Just the other night I was at my favorite Toastmasters meeting. I have a great TM club here in Atlanta and I get to see a lot of motivated folks move from anxious newbies who are usually a bundle of nerves to presenters who have gained a measure of practice and experience and, as a result, confidence.
It fuels my deeply held belief that anyone who has the motivation and determination can become an effective speaker. I have seen it happen over and over again. They put in the work, get the right feedback and become someone they never thought possible.
The speaker last night was Sarah, a professor at a prestigious Atlanta university. She had a wonderfully humorous story about how she was managing all the tasks that come with having a new baby in the house. It was accompanied with a modest PowerPoint deck.
Sarah was struggling with the same problem I have seen over and over with PowerPoint presentations: She was a very good presenter and had a great story. And she had a good slide deck. But when she tried to bring them together in a smooth flowing delivery to her audience, the slides and her delivery were choppy and uncoordinated. She had to keep looking back at the screen to see what was going on there. She felt she had to explain her slides instead of having the slides illuminate her words. I could tell she was uncomfortable.
Delivering an effective PowerPoint presentation means having your words and slides work together like the dialog and the setting in a movie. They should merge seamlessly. Each will compliment and expand the other without the audience feeling like it is watching and hearing two separate presentations.
I must admit it is not always easy to do. But here are two critical strategies that will help you accomplish this:
- Write and practice your presentation before turning on PowerPoint. Your words and your thoughts should be the driver of your delivery. Then, once you are fairly comfortable with how the delivery is shaping up, add in the visuals that will help expand your spoken thoughts. All too often we will use PowerPoint to create our presentation. This just doesn’t work!
- Rehearse times two. Once you start to merge your verbal delivery with your slides, practice like you mean it. Double that. Get comfortable with what visuals appear when and how your transitions work. Sometimes you want the slide to appear and then you will comment. Sometimes you want the opposite – you will begin your words and have the slide appear at a significant point. This all takes rehearsal and editing. Put away your script, work from an outline. Then put that aside. Move things around and make your delivery natural and sensible. The only way to do this is with practice.
There is great truth in the maxim: The amateur practices until they get it right. The professional practices until they cannot get it wrong. It’s work, but it is well worth it.