You’ve worked hours on your presentation. Late at night, you’ve finally completed all the slides. You feel relieved, everything is complete, and you also worked out these final important details. Maybe, there are too many slides, but at least no one can say you did not do your best and that everything is not there.
Next morning, with your head still full of all the information and too little hours of sleep. You find yourself with the remote control in front of your audience, going through all the slides in a bit of a rush. The information is perfect, and everything is there, still you can tell the information does not quite land.
You hear yourself speak, as if it is someone else in the distance giving this presentation. You seem to be not “really there,” and it feels like hard work, no fun at all, getting all this information across.
Contrast this to how this scenario could also play out.
You feel a deep satisfaction after your presentation. Step by step and naturally, the presentation unfolded itself. It felt comfortable telling your story around your slides. You felt free and connected at the same time.
It felt really good to get your message across and notice that it truly lands. You notice it in the energy in the room, in the way people are following you, leaning in and engaging with what you’re saying. And then come the questions afterwards, thoughtful questions that show they were listening, that they were interested, and that your message made them think.
That feeling is hard to beat.
If you recognize yourself in the first scenario. Know there is great hope.
Because the difference between scenario A and B is almost always this:
Preparation.
And you can learn this!
Why is this so fundamental?
When you are a highly educated professional there is a great chance that you will fall into the pitfall of “trying to push a big elephant in a tiny box”. Too much information in too little time.
When preparing, you are inclined to immediately dive into your content and because you are so smart, you see all the connections and details. If I talk about this, I also have to talk about that. In the process getting entangled into the content. Thereby losing grip and overview.
By trying so hard to get a grip on it and wanting to do well, being complete, giving the whole story. You paradoxically lose control.
You have worked so hard with no real result. Presenting like this “trying to push a big elephant in a tiny box “is no fun at all but actually quite horrid. On top of it, you notice that your audience tunes out, because they cannot process so much information. Dissatisfied and unhappy you close your laptop.
Now picture this.
When you approach the start of your preparation in a complete opposite manner.
Instead of jumping into the content and aiming for completeness, you will first find your story: the red thread, what needs emphasis, what matters to you and your audience, and what you really want them to take away.
Now, when you have your story a clear road, that is the moment you are ready to make the slides that support that story.
This act alone will already make it so much easier for you to present.
Imagine the putting “a big elephant in a tiny box” presentation. Where you cut loads of information up in loads of slides with a lot of information on them. Where the story is therefore lost and hard to tell.
To presenting a story that is supported by slides. How much easier that is for you and for your audience to connect to! And how much more impact that will make.
This is one of the important ingredients of a “right preparation”, and that act alone will already make a world of difference.
So, remember in the presentation world, too much control does not lead to better presentations. The right preparation does.
Good luck.
It’s one thing to understand these principles. It’s another to experience what they can change.
Here’s how one participant described her experience after last week’s training:
“The workshop gave me a new perspective on presenting and how to approach presentations in the future. I actually feel much more confident in my presentation skills and I feel like I have the tools now to approach the next presentation in a much more strategic way.”
Paula B.
PhD researcher
Ready to experience a different way of presenting?
Join my Presenting with Impact one-day training for Expats and Dutch Professionals on 27 November in Amsterdam. Learn how to prepare with more focus, connect with your audience and get your message across with confidence.
Discover the training here