Most presenters place an inordinate amount of focus on the multimedia side of presentations. Don’t get us wrong: videos, slides, charts, and story lines all matter a great deal. That’s why we’ve made it our business to improve the overall look, feel and sound of presentations around the globe. But precisely because these elements can be outsourced, presenters owe it to themselves to spend their valuable time on the most important qualities of great presenting: namely, being an exceptional messenger.
It’s the one thing we can’t help our clients with. We can coach, we can design and we can script a presentation, but only the presenter can pour their lives into the pursuit of presentation mastery. Only the presenter can make the critical choices, each and every day, that build their core presence and develop their credibility. So if you’re looking to master the art of presenting, and you want to spend your time where it matters most, here are three key areas you need to focus on:
Think Right: Attitude is the most powerful force at work in a person, and it can build up or tear down. A truly powerful attitude is not just happy or optimistic. Great presenters’ attitudes are rooted in deeply held principles that guide their perspectives. This, in turn, leads to great clarity and focus on issues that, for others, cause confusion and disorientation. This clarity is one of the most magnetic aspects of a truly great presenter’s psyche, so it pays to focus on your thoughts and attitudes.
Practice: Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers talks about the 10,000 hour rule—that the greats in any field have dedicated 10,000 hours or more to their craft. Bruce Lee talked about it, too, saying that the guy to fear is the guy who practices the same kick 10,000 times. The more you present, the more natural you appear in the presentation environment, and that in turn leads to greater trust and more opportunities.
Know Your Material: When an audience agrees to listen to a speaker, the implicit assumption is that they are getting insights and access to someone whose mind is more experienced, more capacious and more expert on the subject at hand. There is no replacement for actually being so. Presenters need to read more than anyone else, learn more than everyone else, and constantly discover new insights from a variety of sources. It’s not about being a smarty-pants, either; it’s what we do in service to our audience.
So if you want to become a presentation master, you need to prioritize these behaviors. People like us can design and write the decks, but only someone like you can be the person they want to hear from.
Question: What do you do on a daily basis to make sure you’re worthy of the stage?
