Your Next Presentation Won’t Suck…
…when you design it with clarity.
So many presentations fail to deliver. Why?
To be blunt: The culprit is bad communication design. The greatest content in the world will die an undeserved death if it is not designed well.
Let’s not do that, because this problem can be fixed with a few straightforward Clarity practices.
Here's how to make sure your next presentation is a winner:
Don't try to pack in too much.
This is the number one complaint I hear. TMI (Too Much Information) is what kills most presentations. We, the audience, want a refreshing glass of water, not a spewing firehose.
Overwhelm, complexity, and confusion will lose an audience quickly.
TMI overwhelms instead of informs.
Streamline and focus - seek to make one point well, not many points poorly. It's real work to prune, illustrate, and simplify, but it's worth it. People love to recommend a speaker that is focused and easy to follow.
Don't hide the point.
Another common complaint I hear from others is that we don't know where the speaker is going. This is a way to make sure everyone tunes out after about 3 minutes. If we have to put in lots of confusing effort to figure it out, we...well, we won't.
What's the point? I don't want to work to find it.
Save everyone time by showing us the needle.
We didn't come to sort through yet another haystack of information. Please give us the needle, right up front. When you've shown us the compass, we can relax and enjoy the ride.
Don't overwhelm our eyes and our brains.
Slides packed full of words, images, and data points are visually confusing. If we have to squint and interpret and sort, we can't listen effectively.
Too many ideas, words, and images shut the brain down.
Busy slides won’t get through to busy minds.
Go strong on single-point, single-image slides that we can grasp in seconds. Serve up distilled information that can be immediately grasped. Keep it simple, use large-font text, and be generous with white space.
Tell audience members how to apply it.
In an ideal world, people will draw excellent, practical conclusions all by themselves. A few might. But we've assembled to grow and change, and we want your suggestions.
Give the audience some "Now what?" conclusions.
Suggest specific, practical actions to take immediately.
You're there as a presenter to impart practical wisdom, so sprinkle the talk with actionable ideas. What do you want your audience members to do differently as a result of your presentation? Begin with the end in mind.
Applying these four suggestions take some work, but that's the whole point - you, as the presenter, do the work so your audience doesn't have to. If they want a firehose of information, they can use Google or ChatGPT.
A huge part of your value as a speaker is to focus, simplify, and apply. From your engaging opening to your actionable finish. That’s effective communication design. That’s clarity.
If you’re looking for a speaker/trainer/facilitator who will help your people get to the point with clarity, contact me.
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