How to SHINE During Your Presentation

Published: on 14 June 2016

In an earlier business language skills post, we learned how to start a presentation. But what happens next? What can we do to make the main part of our presentations really special? The answer is simple: we need to SHINE.

S is for Smile

The first technique is the simplest of all, but also the most important: smile. Of course, we smile because we’re happy. But did you know that it works the other way, too? Smiling can actually make you feel better. The process of forming a smile sends chemical signals around your body that tell your muscles to relax, your heart rate to slow and your mood to improve.

In other words, it’s the perfect way to overcome the stress of giving a presentation.

When your audience sees you smiling, they’ll assume you’re a nice person and a confident speaker. So they’ll be more likely to listen to you and to believe what you tell them. Even better, they’ll feel a powerful need to smile back at you — our brains instinctively tell us to copy what other people are doing. And of course, when the people in the audience smile, the same feel-good chemicals go around their bodies. Those chemicals tell them they’re happy — even if they aren’t really!

Best of all, when you, the presenter, see those smiles on your audience’s faces, you’ll think they’re enjoying the presentation. And that’ll make you feel even more relaxed and confident.

H is for Humor

Humor is one of the most difficult things to get right in a presentation. Bad jokes are usually annoying, and sometimes even offensive. But good jokes aren’t much better — your audience has come to learn something useful, not just to be entertained. The best presentations make people laugh without jokes. How is that possible? Well, we’ll come back to that question at the end.

I is for Images

Our brains aren’t very good at remembering long lists of facts, but they are excellent at remembering pictures. That’s why good presentations are usually a combination of two elements: what you say and what you show (e.g. your PowerPoint or Prezi slides). So with a few carefully chosen images, charts, and diagrams, your slideshow can make your spoken presentation a lot more effective and memorable.

But the most powerful images of all don’t come from your slides. They come from the audience’s own imaginations. The best presenters create strong images in their audience’s minds.

How can you do this? Well, imagine you’re standing in front of an audience, delivering an important presentation. Look around you. How big is your presentation room? What equipment are you using? How many people are in the audience? Are they smiling? Are they laughing? And what about you? What are you doing? How are you feeling? Nervous? Excited? Proud?

Did that work for you? Did I create a powerful, memorable image in your mind, just using my words? Look back at that last paragraph to see how I did it.

N is for Narrative

A few years ago, I planned and delivered what I thought was an excellent presentation. I needed to explain some rather dry and technical concepts, so I used a lot of images and humor. The audience seemed happy — they were certainly smiling back at me all the time. At the end of the talk, a nervous-looking person from the audience came up to me and said, “I really enjoyed your talk, but … I’m afraid I got a bit lost about halfway through. Could you explain again what you meant by …?”

I was confused for a second — what had I done wrong? And that was when I realized: a good presentation isn’t just about making people smile and laugh, or even about making them remember facts. It’s about helping them to understand how those facts fit together.

A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to deliver the same presentation to a different audience. So this time I tried a new approach. I turned the whole presentation into a story, with a clear beginning, middle, and ending. The complex information was still there, but it was presented as part of a narrative — a step-by-step story about my own personal experiences.

So what happened? At the end of the presentation, again a few people came up to me to say they’d enjoyed the talk. So I decided to check whether they’d actually understood the key concepts. I was worried that the topic was simply too difficult for a short presentation. But to my amazement, every single person was able to explain the complex information from my presentation and how everything fitted together. It was a huge relief. And from that moment on, I’ve used narratives in every presentation I’ve given.

E is for Emotion

If you want your audience to care about what you’re saying, first of all you need to demonstrate that you care. That means showing your emotions. For example, if you’re passionate about your topic, let that passion show in your face, in your voice, in your hands. (If you’re not passionate about it, then perhaps you shouldn’t be giving a presentation about it!)

Emotions are especially powerful during a narrative. Look back at my narrative in the previous section and think about how I could use emotions when presenting it to an audience. Perhaps I could demonstrate my pride at the beginning (“… an excellent presentation …”), then the nervousness of my audience member (“I really … er … enjoyed … er …”). I might show my confusion (“What had I done wrong?”) and then my flash of inspiration (“And that was when I realized …”). Finally, I might end by expressing my satisfaction at finally solving the problem (“… in every presentation I’ve given”).

Notice also that I used plenty of emotionally charged words and phrases in my story: happy, smiling, nervous-looking, enjoyed, I’m afraid, confused, worried, to my amazement, a huge relief. It’s easy to add words and phrases like this to your presentation, and they can make a big difference.

The best presenters don’t just describe or show their emotions. They actually get their audience to feel those emotions, too. Of course, you don’t want to make your audience feel too bad, so avoid extremely negative emotions like anger and disgust. But you can certainly use some slightly negative emotions (e.g. frustration, confusion, nervousness) to take them down a little. But then you need to bring them back up again with some positive emotions (e.g. relief, satisfaction, joy). If you can do that, it will be an incredibly powerful presentation.

H is for Humor (again)

I said I’d come back to the question of how to make people laugh without telling jokes. Hopefully, the answer is obvious by now. You need to smile — and genuinely feel the emotions behind it. You need to use narratives to get your audience to feel as if they’re actually inside your story. You need to create powerful images in their minds so the story feels totally real to them. And you need to play with their emotions by bringing them down and back up again.

If you can do all those things well, they’ll certainly laugh. They might even cry. But one thing is sure: they’ll love your presentation.

Photo credit: Scott Olsen for Getty

Originally published at www.getnewsmart.com.