobody knows what you were supposed to say and when you were supposed to say it. Nobody knows that five second panic where your mind went blank wasn’t just a dramatic pause. What feels like an age to you just feels like a beat to them. A high percentage of people won’t have noticed that typo — until you mention it and then 100% of people notice it. Nobody knows you’ve opened up the wrong deck and the right one is on this USB stick that you’re fiddling with right now trying to get the bastard into the effing slot to load the right presentation. Nobody will notice most things… unless you point them out. So if you mess up just keep going, move on or go back if you need to, pause, breathe — keep it rolling and go with the flow — most people will be oblivious as they’ll be too busy thinking about themselves or looking at their phone.

Don't be nervous

They’ll be too busy thinking about themselves or looking at their phone. They won’t notice your nerves. Plus, if you do all of the stuff in this post you won’t be nervous because you’ll have cracking content and delivery to carry you through. If you are one of those people that gets nervous (I used to be) then the two best things are:

1. Flooding — just do it more and more until you don’t care anymore. I used to absolutely dread presenting and now I’ve done it so many times I actually enjoy it. Almost. So just ignore your nerves and get on with it.
2. Breathing — if you find your heart racing before you go on: calm-yourself-the-fuck-down by holding your breath or deep/slow breathing to regulate your pulse. Once you actually start adrenalin kicks in anyway and you’ll be fine (and you’ll also forget any techniquey stuff you were trying to remember anyway.)

Be memorable

What is the one thing you’re going to say, or preferably do, that is going to stick with people after you leave? This is especially important in big pitches where these poor clients have to sit through days and days of multiple agency wankers harping on and on over infinity Powerpoint. Your “thing” should break the monotony of endless slides and waffle and provide a recall moment for your audience later. It could be an action you do, an object you leave, something you break or create, a place you take them or person you bring, or even the way in which you reveal the work — but it absolutely needs to illustrate a key strategic point — not just be room dressing or pitch theatre (barf). Caveat: if you can’t think of something simple and witty or if it feels even a tad inappropriate just don’t bother. It has to be memorable for the right reasons not the wrong ones.

Start. Finish.

Last quick tip. It really helps to have stock ways that you start and finish presentations. It helps you get going when it’s your turn in the spotlight and also avoids fizzling out at the end. It’s pretty easy to memorise variations on the theme of “Hi, my name’s X and I’m here to talk to you about Y” and “Thanks for listening, I’d love to hear your questions”. Whatever you do never end anything with something pathetic like: “erm… that’s it really”.

Erm, that’s it really

They say the hardest advice to follow is your own. So if you want to see me fail abysmally at presenting all of the above feel free to book a day of Presenting Creative Work for you and your team on my website. Here is a video D&AD made of me talking about it:

Awkward end bit

I'll be writing a few more of these rants and streams of consciousness to “build a relationship with you” so I can then cynically promote and sell things to you. They call it Content Marketing. The first thing I’d like to awkwardly sell you is my consultancy services. I help agencies, startups, small and big companies with brand, business and technology. And I do workshops, training and talks on pitching ideas, digital marketing, and entrepreneurship. More info at tomevans.consulting. The second thing I’d like to awkwardly sell you is BleepBleeps on Crowdcube. BleepBleeps is revolutionising family life and pretty soon we’re going to give everyone the opportunity to own a chunk of equity and share in our success. If you’re interested email: crowdcube@bleepbleeps.com.