Presenting With Purpose at Your Next Presentation

It might come as a surprise to you. Your presentation audience is looking out for themselves.

Presenting with purpose

Yes, they're a delightful bunch. They were very talkative during the coffee break and very attentive during the last presentation. But they are are still selfish.

When it comes to them rating your presentation they are focused on themselves.

It's not that they don't care about you, the presenter. They might.

But what's more important to your audience is that they get something from your presentation.

When you only focus on style and imagery, PowerPoint slides or visuals you neglect your audience's focus. Your focus is wrongly on sending–sending something that you want to send.

Your audience wants something. They want to receive something. And that something is something of value from your presentation

So your focus has to be on their need to receive something. Not your need to send something.

Build yourself a presentation that meets a tangible purpose. A purpose that has your audience remembering something at its end. A purpose that involves your audience understanding, believing or doing something as a result of your presentation.

Describe this purpose in one sentence. Nothing longer. Make it succinct yet pithy. Make sure that your presentation purpose hits these five SMART objectives:

1. Specific. Test that the objectives for your presentation are precise. If they are too general your presentation will suffer.
2. Measurable. How will you know that you've achieved the purpose of your presentation? If you can measure it, then you'll know.
3. Achievable. Make sure that the purpose of your presentation is achievable with your audience. If it's not, there's a danger that your presentation won't have any impact with them.
4. Relevant. Keeping your presentation relevant to your audience is critical. Aim to check the relevance of your presentation with others before you present.
5. Time. Can you achieve your purpose in the time available? A ten minute presentation might be too short for a wide-ranging understanding of a new product or technology. But it might be sufficient time to present a new procedure to an experienced audience.

A well-written, single sentence purpose for your presentation that hits these five SMART objectives can now become the foundation for your entire presentation.

There are more presentation skills and tips with PresentPerfect^TM one to one skills coaching.

"If you live only for yourself you are always in immediate danger of being bored to death with the repetition of your own views and interests."

W. Beran Wolfe