Deliver Value to Your Audience Using a Process

Engineers, scientists and technical experts in all fields want to deliver value to their audiences when they speak.  The question arises though about how to do that.  Many times, when a technical expert is asked to speak about their area of expertise, they fear doing it.  That shouldn’t be the case.

Most of the time, in order to accomplish something in their work, they follow a process.  Engineers follow a design process in order to come up with a solution to solve a problem they are given.  Scientists follow the scientific method to obtain data to support or contradict a hypothesis. All technical experts follow some kind of a process in order to do their job.  To create a great presentation, a process or formula can be followed as well.  Let me give you a 5-step process to help you create the structure of your next presentation.

1. Begin with a bang

I’ve written about this before in an article called “Presentation Opening – Begin with a Bang”.  This involves starting your presentation with something other than what I call the “unpleasant pleasantries”.  You want to start with something that will grab the attention of your audience.  Don’t start by re-introducing yourself or talking about how happy you are to be there.  Instead, immediately start with something like a story that’s relevant to your topic or state some kind of interesting statistic that applies.  Contact me and I will send you 20 different ways to start a presentation.

2. Provide a roadmap

A key component in keeping an audience engaged is to provide them a roadmap of what you are planning to cover in your presentation.  Imagine that a friend comes by and asks you to come along on a trip.  Wouldn’t you want to know where she wants to go?

When we present, we need to tell our audience where they will be going and what they will learn.  We need to give them the roadmap in the beginning before getting into our points.  This can be done in a couple of ways.

1. If you are using PowerPoint or some other presentation software, create an Agenda slide that highlights the topics that you will discuss. After you discuss each one, display the slide again with an update showing the topic being “checked off”.  This accomplishes 2 things.  1) It reminds the audience of what’s coming next and 2) they see progress, so they won’t keep wondering “Are we there yet?”
2. If you’re not using slides, then you can do the same thing by writing your topics on a whiteboard or flipchart. Again, as you discuss each one, then you can check off the topic.

3. What are your points

Your points are the topics that you list in your roadmap.  I suggest that you only have 3 for your presentation.  A great way to present your topics is to follow this advice.  Tell a story, make a point.

Storytelling in business presentations is a big topic today.  As a matter of fact, if you Google the term “business storytelling”, you’ll find over 30 million references.  Audiences expect stories now.

Why are stories so important when you are talking about your points?  The reason is that a well-constructed story will always have a point to it.  Audiences remember stories more easily than technical facts.  When they remember your story, the point will come along with it.  You can think of the story as an airplane that is towing a banner behind it.  The banner represents the point that comes along with the story.  I’ve written more about this in an article called “Storytelling Brings Along a Point.”

4. Q&A

Just about every technical presentation I’ve either given or attended has a Question and Answer (Q&A) session.  Almost all of the time, the Q&A is at the very end of the presentation.  DON’T DO THAT!

Move your Q&A to before your closing remarks.  The reason for doing this is so that YOU have the last word.  The last thing you want is to give a great presentation and have it end on some crazy unrelated question that an audience member asks.  Remember that your last words are what your audience should remember the most.

I discovered this idea through trial and mostly error.  You can read about the specific event and the crazy question that finally made me make this change here.

5. Closing

As I mentioned above, your last words linger.  They are what your audience should remember.  You should plan out specifically what you want your audience to remember and it’s now that you will do it.

As you plan your presentation, you must have in mind what you want your audience to Think, Feel, or Do as a result of hearing you.  The closing is where you put the finishing touches on it.  Plan this part as much as any other part of your presentation.  I’ve even gone so far as to tell some presenters that they should memorize their closing words.  I don’t recommend that for anything else but since your closing is so important, you don’t want to forget it.  If for some reason your presentation time is cut, you will always be able to get to your closing statement and accomplish your goal.

If you follow this structured process for your next presentation, I promise that you will find it easier to put together.  Not all presentations need to follow this process, but it is one that can be easily used.  I consider this a process that all technical experts can follow to create a great presentation.