Last week, I compared artists who paint pictures with their brush to presenters who communicate images and concepts with their words. Unfortunately for presenters, our nerves occasionally interfere with our artwork. To deal with stage fright, presenters must master knowledge of three things: our audience, our subject and our presentation style. We covered the first two essentials last week. Today, let’s talk about presentation style and how to improve your presentation technique.

The Importance of Style

Your presentation style affects how your audience reacts to your message. To improve your technique, you must first assess your current style. Do you know what kind of impression you present when you’re in front of a group? If not, ask your test audience for their feedback or videotape your practice presentation. Here are the things you should think about.

Dress

Regardless of what the people you present to wear, you as the trainer/presenter should be slightly better dressed. If audience members are wearing sports shirts and jeans, a male presenter should wear good slacks and a shirt and tie, and a female presenter should wear a dress or a skirt that is conservative in length. Unless you’re a motivational speaker or your topic is color, presenters should avoid wearing brightly colored clothing.

Eye Contact

Done correctly, you can make each person in an audience of 100 think that you’re speaking only to him or her. How? By moving your eyes and your head. Pick out someone in the third row left and talk to her for 3-5 seconds. Then move your sights to the 10th row middle. Talk to him for 3-5 seconds. Then move your eyes again. Keep up this routine, scanning across the audience and moving from back to front. Even if you have problems getting your message out of your mouth, if your eyes are clearly focused on your audience, your audience will get your message.

Many new presenters feel uncomfortable with this technique for fear of losing their place in the material they’re reading. Here’s a hint: Look down at your notes and place your finger in the margin at the point where you stopped reading. Look up and talk to your audience while you make eye contact. Look down again to where your finger is, read some more, move your finger and continue. These pauses, if they’re not too long, help your audience to absorb what you say. As you get more comfortable with your material, you won’t have to read it and you’ll find it easier to maintain eye contact with the audience.

Before we leave eye contact, do you know how to answer a question from the group without losing the rest of the audience? Here’s how: Acknowledge the question by looking at the audience member who asked it. Then move across the stage and repeat the question, looking at other people. Proceed to answer the question all the while maintaining eye contact with various audience members.

Verbal Action

What you say and how you say it affects your audience’s reaction to your presentation. To keep your audience engaged in your presentation:

Use one and two syllable words. Don’t be like the folk singer Pete Seeger. Remember that “sesquipedalian terminology obfuscate the rumination.” [Translation: "one-and-a-half foot words confuse one's thoughts."]

Raise and lower the volume of your voice. People will have to listen carefully when you whisper.

If you don’t know what you’re going to say next, don’t fill the void with “um, well, you know.” Instead stop, take a breath, check your notes or move your eye contact. Collect your thoughts before you speak. The pause allows your audience to absorb your comments and prepare for the next ones.

Conclusion

Next week, we’ll discuss three types of movement that affect your presentation technique.

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