Connecting with your audience

I attended an event recently where several people were presenting.

Each one covered a similar subject but only one of the presentations excited me.

The successful presenter connected with me and ensured I was fully engaged.

The unsuccessful ones were brain-numbingly-long-winded and filled with slide-upon-slide of TEXT.

Oh how I longed for them to end and put me out of my misery!

It was really hard work concentrating on reading the fast moving stream of words while at the same time, attempting to listen to what the presenters were actually saying.

What made matters 10-times worse was the fact that those unssuccessful presenters must have thought we the audience couldn't read because they insisted on repeating every word that appeared on their slides.  It was an excruciatingly painful experience.

I couldn't wait for the pain to end.

Before becoming a Virtual Assistant businesswoman my early career was deeply rooted in education. As a teacher and later a lecturer I had more than the average exposure to great presentations, so this has had the effect of making me hyper-critical of anyone standing on a podium. That being the case, I make no apologies for condemning the presenters at that particular event, and branding them as novices.

There are basics that everyone who is planning a presentation should understand. Groundwork is critical.

These are useful tips which will help you to succeed in making a connection with your audience:

• Know your audience, find out what types of business people are in the mix, and plan to deliver 3 or 4 references in your dialogue which will match their business experiences. Making it, in part, a dialogue with your audience will ensure you reach out to them. No-one likes being talked to, we like being engaged in conversation.
• Stimulate the audience by using plenty of bold images, choose carefully, choose ones which convey the message clearly. (Even if you have to present graphs or statistics, it is possible to liven it up with attractive graphics).
• Involve your audience, by having eye contact with as many as possible.
• Give your audience time to assimilate the visuals, leave gaps in the commentary so that they can concentrate on just what is being presented on the screen.
• Don't read out the text appearing on the slides.  Instead weave a brief story to explain exactly what the intended message is meant to be.

These guys from 'Slides That Rock' know just what I'm talking about.  Feed the visual sense with bold, attractive images, and large text.  This Slideshare presentation delivers the message clearly.   I hope you enjoy it.