Making effective presentations to groups or key individuals is part of any executive's job. Delivering a clearly understandable message that gains the support of the listeners obviously requires expertise in public speaking. You need to make an effort to understand the perspective of your audience so that you can adjust your presentation based on feedback during or after the session.

Public speaking ranks highest on the list of situations people fear most (followed by death!) Overcoming this fear requires education and practice, practice, practice!

Key message

Your presentation MUST have a key message. Leave your audience in absolutely no doubt what you came to tell them. Provide your key message within the first 15 seconds of starting your talk. Research shows that if you don't do this you risk losing the attention of your audience.

Writing your key message should be the most time consuming and difficult part of preparing your talk. Poorly prepared key messages are frequently the problem that lies behind badly written talks and speeches.

Your key message should contain:

	The main action or change in behaviour you want your audience to take as a result of listening to you.
	Refer to an example that you'll elaborate on.

Your presentation key message should contain answers to the following:

WHO it is for
WHAT they will do
WHY they will do it
WHEN they will do it

Your key message should not have more than about sixty words in it, which means that you can say it in 20 seconds. If no-one listens to you after those opening 20 seconds they will still have understood what you have come to tell them. The remainder of your talk would contain all the detail of your main message. It is important to spark everyone’s interest and to hold their attention for the rest of the presentation.

To ensure that your audience really got the message you should repeat it right at the end of your talk.

Making the presentation

	Greet the audience. Say “Good morning ladies and gentlemen” and introduce yourself.
	Tell the audience what you are going to talk about.
	Take the audience through your presentation.
	Repeat your main message.

Stick to the time allowed and if you can, keep it short. Allow 2 minutes for each general overhead transparency or Powerpoint slide. The audience may get bored if you keep one of the slides on the screen for more than 5 minutes, especially if you are not actively talking about it. Rather switch the display off, or replace the slide with some form of 'wallpaper' such as your company logo.

Stick to your presentation, don't be tempted to digress because you will use too much time and you may not be able to convey your message properly.

Unless you were explicitly told not to, leave time for discussion - 5 minutes is sufficient to allow clarification of points or to answer questions.

Delivering your presentation

	Speak clearly. Don't shout or whisper. Judge the acoustics of the room. Don't rush, or talk deliberately slowly. Be natural - although not conversational.
	Deliberately pause at key points - this has the effect of emphasising the importance of a particular point you are making.
	Rather avoid jokes because it is always disastrous unless you are a natural expert.
	Use your hands to emphasise points but don't overdo it.
	Look at the audience as much as possible, but don't fix on an individual - it can be intimidating. Pitch your presentation towards the back of the audience, especially in larger rooms.
	Don't turn and face the display screen. Merely turn your head if you don’t have a laptop or notes in front of you.

Unlearn the following bad habits:

	Standing in front of the screen. Check whether everyone in the audience can see the screen clearly.
	Muttering over a transparency on the OHP projector plate and not realising that you are blocking the projection of the image. Rather point to the screen than the transparency page on the OHP.
	Moving around too much. Although some animation is good, pacing up and down can unnerve the audience.
	Keep an eye on the audience's body language so that you can gauge the effect your message has.

Visual Aids

Visual aids significantly improve the interest of a presentation. However, they must be relevant to what you are saying.
For example:

Overhead projection transparencies (OHPs)
35mm slides
Computer projection such as Powerpoint
Video and film
Props (Real objects)
Flip-chart or whiteboard - Used to explain some points

More tips:

	The key is to keep it simple. If you don’t, you may be setting yourself up for failure.
	Make sure you know (in advance) how to operate the equipment.
	If someone else will be operating the equipment for you, arrange beforehand what signals you will use – and the meaning of it.
	Edit your slides. Remove the ones you don’t need and make changes to the slide if necessary. If you need to use a slide twice, duplicate it. Always check your slides - for typographical errors, consistency of fonts and layout.
	Slides and OHPs should contain the minimum information necessary. To do otherwise risks making the slide unreadable or will divert your audience's attention so that they spend time reading the slide rather than listening to you.
	Try to limit words per slide to a maximum of 10.
	Use a reasonable size font and a typeface that will enlarge well. Use a minimum 18pt Times Roman on OHPs, and preferably larger. A good guideline is that if you can read the OHP from a distance of 2 metres (without projection) then it's probably ok.
	Avoid using a diagram prepared for a technical report in your talk. It will be too detailed and difficult to read.
	Use colour on your slides but avoid orange and yellow which do not show up very well when projected. For text only, white or yellow on blue is pleasant to look at and easy to read. Books on presentation techniques often have quite detailed advice on the design of slides.
	Avoid adding to OHPs with a pen during the talk - it's messy.
	Room lighting should be right. Too much light near the screen will make it difficult to see the detail. On the other hand, a completely darkened room can send the audience to sleep. Try to avoid having to keep switching lights on and off, but if you do have to do this, know where the light switches are and how to use them.

Be enthusiastic and enjoy your talk. Your audience will be pleasantly affected by your energy.

By Elsabé Manning

Reference: University of New Castle, UK

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