Communicate with Precision and Stop Beating Round the Bush

I have been reading recently in some of the business magazines about how to make a killer presentation or to ensure that you engage your audience during your presentation; you need to provide them with a slide doc. (presentation in word form, without the unnecessary verbiage).

While I agree it is good to prep your audience, especially those who seem too busy to digest any information (basically the top guy), I strongly believe in paring your message to the simplest form. That is, avoid the jargon and use simple and straight-to-the-point words. How many times have you sat in a presentation where, either the speaker expects you to know the topic already, thus the content will be relevant to you, or when the speaker is speaking something so ‘foreign’ that you lose interest altogether? Either way, presenters tend to fall into the vicious cycle of using lots of words and insufficient images.

Every day, we are constantly bombarded with ads that entice us with beautiful images or visuals that make us succumb to unnecessary buying. This has proven that we are attracted to a visual message rather than lengthy sentences. In addition, our minds find it difficult to focus on one thing when they deem it to be ‘boring’ or when another interesting thing intervenes, like playing with the phone in a presentation.

Although the use of images will entice your audience, other factors must be considered. For example, the content of your presentation needs to be relevant and never try to deviate from your point (unless you can connect to your content). Presenters need also to learn to ‘read’ the audience. It is easy and tempting to go into a presentation and present all you have prepared, but if your message did not convey, you failed. Engage your audience and ensure they feel they will learn from your presentation and can contribute their input.

So, to recap – present without jargon, use images, learn to read your audience, engage and interact with your audience. Lastly, you can check Prezi as an alternative for those who do not like to use Microsoft PowerPoint. (www.prezi.com)