Sales Presentation Skills Training | The Importance of Presentation Technicalities
There are a number of technical issues to keep in mind that will help make your presentation go smoothly. These include lighting, working with slides, your use of notes, scheduled breaks, and handouts. Let’s review each of these.
Lighting
When you’re using slides, don’t turn off all the lights in the room. Use a dimmer, if possible, or leave some lights on. Your goal should be to set up lighting that will provide good resolution of your slides, allow your audience to still see your face, and reduce the possibility of anybody becoming drowsy or even dozing off.
Working with Slides
When you’re showing a slide, alternate your attention between the slide and eye contact with the audience. Talk to your participants, not to the screen. Here’s a good technique:
Put up a slide.
Move toward the audience.
Stop.
Make your point, with eye contact (and gesturing toward the slide).
Pause and survey the audience.
Move back to your notes and the slides for your next point.
While you’re showing the slides, you want to spare your participants the effort of taking notes, minimize their anxiety about keeping up, and keep their attention on what you’re doing maximized. So, if you’ve got the material on a handout, mention, “The details are in the handout” or “I’ve included these facts on the handout.”
Always face the audience while you’re finishing your comments about a slide. Then pause to key up the next slide. That ensures that you don’t trail off at the end of a comment. It also gives the audience a break, a chance to absorb what you’ve just presented and get ready for the next slide.
Working with Your Notes
If you’re working from your slides, without any notes, it may be easier for you to focus on the audience. However, you should make sure that you don’t allow the slides to carry the full weight of the presentation. If your memory is good enough to remember all the additional points and comments that you want to make to supplement the slides, great! Otherwise, you might find it practical to use notes.
It’s better to have any notes on cards, rather than on sheets of paper. The most practical size cards are 5 x 7, which allow enough space but are easy to handle. Write out only key points and essential phrases and words. The notes should just keep you on track and help you avoid leaving out anything important. Be sure to number your cards; it can be very embarrassing to skip a card or get them out of order!
Maintain eye contact as you speak, glancing at your cards for words and phrases to guide you through your presentation. If you handle your cards inconspicuously, the audience will be watching you, not your notes.
If you decide to print out your notes on sheets of paper, it’s best to have only phrases, not a full text. But if you write out your script, make it easy to use, so you don’t need to stay glued to the page. A good idea is to print it in large type, such as 14 or 16 points. A common practice, then, is to mark it up, using a single slash (/) for a short pause and two slashes (//) for a longer pause or to indicate phrasing and to remind you to look up frequently to establish eye contact. You may also want to use a highlighter pen to call attention to certain key words and phrases so you remember to emphasize them.
Don’t forget to number the pages: it causes a big problem if you drop your script and have to shuffle through the pages to reassemble your text while members of your audience wait and fidget.
When we focus on main points and on information, it’s easy to forget that a good presentation needs something else: transitions. There are the verbal signs of organization that show how the points and information are connected. Too often a slide presentation can become just a series of pieces: “This slide shows ...” and “Next we have ...” and “We end with a slide that ....” Transitions help audiences to understand how all of the pieces fit together. They also make a presentation flow more smoothly.
It’s easy to develop transitions, since they’re just a way of looking back and ahead. Here are some examples:
“Now that we’ve covered the first advantage of working with us, experience with this market segment, let’s move on to the next advantage ....”
“So far we’ve discussed telemarketing and direct mail. Next on our agenda is e-mail.”
“Our new version of this software has four major advantages over the previous version. The first is ....”
“In conclusion, then, I’d like you to think about ....”
Transitions also help you avoid doing “the PowerPoint shuffle.” That’s when the presenter allows the slides to make the presentation and takes a secondary role, serving only to introduce each slide and then advance to the next. The tendency then is for the presenter to speak in a monotone and to hesitate to elaborate on the slides or interject a comment here and here.
Take a Break
We’ve already discussed the importance of scheduling at least one short break every hour or so. Sometimes the situation will suggest additional breaks, particularly if you present immediately after lunch or if your content is particularly difficult. Here are some suggestions for taking a break.
If you’re presenting in an off-site facility, indicate the location of the bathrooms, phones, refreshments (if none are in the room), and support staff (in case anybody has a need or a problem).
Allow enough time for participants to use the bathroom, for phone calls, and for refreshments, but not so much time as to tempt participants to start other activities. When meeting on- site, it’s so easy for participants to run back to their offices to check e-mail, dash off a few memos, or chase down a co-worker for a brief conversation.
Wherever you meet, participants with laptop computers may try to finish reports, crunch numbers, or whatever. Then it’s even harder to draw them back into your presentation.
Handouts
If you’ve prepared handouts, you have to decide when you should hand them out. There are at least six options, each with advantages and disadvantages.
Set them out on the seats before the presentation.
Advantages: easy, most convenient for the participants, least disruptive
Disadvantages: takes time when you should be setting up and getting ready
Set them out in one or several piles near the doors.
Advantages: easiest
Disadvantages: some participants might miss them as they enter
Hand them out to participants as they arrive.
Advantages: opportunity to greet one on one, convenient to close the doors at scheduled start time
Disadvantages: takes time right before start, sometimes frantic as participants arrive in clusters
Ask someone to hand them out as the participants arrive.
Advantages: easy, allows you to use the time to set up or to mingle
Disadvantages: no opportunity to greet participants
Distribute as you’re covering the sections or points to which the handouts refer.
Advantages: timely, not distracting during earlier part of presentation
Disadvantages: disrupts the flow, takes time away from your presentation
Pass them around at the end of the presentation.
Advantages: not a distraction, you can refer forward to them during presentation
Disadvantages: participants take notes that would be unnecessary if they had handouts
If you distribute handouts before you start or during the presentation, make sure they help, not hinder. Tell the audience when any points you’re making or information you’re providing is not on a handout, so they give their full attention to you.
When you want them to refer to a handout, indicate the page and the section, then verify that all members of your audience are focused on the right part of the handout. Otherwise, you’re sabotaging your efforts.
