Become a better presenter by treating your audience to a gift

As he took it out of the wrapping, the smile of delight on his face told me I’d chosen well.  It was my father’s birthday and I’d bought him a shirt.  I knew the brand he liked and the small, blue check in the pattern would be in keeping with his others.  But then he noticed the collar size and his mood turned from happiness to mild disappointment. “Sorry, this is too small,” he said reluctantly. “I wear a 16 inch collar.”

To deliver successful presentations I tell my delegates to treat presentations as if they were gifts to their audience.  As a result we need to know our audience as well as possible and think about what they would like to receive. How would they like the presentation packaged? What will they do with the gift after they’ve received it? Will they be excited? Will they tell anyone else about it? Will they remember it or stick it in the bottom drawer of their minds like an unwanted wedding present?

When I saw my father’s expression change, I mentally banged my head against the table. Due to our differing builds, my approach had been to assume my father was a slightly smaller size than me. Why hadn’t I done some research to check? A simple call to my step-mother before buying the shirt would have sufficed. I’d done the hard work by narrowing down the myriad of potential gifts to a shirt. I’d thought about the brand and the style he’d like. But then I’d tripped at the final hurdle through over confidence and, if I’m honest, a little bit of laziness.

How often do your presentations fail because you haven’t considered one crucial aspect of your audience? How often do you assume something about your audience (maybe their knowledge or understanding) and wonder why many have puzzled looks on their faces? Or, when you’re sitting in the audience, how many presentations have you stopped listening to because the way it’s been packaged doesn’t work for you?

Of course it’s possible to replace the shirt for another one of the correct size, but right then, in that moment, the joyous gift-giving opportunity had been slightly tainted.

With any given audience we only get one chance to deliver our presentation with maximum impact. Don’t look back on what could have been through lack of careful thinking.

I also now have more work to do to remedy the situation – drive to town; park the car; walk to the shop; exchange the shirt; stick it in a jiffy bag and send it off. All because I hadn’t done some simple research.

If we fail to invest the time, thinking carefully enough about our audience and how best to deliver our gift of a presentation, we risk having to spend more time after the event unpicking the confusion we’ve created. The clarification email that needs sending or the additional 1-2-1 conversations we require to reiterate the key messages we failed to deliver the first time.

Know your audience and then treat them to a gift of a presentation they will immediately appreciate.