Pro tips on better presenting skills

Never Rely on Presentations: Use it as a guide!

• You know that person that makes a presentation and reads every word directly from every word? Don’t be that person; I can read your presentation myself on my time. Value my time; show your presentation skills not reading out loud skills.

Enthusiasm!

• Ask yourself; are you excited by your presentation? If not; edit, edit, edit again
• Speak as if you’re excited about every single thing you did in the process
• PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. Ask for feedback if you’re not very confident about speak out loud; ask someone that you know is very extroverted and confident sounding.
• Confidence is key!
  • Your audience can easily notice someone that doesn’t know what they’re talking about; this reduces your chance to be heard and understood.

Tell Me Why

• Some details need to be left out; stick with the storytelling hero journey (or any other storytelling method!) and make sure you have evidence to back your decisions.
  • Stick to value driven statements and the over arching story! People will asking questions or refer back to your presentation if they want more details.
    • https://www.higginbotham.com/blog/how-to-write-a-values-statement/#:~:text=What is a Values Statement,customers%2C vendors and other stakeholders.
• People will remember why you said something; not what you exactly said. They will remember how it made them feel.

  • Don’t believe me? Try to remember every single thing a character did in tv/movie/book. Spend 30 seconds trying your best. Then remember how the movie made you feel and think why they did what they did (motivations)

    Start with why -- how great leaders inspire action | Simon Sinek | TEDxPugetSound

    Great great video to expand on this

Low Cognitive Load = High Impact

• Humans have bad attention spans; look how often you check your phone or how most people have trouble focusing
  • Use story hooks early; get the impact of your work and problem in the first few slides to make people invested and tied to your story
• Stick with visuals and gifs; keep it fun and light in key moments like titles or transition slides. This helps keep the presentation engaging and fresh.
  • Try slide titles that go against the norm and catchy
• Try this Golden Rule 🌠
  • 3-4 bullet points per slide
  • 1 image per slide or a zoomed out collage of info to show “evidence” of work
  • 3-5 words per bullet points
    • If there’s more to add, then make another slide!
  • You know that person that makes a presentation and reads every word directly from every word? Don’t be that person; I can read your presentation myself on my time. Value my time; show your presentation skills not reading out loud skills.

Bonus ideas!

• Ask the main audience member what they’d like to hear; abridged, discovery, delivery process etc. get more specific with your presentations
  • You can do the whole process before you ask them; but for attention span and time sake let them decide what they value and want to hear!
  • Your interview process is a two way relationship; it will benefit both of you