Remove The Bloat. Trim Your Presentation For Fat Results.
Leaders often nudge their teams to trim down their presentations. And with small wonder: Who has time to listen to long-winded, direction-less talks? When you’re next faced with shaving a 30-minute persuasive (or informative) presentation down to ten minutes (or less) consider these quick and easy self-editing tips.
Edit One: Act wisely in your intro
Drawing out our intro might help us get comfortable. But if a time-pressed audience wants the news fast, then, dilly dallying within the opening can yield dismal results. Instead, tell them, within one-three sentences, what you want your audience to know, why, and why now. For example: Please consider R&D project for X, Y, Z reasons, and I seek a yay or nay by end of today. Your agenda needn’t exceed one sentence. For instance: In today’s presentation, I’m outlining A, B, and C in hopes we achieve D, E, and F.
Keep things simple and/or creative. A quick intro might also become a compelling quote, an idea, your vision, or a vital data point followed by context. Whatever your hook, strive to get in and out of there within one minute.
Edit Two: Provide cruel edits on the body
As you refine the body of your presentation, ensure you’ve streamlined the material to contain only the most relevant, pivotal details aligned with whatever you established within your intro. Some tips to polish the body follow. Ensure that:
- Examples remain 100% relevant to the intro you stated up top. Self select which examples show vs. tell your point best.
- Material remains 100% relevant to your audience and aligned with what they want or need.
- Data remains memorable, compelling, and useful. Less equals more.
Edit Three: Add a picture presentation
If possible, draw out a process versus spend precious minutes explaining one. Studies show, audiences remain more apt to absorb pictures vs. words. And explaining through drawing becomes much quicker — and memorable. The memorable UPS commercial offers a lovely example of effective picture presentation. Whatever the concept, include a title, pre-label core concepts, and continue drawing as you share your ideas to hook and retain that audience.
Edit Four: Add a story
For similar reasons, employ effective storytelling. You’ll not only hook (and retain) your audience, you’ll save time. As you choose which story to tell, ensure you’re:
- Quick, ethical, and to the point. Try capping your story at one to two minutes by including a beginning, middle and end, meaning a situation, a challenge, and the results.
- You. Adopting a marketing-like or promotional tone adds minutes to your story and often vague, unhelpful details. Avoid a success story using your product or service. Speak from the heart instead. Why does this ask/information matter to you and your team? What keeps you up at night on this topic? Start there.
- Compelling. As you tell your story, play on deliberate emphasis and pausing at key intervals for optimum effects.
Edit Five: Speak to the slides vs. read them
As you trim down the bloat, strive for minimal content so you can speak to the slides vs. read them. (Reading takes too long and induces a flat, monotone delivery anyway vs. the lively, persuasive tone we often strive for.) Using more photography and graphics helps with these goals and highlighting only the key data vs. rattling off entire tables of numbers also helps.
With these five tips: compressing your intro, editing your body in ruthless ways, adding a picture presentation, a story, and speaking to the slides vs. reading them, you’ll cut that presentation back in liberating ways. Let me know how you get on with your next edit of your high-stakes presentation, and happy streamlined presenting!
Debbi coaches and trains leaders all over the world to become more confident and authentic communicators, and with that, more concise and compelling, too. She owns and runs Hanging Rock Coaching, based in Wisconsin, and is a communications specialist coach with BetterUp.