Delivering compelling presentations is an art in itself; an art that is an amalgamation of great looking designs, text that is simple to understand, perfect to-the-point narration and the likes.
While everything else is often taken care of, what differentiates a good corporate PowerPoint presentation from a bad one is effective “crowd engagement”.
Do you, as a presenter get the feeling that people aren’t receiving your message on a personal level? Do you often find yourself on the receiving end of gawks and blank stares as you narrate your corporate presentations? Well, if the answer to the above questions is “yes”, you’re missing out on something important: “holding the interest of your audience”!
The easiest way to get your audience to resonate with you is to add elements of emotional contrast just to connect with them on a personal level. Emotions hold the power to anchor interest and elicit positive responses from the audience members.
The biggest problem is, the majority of the presentations run in a very mechanical monotone! True, they relay all the information, but they have zero human connection. The goal of every presenter should be to fuse in a bit of human touch, to make the facts more believable. The ultimate goal, therefore, is to narrate facts in the form of a story that is easy to understand! For instance, if you’re talking about something as “uninteresting” and “dry” like merger and acquisitions, the best you can do is mold the story in a way that shows how both companies came together to overcome the hurdles.
Showing your human side while you’re presenting is a great way to stand out. While presenters think a jargon dominated presentation is the perfect way to get their points across; what they’re actually missing out on is “human interaction”. People look forward to presentations that follow a two-way conversation. Simply reading facts from the board and throwing it like a barrage of karate kicks, does little to impress your audience. More often than not, bad presenters try to dissuade audience interaction by throwing in a lot of heavy words! This is a bad practice because it leaves no room for the audience to be a part of your presentations; because at the end of it all, you’re presenting to the audience instead of imposing your supremacy!
Communication should be such that it entails a healthy involvement from the crowd. It should be transparent. Presentations pave the way for communication to flow seamlessly between the sender and receivers. Forming connections are no less than an art form, and a good presenter always takes into consideration the “human” aspect of a PowerPoint presentation.
To summarize: it’s extremely important to elicit an effortless flow of information, which is well received by the audience. Technical information and jargons should be molded in a way that it becomes fascinating for the target group. The secret to being a good presenter is to listen actively and develop a good rapport with the people in the audience!
