Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette! Have you ever sat through a boring
presentation or have you ever stood in front of an audience and felt
intimidated? Well, I definitely have and I also gave a presentation once where
people actually were yawning and sleeping right in front of me and was so
distracting and embarrassing but I swore myself I would only give
engaging interesting presentations. Along the way,
I learned a few things and today, I want to share my 11 tips on giving a great
presentation. At its core, a presentation is always about sharing knowledge but
you want to be engaging. The problem is people have really short attention spans
and you have to capture it. So at the very beginning, you have to start by building
a presentation around the audience. That means you have to know who that
audience is; ask yourself, what do they expect from you? Do they think you show
up in shorts or in a suit? Even more importantly, ask what will they get out
of my presentation? In our case, it's hopefully some knowledge and
entertainment value. Also ask yourself, how do they dress and what do they find
funny? Because if you can connect with them and their humor, you're definitely a
winner and they find you entertaining. Also in a professional setting,
sometimes humor or storytelling can be frowned upon and you have to understand
that, otherwise, your presentation may backfire hard. Your overarching goal in
a non-professional presentation should be to entertain and engage the audience
and just have like one major key point. Two, focus on your core message and maybe
have three key points that underline and all point towards that key thing.
Otherwise, if you overload your presentation, people find it hard to
follow and won't walk away with anything. Now, at the Gentleman's Gazette, our goal
is to help men to be gentlemen and so everything we do evolves around that
topic, including this video today. I sure hope you walk away with something useful.
If there is something in your presentation that doesn't support that key focus,
simply leave it out. Three, don't think of PowerPoint or Prezi or any other digital
software to be your presentation. Your
presentation is you and how you deliver it and how you speak. PowerPoint is just
there to support you, therefore, your screen shouldn't just repeat what you
say, it should be different, it should be ideally funny, have pictures or videos
that underline what you say and explain it. Also, don't read what's on the
screen because your audience can do so much faster and rather have
complimentary key words that help them digest your information more easily.
Over the years, I've learned a fantastic rule of thumb is the 10-20-30 rule. That means,
the presentation should be no longer than 10 minutes, you should not have more
than 20 slides, and the font size should not be smaller than 30, that means bigger
font, fewer words, no sentences, keep it brief so people can enjoy and understand
what you're saying all the while being entertained. Also, and this goes back to
point number one, if you know your audience, you can style your presentation
so it's visually appealing to them which can be very important. Four, don't script
your presentation and just read it. It sounds too stiff, it sounds too boring,
it's really important that you use your natural language and that means you have
to practice, practice, practice! For example, if you look at TED Talks,
they're not allowed to use a teleprompter or read notes. They simply
have to internalize it and once you do that, you can really get through the
core and just provide valuable stuff. Five, dress the part. Again, that all starts
with knowing your audience but also yourself.
For example, showing up in a three-piece pinstripe suit with a bow tie at a
Plumber unions meeting won't give you any props.
So in general, wear something that's a little bit more formal than what your
target audience wears unless, of course, you yourself have a certain brand image.
For example, I would always like to give a presentation in a suit or in a
combination because we are about helping men be gentlemen and we think classic
style is extremely important in accomplishing that goal. For example, if
you're in an office with a dress code, business casual and you can learn more
about this dress code here, you probably want to add a blazer. That way, you look authoritative
and it subconsciously sends the signal that what you have to say is of value.
Six, start strong. This is the most crucial point of engagement. You want to
start with a story, an anecdote, or a controversial question or quote that
really gets you the attention of your audience. Just saying "Hello, everyone!"
or "Let's get started" is not the way to do it. Don't be afraid to show
vulnerability or maybe share something embarrassing because it makes you more
relatable and people will root for you from the get-go. Again, look at TED talks,
no one just rattles off their credentials and why they're here in the
beginning. They make it part of a story which brings us to point number seven,
tell good stories. So first of all, what is a story? Actually, it's very simple. It
is a hero that overcomes an obstacle to reach a goal. The higher this obstacle,
the higher the goal, the more compelling the story. Always keep in mind, people
root for the underdog but at the same time, your story should always relate to
that key focus you have in your presentation. Don't be afraid to use
another person's or another company's story if it supports your focus point. So
now, that's the theory, right? For example, if you look at Halo sleepsacks and you
look at their story, you're much more compelled to buy the product.
