Rule 4: Connection & Engagement

This is a continuation of The Rules: Create & Deliver Effective Presentations Every Time, providing detail and depth on the fourth rule – Connection and Engagement (put away the dog and pony).

Put the Pony out to Pasture

Connecting with your audience is important, everyone knows that, right? Right? You know what else is important? Connecting with your fellow presenters.

Seriously, I’ve heard from clients about how the palpable disconnect and tension between presenters distracted everyone from the actual presentation. Who cares if the slide deck looked good if you're distracted by how much the presenters appear to virulently dislike each other.

This is not good. If what you’re selling is a service, it’s even worse. There you are, taking the time to tell the prospect about the excellent service they’ll receive from your great team…all of whom actively despise each other. Again, not good.

How do you ensure your team is engaged with each other, and that everyone connects with the audience?

Tell the Dog to Go Lay Down

First, you do the work required to understand what your audience cares about (see Rule 2), then you can connect your story (Rule 1) to that need - but there's a little more to it than that.

There's this: You’re not presenting to them, or putting on a show. You’re having a conversation about what they need, and what concerns them, or telling them how you can meet their challenges.

The best presenters are not lecturing; they’re sharing information the audience needs to know. They’re having a dialog, engaging, and offering something the client wants.

How Exactly am I Supposed to do That? 

If you identify your prospect’s challenges, and you understand how your services or product meet their objectives – then stop presenting it, and have a direct, personable conversation about how you can work together to meet their challenges, solve their problems or achieve their objectives.

This is a break from the traditional approach of running through a presentation of your capabilities, services or products. If it's not about them, and it feels generic, and you're just running through the motions of your "show," why should they care or even listen to you at all?

If you approach every presentation like you’re giving a presentation, your focus tends to be on you. How do I sound? Do I change slides too much? Should I tell this joke? How do I look?*

It’s not about you. It’s about what your audience actually needs, and whether your narrative and evidence effectively communicate your ability to deliver, solve their problem or meet their challenge.

Instead of “how do I sound?” the question is:

• What do they need to hear or know?
• What questions might they have about this?
• Would a simple process flow help them visualize how our solution works?
• Why should they care about what we're telling them 

Instead of “how do my slides look?” the question is:

• How will they understand or engage with the information I’m sharing? 
• How will my visuals help guide them through my solution?
• Does a graph help make the data easier to understand?
• Will my slides distract from the conversation?
• Do my fellow presenters feel positive about our message?

You may even find you don’t need a slide deck at all. A great deck can help make your message memorable, provide important cues for understanding complex explanations, or emphasize points. But if all you're doing is using standard slides to illustrate standard speaking points the deck can be a barrier to connecting with your client.

Every presentation doesn’t have to be, in fact shouldn’t be, a formal, stand-up affair. Sometimes you need to ditch the slides, sit down and have a real, interactive conversation.

Representing

Sometimes engagement with your prospect means you don’t talk about your solution at all – you talk about what’s going on in the world, how it’s affecting clients and what you’ve done to help others adapt. Then they’ll ask you how you can help them too.

So, the really hard part of preparing yourself to give a presentation is remembering: it’s not about you, and it's not really a presentation, it's a friendly, collaborative conversation - and everyone needs to be on-board.

*Please note, this does not mean you shouldn’t practice telling your story and working with your visuals. In fact, practicing together is a great way to connect with your team.


Who am I to tell you how to present? After almost a decade, thousands of client-facing presentations, and hundreds of strategy meetings and coaching sessions, I bring a whole lot more to the table than just another pretty slide deck. I help clients with presentation strategy, provide devil’s advocate input (even if it’s challenging), coach on delivery and execution, and create visuals for technical, creative, data-based, sales and educational presentations.

Do you agree with what I have here? If not, leave me a comment – I’m always open to new perspectives and opinions.