38: How to Build a Good Presentation

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Careers, Business, Management

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2012

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Some people have heard that myth that how you look is more important than what you say. In this episode, I address this myth, describe in detail why what you say is the most important part of your presentation, and give practical advice for how to assemble presentation content. You can build a good presentation, even if you don’t feel that you have professional delivery skills.

I begin this episode by speaking about the often misunderstood study from Dr. Albert Mehrabian that is often cited as evidence by those who claim that how you say something is more important that what you say. Olivia Mitchell from Speaking About Presenting has an excellent article that addresses this issue head on.

The bottom line? What you say is far more important than how you say it.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” -Leonardo da Vinci

Article I published last week: How One Key Question Gets Audience Results

“…I would rather a really plain PowerPoint, and an authentic, passionate speaker that was engaging, regardless of how many “umms and ahhs”. I’ve been completely bored with some of the fancy presentations, because the speaker wasn’t fired up about his or her topic…” -Comment from Jenn Swanson

Build your presentation around the answer to the question: What do I want people walking out of the room doing differently?

Here are some key content components:

Opening – Tell a story or get the audience involved in some way
Storytelling / examples – Tell it like you were already there. The best advice I ever received on this was to tell a story like we were watching the video of it happening.
Evidence – It’s not enough that just you say it…who else provides support for your conclusions?
Call to action – What do you want us to do?
Closing – Finish strong so the audience remembers you in a positive mindset

Don’t memorize your talk – and have more available than you can use!

Resources
Presentation Zen (2nd edition) by Garr Reynolds*

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to coaching for leaders. This is episode number 38 airing on May 21st 2012
0:07.0	produced by Innovate Learning Maximizing Human Potential. maximizing human potential. Welcome to coaching for leaders.
0:19.0	This is the show for leaders who want to improve themselves so they can better engage and develop others.
0:25.6	Whether you're a seasoned leader or leading people for the first time, improving your leadership
0:30.3	skills will drive your success, and most most importantly the success of others.
0:35.4	This week's topic, you don't have to be a professional speaker to build a good presentation. Well hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
0:44.8	coaching for leaders my name is Dave Stahoviac and I'm coming to you from our
0:49.4	home office studio here in Orange County, California where everyone in our family is sick.
0:54.9	So if you hear a little frog in my voice, that is why, but I'm not going to let that stop
0:59.1	me from getting another episode out to you this week and continue our series on effective speaking and
1:07.8	presenting and if you are joining us for the first time welcome so glad to have you
1:12.4	as a listener to the show and we are in the
1:14.9	midst of learning how to become more effective presenters and speakers as
1:19.5	leaders and last week I did a little introduction to how we can be more effective in presenting
1:26.4	our tools and resources to others and this week we're going to jump in and look at how you don't have to be a professional speaker to build a good presentation.
1:37.0	And in fact, one of the things that is an obstacle for a lot of leaders is they feel like they really do need to just get up and give an amazing
1:46.8	presentation that looks amazing visually and has beautifully designed PowerPoints and that they have perfect projection and great hand gestures and all of those things and those are important, but they're not anywhere as important as the content of the presentation and there
2:06.5	almost every leader can design a presentation or a speech to an audience that
2:12.1	really does hit home and sends a message that gets people moving out of the room doing something differently.
2:22.0	It was back in 1967 that Dr Albert Morabian who was a professor at
2:28.0	UCLA conducted a study that would become one of the most often misquoted and misinterpreted
2:35.8	studies on communication and it's something that is often cited when people are
	...

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