The father who invented that sleepsack did it because his daughter died of
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and he believes it may be connected to the fact
that she had a blanket and suffocated from it. Now, that is a dad, right? He
had this obstacle to overcome that he wanted to keep the children from dying
and so he created that sleep sack and he reached that goal with fewer kids dying
now, all the while you feel really connected to him, you really buy his
story because it's genuine and he overcame that obstacle of his daughter
dying to reach this goal. Quite compelling, right? Eight, aim for a
conversational tone. At first, you might think you have to sound authoritative or
maybe very passionate and while that's good, it really helps if you can engage
with your audience and have a very conversational tone because that means
you gage with them. For example, I never use a
teleprompter because I feel it's too stiff, it's not me, and it's just not the
way I talk, therefore, I script it and I speak to the
camera and if I screw up, and trust me, that happens a lot more often than you
think.
Nine, in a live presentation, it's extremely important to engage your
audience in numerous ways. One of them is to make eye contact and while it may
seem impossible, you can gaze through the room, you can go with your eyes from left to
right, make sure you look people in the eye, however, more importantly, if you can
engage your audience in a way that supports your subject matter, that's
really best. For example, the other day, I was at a presentation where they talked
about social pressure creating diminished performance. Now, instead of
just having it on the slide, what the person did was they put up a slide with
numbers and it was like "9.32 "and "0.58" and you
had to add things up so they would amount to ten. First, he just told the
audience "Just do it in your head and figure out what two numbers are correct"
then in a second step, he actually said "Okay now please stand up and do it and
if you're done with it sit down" so when people started sitting
down, the people who were still standing, they became more nervous,
they became just not sure about it and then they would take even much longer to
find the right answer and so it was very interesting because people really felt
that when they had that social pressure they really would perform more poorly
which was the subject of this presentation. So it's always much better
to make people feel in a certain way rather than just telling them. Ten, don't
worry about being nervous and simply admit to it. Most audiences, especially
larger ones, will expect you to be slightly nervous but if it's something
that's hindering you, the best thing you can do
is to acknowledge it upfront because that way, people will root for you
because they can relate to you. Eleven, last but not least, give a quick summary of
your presentation and highlight the major takeaway so people can at least
walk home with that one thing that they can apply in their life. So to give a
great presentation, you first have to analyze your audience. You have to focus
on your core message. You don't have to think about PowerPoint or your software.
You don't script what you do in your presentation. You dress the part.
You start strong. You tell good stories. You aim for a conversational tone. You
engage your audience. You don't worry about being nervous. You give a brief
summary about what you just did. Now if you just want to walk away with
one thing from this presentation, it is to tell good stories that start with a
hero that has to overcome an obstacle to reach a goal and you get bonus points if
you show vulnerability and make fun of yourself. If you are now curious about
what a good presentation actually looks like, please head over to our website
where we have links and videos to a few of them so you can actually see live
examples. in today's video I'm wearing of course a suit because that's a part of
my brand and it is a houndstooth suit in brown and off-white I pair it with a
contrasting vest in kind of a greenish mottled tweed I paired with a white
dress shirt with French cuffs and brown and gold
eagleclaw cuff links from Fort Belvedere which you can find in our shop just like the green
pocket square as well as the brown and green striped tie as you can see green
and brown are the topic of this outfit which is why you can also find olive
green shoes and kind of a dark gray sock that blends in with the pants and
contrasts the shoe and not distracting from it