The Critical Piece to Make Your Next Presentation Awesome!

I have to say, I was very impressed by the presentations. There was a huge variety of topics. The speakers were all quite good. Everyone stayed “on time.” And it is truly amazing how much information a person can convey in such a short time period when they focus and tighten everything up. It’s not easy to present an entire topic in that time frame (and format), and these presenters did a great job.

Of course, as good as they all were, I found myself feeling something was lacking. Being a professional speaker and a guy who speaks and trains presentation skills, I spent some time going over the presentations in my head, analyzing what was missing, until I finally realized it: Very few of the presentations took a moment (such as one 15 second slide) to tell the audience why we should care about the content of the presentation.

Perhaps due to the time constraints, most people launched right into the “meat” of their content. Because of the wide variety of topics and the diversity of the audience, I am sure I am not the only one who on occasion thought, “this is an interesting topic, but why should I care?”

If you think that makes me sound like a jerk, I have news for you: 95% of every audience member in every audience you will ever speak to is asking this exact same question!

I am not big into hard and fast rules when it comes to speaking. But this is about as close as I get to one: Make it clear to the audience, right up front, why they should care about what you are saying.

Here are three quick tips to make sure your audience isn’t asking this question the next time you speak:

1) State It Up Front

Somewhere near the beginning, soon after your “strong opening,” let the audience know why they should care (i.e. “what’s in it for them?”).

2) Make It the “Through-line” of Your Presentation

As you prepare your presentation, keep the question, “what’s in it for them?” in mind. Every point, example, story, slide, etc. should feed into answering, “what’s in it for them?” This is a simple way to make sure your speech is about your audience, and not filled with nothing but stories of how awesome you are…

For longer presentations, it’s not a bad idea to periodically point out how each point you are making affects the audience. Keep your presentation “audience focused,” and you can’t go wrong.

3) Re-State It at the End

Just as you did in the beginning, remind the audience why they should care. This is a great thing to do immediately before your “call to action” (you do have a “call to action,” right?).

This is actually a pretty simple idea, but it is amazing how powerful it can be and how often it is missing from presentations. Make sure you include this in your future presentations and you audience will be very appreciative!