PRESENTATION SKILLS: CONTENT how to prepare better presentation content

You should know that your presentation audience will remember only some three or four of your points 24 hours after your well-crafted speech. Now that might come as a surprise to you. And if your presentation technique involves a series of PowerPoint bullet lists then it will be a shock.

Information overload

Your audience's ability to absorb information during your presentation is heavily influenced by your speaking style, presentation technique and organizing skills. So the first thing to do is organize your presentation around three to four main points. If your audience will only recall that many points then you must focus on that many and make them count.

Use a theme

To help, you should aim to use a theme within which to wrap the presentation. Themes actively help an audience to capture your points and then make sense of them.

Pace

An audience will be thinking through your presentation at the rate of some 600 to 700 words a minute. And in the meantime you will speak at the rate of 150 to 200 words a minute. No more than that. There's a clear gap. And that gap is typically filled by audience clutter or their active thinking on your content. In the case of audience clutter – your content is not reaching them and they are absorbed in what's going on in the office or at the football park. Not a good scenario.

But the audience that is actively thinking about your content is the perfect scenario. An engaged audience will ponder the impacts of your points. They will look for meanings. And they will look for implications. In short, they are interested and absorbed with your content and the points you make.

Speaking at an ever faster rate will not help you to fill the gap between detachment and engagement. And presenting more and more bullet lists will also not help. More information simply builds the potential for greater confusion and linguistic misinterpretation among your audience.

Points

The answer is to stick to three to four main points. Use a theme to assist the understanding process. And then take account of these four rules for making each of your presentation points really count:

1. Make a benefit. Each point that you make should be framed with audience benefit or outcome in mind. It's about them, for them and it concerns them. So stress the benefit to them.

2. Make them clear. There's no room for uncertainty or vagueness. Ensure your points are clear, concise and precise. Edit your choice of words and avoid complexity.

3. Make them self standing. Any point made in your speech must be self standing. When they are not they merge together and lose their distinctiveness. Once their distinction is lost, the point also becomes lost. If a point can't stand alone then it doesn't deserve to be made.

4. Make them relevant to your theme. You selected your presentation theme to help your audience to remember your speech. So the theme has to be relevant and vice-versa. If there's a conflict, change either the theme or the point.

Better content, with well-managed points and themes, is an essential presentation skill. When you need the best possible results from your presentation you must focus on content, construction management. Your audience will recall only three or four points. Make sure that they are the right points.

For more skills tips, you can always attend a presentation training course.

"Information is not knowledge"

Albert Einstein