Do you have a big presentation coming up? Try these techniques used by professional speakers

By Douglas Kruger

HARVARD Business Review once made an interesting point. The single smartest way to get promoted is to improve your presentation skills. They asserted that this works across industries.

Why? Because it’s the basis of everything. The person who can present from the front of the room, with polish and organised thinking, becomes de facto leader. Do it well, and you get asked to do it again, in a virtuous cycle that propels your career upward. Do it at a high level, and you become an industry thought-leader.

We appear to be having something of a Renaissance for the craft here in Jersey. A few weeks back, it was TEDx. Coming soon to Jersey: SpeakerFactor, a contest designed by Claire Boscq, and hosted under the auspices of the Professional Speakers Association, designed to ferret out talent and encourage aspiring professional speakers in the Island. I’ve been asked to sit on the panel, and I’ll tell you more about it as the initiative unfolds.

But more than that, I’ve seen a rise in schools asking for speaking courses. I cannot tell you how life-changing that can be. As a radical introvert in my youth, public speaking saved me. Gave me a career. Sent me around the world. I have friends today in Turkey, Ireland, Australia, even Hong Kong, because of the impact of learning to present.

And as fun as it may be teaching basic skills at school level, sometimes you want to teach the advanced stuff.

So… tag… you’re it!

Here are five lesser-known presentation techniques used at higher levels:

Make your audience the main character in your stories
Stories are the primary medium of human communication. We don’t think in stats. We think in stories. Cognitive psychologists like Daniel Kahneman and Stephen Pinker have mountains of research to prove that although the human brain is perfectly capable of thinking in data, we are rarely persuaded by it. Data on a graph does not light up the part of the brain associated with persuasion. Mostly, that’s reached by stories. Therefore, the best speakers turn their data into moving imagery for the theatre of the mind.
Now go one step further. As you tell a story, make your audience the main character. Here’s how I do it, in a presentation on becoming an industry leader: “Picture yourself two years from today. You’re walking off a stage to applause, and your phone rings. You step outside. It’s the publisher of your new book. They’d like to know if you’re free for a TV interview tomorrow. How did you get here? There were five things you did…”
Why do this? Because it’s unignorable. You have involved your listening audience in a tale that features them, their hopes and fears, their prospects. There is no upward limit to how much you can employ this technique. It works in teaching, coaching, sales-pitches… even a thought-leadership presentation for the entire Island: “Picture this. It’s Summer 2027. We wake up to a perfect day in the Island, but something has changed…”
Master a few body language power moves
We could spend weeks on this. But here are some high-leverage pointers. The TEDx organisers discovered something interesting from their own algorithms. Speakers who use their hands to gesture get measurably more views, clicks and shares than speakers who don’t. Specific gestures that illustrate speech are attractive. Their absence destroys charisma.
Next: To increase your perceived authority, don’t let your body wiggle or shuffle from the waist down. Don’t lean to one side or the other. Lock your waist. Lock your legs in a comfortable, natural-looking stance. Now get animated from the waist up only. Try it in a mirror. This stance makes you look way more powerful. If you move your knees or shuffle your feet, the authority vacuums out of the stance.
You can occasionally walk about. But do it with intention. When you stop, lock the stance again.
Finally, a half-step forward conveys positive energy and strength. Do it when you start. Do it as you propose an idea. Do it to convey the emotional tone: “Yes!” The opposite works too. To create an ominous, negative feel, take a half step back: “We don’t want this result for our brand.” Then a half-step forward: “Here’s a better way forward…” Your audience won’t even notice it. But it subconsciously alters the tone.
Use visuals correctly
Firstly, you don’t need slides. There is strong research by Nasa and the US military to prove that they mostly do more harm than good. Agile language, and speaking in stories, is significantly stronger.
But if you are going to use them, here’s the formula: make your slide the itch, not the scratch.
Your slide should not resolve psychological tension. Instead, it should raise it. Don’t put all the answers on the slide. Make the slide a launchpad for what you, the presenter, are going to say.
Instead of saying: “Here are all our results, you can read them on the screen,” use a slide that asks, “What were the results?” Then you answer the question. You are the show, not the slides.
And use this simple hierarchy. The best slide has a single, strong image, as emotive as possible, with a bold headline. It’s best if your headline is a question. The worst slides have multiple images, or no images at all, and reams and reams of text. That’s the bottom of the barrel, and it’s guaranteed to put audiences to sleep.
You set the emotional tone in the room
Inexperienced speakers adapt the tone of their delivery to the room. If everyone else has been subdued and boring up to this point, they follow suit. Top speakers change the tone. They take command of the room, creating the emotional climate they want for their goals.
Increase your emotional range
This one’s tricky to explain. It’s rhythmic, but it matters. And odd as it may sound, I’m going to direct you to the new Bridget Jones movie. Watch it like you’re trying to dissect it. You’ll discover that the producers achieve something remarkable. They switch between the hilariously glib, and the earth-shakingly deep and meaningful, with an artistic ease that is the stuff of master storytellers.
Great speakers have similar range. From humour to depth. From a chatty ease to a deep profundity, then back again. Faster, slower, louder, then more intimate. They “play” with the audience. And the more range you can inject, the more compelling you will become. It’s the stuff of charisma, and charisma matters to persuasiveness.
Try one of these the next time you present. Oh, and standby for the launch of Jersey SpeakerFactor, coming soon.