A Primer for Professional Presentations

Pixabay

Last week, I promised some do's and don'ts (from my perspective) for professional presentations. As someone who's getting ready to create a couple of presentations of her own, these are things I need to keep in mind so that I present myself professionally and do my topic and product justice, not to mention things I wish every presenter I had to listen to took into consideration.

Know your audience. Knowing who you're talking to and what matters to them should be the driving force of the presentation. This slant alone can make the difference between pulling your audience in and pushing them away. Sure, you might have valuable information to share, but if it's not geared to the people sitting in front of you, they're going to tune out.

Know your product. The content sweet spot lies in the crossover between what your product can do or offer and what your group wants. Listing a bunch of random features or, worse yet, seeming ignorant of your product's attributes, will make you look unprepared at best. At worst? You'll come across as unqualified.

Plan ahead. Prepare your presentation. Don't just make it up on the fly. This should be a no-brainer. Even if you feel good about your improvisational capabilities, you should know how you're starting, how you're finishing and have plotted out a path to get there. If you opt to follow your audience's lead and go off the path, that's fine. Just have a roadmap.

Choose a focus. Most presentations aren't long enough to be completely exhaustive. Decide what your audience needs to know, wants to know and what they'll be surprised or impressed by. Everything else is details.

Speak clearly and professionally. Skip the "ums," "uhs" and "you knows." At best, they are distracting. At worst, they undercut your message, not to mention your professionalism.

Be prepared for questions. Otherwise, you'll underrepresent both yourself and your product. If you don't know, say "I can find out for you." Your audience will appreciate your honesty, not to mention your willingness to go the extra  mile.

Arrive early enough to familiarize yourself with the equipment. Not all tech set-ups are created equal. Taking part of the presentation time to work the bugs out wastes your audience's time and undercuts your credibility, not to mention adding to your own anxiety.

Don't make promises you can't keep. No product is all things to all people. We get that. Be honest.

I could go on (believe it or not), but I think you get the point and, if all of these pieces are in place, you're in pretty good shape.

What would you recommend to someone who wanted to take their presentation to the next level?

The Battle of Planning and Flexibility

Peggy Marco via Pixabay

My desire to be productive is interfering with my productivity.

Like most people, I wear many hats. Consequently, my head spins with the possibility of all the things I could be doing at any given moment.

I write. Not just blogs, but articles and books, too, and in order to keep doing that, I promote my work and seek new writing and publishing opportunities.

I teach. Outside of class, I do research and planning so that when I show up for class, I'm armed with something besides a bunch of empty PowerPoint slides and a smile. Oh yeah -- and I grade papers, too.

I sell Thirty-One Gifts. Running any kind of a business, whether it's direct sales or an entrepreneurial endeavor, requires time and attention.

Oh, and then there are those pesky household obligations like cooking and laundry and organizing and keeping the house from devolving into chaos. Kind of.

I know I'm not alone. Still, I find it ironic.

It's a tenet of time management -- and life, too -- that saying "yes" to one thing means saying "no" to another -- or a bunch of others. And so, being productive in one area inevitably means being unproductive in another.

All around me, projects call out. Succumbing to the siren call of my desk means ignoring the laundry.  Cooking dinner means not grading papers. Spending time on social media, whether for business or pleasure, means not spending time elsewhere in face-to-face contact.

It's a dilemma. And a frustration. I want to do it all.

And so planning and flexibility co-exist, sometimes peacefully, sometimes duking it out in a most unsightly manner. Sometimes these fights are amusing, but usually, they're annoying. Sometimes, they're almost physically painful, coming at the cost of sleep and peace of mind.

StevePB via Pixabay

I'm not sure what the answer is. Scale back? Maybe. But I like all of the things on my list, and would be sorry to see any of them go. Writing has already nudged out theatre, for the most part. A full course load this semester has wiped out leisure reading. The empty nest has reduced my laundry load, but hasn't added any additional hours to the day.

So, I'll keep making lists, trying to satisfy both planning and flexibility and trying to get as close to doing it all as I can.

Let's hope planning and flexibility don't plan a sneak attack.