Understanding Your Presentation Persona

Understanding who you are as a presenter is arguably the most important step in developing your presentation skills. Self-awareness allows you to create a presentation that is customized to your specific strengths and weaknesses as a presenter.

We at Ethos3 have created a proprietary presentation persona assessment called Badge – think of it as the Meyers-Briggs for presenters. Badge is based on a 4-quadrant system that allows you to identify not only your strengths and weaknesses as a presenter, but also the audiences with which you will thrive and the audiences who will make you struggle.

If you have not taken Badge yet, go ahead and take 10 minutes to discover your profile now!

Once you know your profile, take a look at this quick guide to help you understand a little bit about what your presentation persona means based on each quadrant.

Quadrant 1: Exploration
Exploration looks largely at how you prepare, plan, and practice for your presentation. If you score high in the exploration quadrant, you probably love to research, learn, and develop your content based on science and facts. If you score low in this quadrant, you are likely to rely on your natural instinct and charm rather than putting in a lot of research and practice.

Quick Tip: The more work you do ahead of time, the easier it will be on delivery day. Whether you love preparation and practice or not, embrace the benefits of being well prepared on event day.

Quadrant 2: Sharing
The sharing quadrant is based largely on how you look on stage. If you score high in this quadrant, you are likely to feel confident on stage with minimal nervous ticks. However, if you score low in this quadrant, you may suffer from presentation anxiety or struggle to deliver the impactful content you have created.

Quick Tip: If you lack confidence in your delivery, focus on your body language. If you can portray confidence and charisma in your body language, your audience is more likely to buy in to what you are presenting.

Quadrant 3: Response
The response quadrant shifts the focus from you to your audience – it looks at how your audience engages with your message. If you score high in the Response quadrant, you are likely to see large numbers of engagement from your audience. If you score low in the response quadrant, you might be delivering impactful content, but it’s not moving your audience to action as effectively as it should.

Quick Tip: If you struggle to gain engagement, be sure to include clear next steps for your audience. Think about these steps prior to creating your content so that everything you do is pushing to them.

Quadrant 4: Durability
The Durability quadrant looks specifically at your content and its ability to be remembered in the long term. A highly durable presentation will be remembered for years after it is delivered (think of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous I Have A Dream speech). On the other hand, a low durability presentation is often forgot within weeks of delivering (think of a standard sales pitch).

Quick Tip: If your presentation lacks durability, try adding impactful stories and engaging visuals to increase information retention. Using visuals to communicate facts and figures is proven to increase your audience’s retention by 42%.

Understanding who you are as a presenter is the best place to start as you prepare for your next presentation. By understanding your specific strengths and weaknesses on stage, you can plan ahead for any difficulties and leverage your skill sets to your benefit.

Looking for a more in-depth explanation of your Presentation Persona? Register now for the Presentation Mentor online course.

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