SAGAMITE: How to make a world class presentation (II)
Sagamite is a bachelors graduate from one of the UK’s elite universities after an early life in Nigeria. He is an experienced management consultant that has worked with firms in a diverse range of industries both in public and private sector. His experience provides him with a catalogue of versatile and arcane knowledge. His current interests include logical structure of opinions/arguments, entrepreneurship and human psychology. He prides himself on his organic, objective and independent thinking, so the audience should expect a significant number of his articles to be contra-popular belief. He is one of Nigeria’s leading objective-Contrarian thinkers about life’s generally accepted conventional wisdom
When delivering the presentation, you need to tell a story that your audience can follow.
Telling a story rather than just rambling on about points is a process that is more likely to lead to your audience engaging with your content and you.
Majority of us watch movies, series and/or soaps, don’t we?
The storyline is what makes us interested in these things. I can bet my money on it that more people watch media contents like this and are engaged than watching media content like News (points-focused). So if you want to give a world class presentation, learn to be a story-teller.
Hence, take 2 things as fundamental to the content of your presentation: the Structure and the Storyline.
These 2 things would be backed up by your delivery style and vocal & body modulation to give a fantastic presentation.
Structure and Storyline
Now let’s look at the structure and storyline.
One of the most popular way of getting this right is to use what is called the Pyramid Principles. The pyramid principles is a structured thinking and communication methodology developed in Mckinsey to aid ensure the cohesiveness of communicating with people.
To develop the structure and storyline of your presentation, the first step is to determine the objectives of your presentation.
What do you want to achieve from the presentation?
What impact do you want to have on your audiences’rational position, their emotional state and the political dynamics that exist in the power play?
What are your key messages? So what key points do you want to make?
Once your objectives are defined, then you build a story based on a headline you have develop. For example let’s say I want to present to a group of investors to convince them to invest in Nigeria. My headline can be:
“Nigeria is a fast growing economy with above par returns for firms that succeed in it”
Now I want the audience to believe this hypothesis and then make a decision to invest in Nigeria.
So I now have to build a structure for a presentation that backs this headline and tells a story of why this hypothesis is true. This is done by backing up the hypothesis with supporting arguments.
The general rule in Pyramid Principles is to use a maximum of 3 supporting arguments, which themselves can now be broken down into 3 further sub-supporting arguments for each of the supporting arguments.
For example, my 3 supporting arguments for the sample hypothesis can be:
1) Nigeria has been growing by X% over the last 10 years on average.
2) Which has led to a ballooning middle class population with more disposable income.
3) Spending by this middle class has been profitable to firms operating in the country with return margins in Nigeria higher than all their respective operations in the developed world.
Supporting argument (1) can be made up of sub-supporting arguments that answer the question “Why?” or “How?” like:
a) Looking at IMF figures, Nigeria is the Xth fastest growing economy in G-50 group of countries between 2002 and 2012.
b) Amongst the BRICS and MINT countries, it has the 2nd fastest growing economy in the same period.
c) Despite this impressive growth, Nigeria is still forecasted to continue growing by X% for the next 10 years, which would be the X-3th fastest amongst the G-50 countries based on forecasts.
Now you will then do the same for (2) and (3).
Remember it does not necessarily have to be 3 supporting points. It can be 0 or up to 3.
Now where is the storyline?
It is right there. You just structured it.
“Nigeria is a fast growing economy with above par returns for firms that succeed in it.
Nigeria has been growing by X% over the last 10 years on average, which has led to a ballooning middle class population with more disposable income. Spending by this middle class has been profitable to firms operating in the country with return margins in Nigeria higher than all their respective operations in the developed world.
Looking at IMF figures, Nigeria is the Xth fastest growing economy in G-50 group of countries between 2002 and 2012; amongst the BRICS and MINT countries, it has the 2nd fastest growing economy in the same period. Despite this impressive growth, Nigeria is still forecasted to continue growing by X% for the next 10 years, which would be the X-3th fastest amongst the G-50 countries based on forecasts.
…………….”
Did you see that?
That is storytelling where logic is used to defend a position (i.e. hypothesis).
This might even be the introduction component of your presentation to satisfy the Driver (you remember who these are from my last article?).
Now if you were doing this as a presentation, you will have to provide evidence to back up this claims or to show what you are saying. It will probably be wise to use charts and diagrams based on my last article about presentation.
The charts and diagrams with words explaining them would be the body of your PowerPoint slides. Keep the explanation short or none at all if you are presenting it to an audience in person. But if you are passing it on to people to read, then you might need to explain more in writing.
The supporting arguments will be your section breakers, while the sub-supporting arguments will be the story at the top of each slide populated by charts and diagrams.
After doing all this, then you might come up with a summarisation, which details the key messages you want to pass over to achieve our objectives, which you can then follow up with by recommendations of what you think the audience should do based on options.
By doing this, you will get a higher probability of people being engaged and looking at your slides with interest.
Delivery Style and Vocal & Body Modulation
Having a nice set of presentation slides and content is not going to be enough if you don’t know how to present them. Some presenters might actually be a distraction themselves based on their style.
Boring, unenergetic, unconvincing, low confidence, too fast, unclear voice etc. All these can kill the mood of a top quality presentation.
Remember the slides are not presenting themselves. You are!
Start your presentations by clearly telling your audience what you about to tell them. Give a clear outline of the structure of what will follow. For example:
“Hello, I am James Brown, and I will like to tell you today about how Nigeria is a fast growing economy with above par returns for firms that succeed in it. I will provide you with details of the fast growth, the impact on the middle class population and how firms have made good margins from this population”
Smile, use good eye contact and appropriate words, dress & behaviours to make the audience receptive to your personality.
When presenting, make sure keep a good posture and use appropriate hand gestures to send or emphasis your message. You never see Obama ni?
Also use your voice to create interest. Modulate it to fit the emotion you want on each section and the emphasising of key messages on each slide.
Use languages appropriate to your audience. You don’t want to be blowing big Queen’s grammar to market women, neither do you want to be speaking Waffi slangs to international investors.
Remember: Practice makes perfect!
It will take a lot of practice to finally get this right. Start practicing.
[…] Amiables. Presenting Now to the presenting! Due to length, lets leave that to my next article. PART 2 OTHER ARTICLES BY SAGAMITE How to judge prestige of universities Understanding your drivers Career […]