32- Great Presentations Start with Research
For many people, giving presentations is a stressful activity that they try to avoid.
I always enjoyed reading in school. One of my earliest memories was my mom taking me to the library to pick out new books. I poured over the racks, and after careful consideration I picked 3-4 books to take home. I loved the smell of the books, especially the ones with plastic book covers The first time I was asked to write a book report I was so excited. The assignment meant a special trip to the library. I was in second grade.
My teacher gave the class specific instructions to read a book about a historical figure, write about it, and then read our work to the class. Although two weeks were given for the assignment, the longest assignment I had been given in my short life, I begged my mom to go to the library the same afternoon so I could pick out the perfect book. I found a book on Maria Mitchell, America’s first female astronomer, and was so excited to get started. Later that night, and for the next few nights, I laid on the brown living room carpet with the book pages open to the left and wide-rule notebook paper to the right. My blue Bic pen furiously following my cramped fingers. I copied the entire book, word for word.
When the time came for presentations, my best friend Jessica went first. Her older sister had helped her with her paper and the teacher was very impressed with it. She said so, calling out metaphors and similes, which were words I then longed to know the meaning of so I could use them next time. The mood in the classroom changed, however, when the next student started reading his (much longer) paper. After a few seconds of reading, the teacher asked if he had just copied the book, to which he sheepishly replied, “Yes.” She then explained in a matter-of-fact tone that this was plagiarism and not at all what she meant when she asked for a book report. When she stopped chiding the boy she looked around at the rest of our faces and asked, “Who else copied an entire book?” I joined the rest of the class in raising my hand. The only person with their hand not in the air was Jessica.
Instead of continuing the planned afternoon of book reports being read aloud, the teacher wrote the word “Outline” on the blackboard. For the next few days she dedicated our afternoon reading time to teaching us how to write a book report. We each wrote an outline, introduction, main body and conclusion to a paper based on the book we chose.
For many people, giving a presentation is a lot like standing in the front of an elementary school classroom reading from a copied book instead of giving a book report. However, similar to a six year old’s book report assignment, if you haven’t been taught the process by which to prepare and deliver a presentation, how can you be expected to execute it well?
Delivering and preparing a presentation can be as simple as the cook book-like skills my second grade teacher eventually taught us for writing a book report. By following a few simple procedures, you will feel more comfortable presenting and deliver more effective presentations.
The first step is to complete your pre-work, which includes research and identifying objectives.
Before you open a PowerPoint or Prezi presentation, or even begin a presentation outline in your notebook, you need to complete your research both on your audience and the companies they are employed by. Next, you should identify presentation objectives. When you have a set of clearly defined objectives the presentation preparation is easier and your audience will notice how prepared you are. Armed with your research and objectives, you should then write a draft outline to complete your pre-work. To best accomplish these steps, follow these research and objective setting tips.
The focus of this blog is to get you started with proper research techniques. Subsequent posts will provide additional presentation tips.
Research
Start with research. There are three audience levels that need to be researched. The first is the overall, or high level, view of the audience. I call this the Macro. The second includes the smaller details of the audience, or the Micro. The last level that needs to be researched is everything in between the Macro and the Micro. This is the Meso.
Start Macro
Investigate the Macro aspects of your audience first. This includes information about the company(s) your audience members are employed by. I recommend starting with a general internet search. Type the company name and start reading. In addition to checking the links that pop up, be sure to spend ample time on the official company website and associated social media accounts. Another tip is to sign up for the company’s newsletter or press release updates if their website or marketing department provides this option. Several pieces of information I find helpful to write down include the company’s history, mission statement, size, service areas, and recent projects. For a deeper dive into the company, you may investigate the company’s client list, leadership, ownership, and reputation. To learn more about the later, you will want to ask your industry peers what they know about the company. For example, ask your colleagues what they know about the company with questions such as: Has the company worked with a competitor in the past? and What types of projects does the company focus on?
These bits of information can provide valuable insight. For example, if your research shows that the company’s mission statement is to provide quality service to their clients, and it has been family owned for over 50 years, you may choose to focus on the long-term performance and quality of your solutions. If your research shows that the company has recently completed construction for several new car dealerships in the past year, you will want to add your experience with similar construction to the presentation.
Work Micro
When your Macro research is complete, start on the Micro. I recommend starting with the individuals you know will be there and writing down what you know about them. What is their role at the company? What is their background? What are their goals? If you don’t know who will be at the meeting, ask.
To gain perspective on the audience, you can ask the person who set up the presentation. To do this part of the research, schedule a phone call or a meeting with your host. Ask a series of closed and open-ended questions such as: What is your goal for the meeting? Can you tell me more about the people who will be attending? Ideally, you would have this conversation in-person. However, with everyone’s busy schedules, this is not always possible. If you do have the conversation over the phone, be sure that you are prepared before the call. Write your questions in your notebook so you can reference them during the discussion and minimize distractions so that you can capture all of the information your host shares. Also, do your research on the company before the conversation starts. Therefore, I recommend starting Macro. You need to talk knowledgeably about the company and be able to understand the information your host is providing so you can ask good questions. At the end of the conversation you should have a list of who will be at the meeting and what their needs are.
Imagine that you are presenting a proposal to win a subcontract on a solar panel project. There will be four people in attendance, Kendra, the project manager, Eric, the owner, Sadie, the engineer, and David, the maintenance foreman. Each of these people bring their own background and perspectives to the presentation. Likewise, they each have individual goals for the project. Kendra needs the project schedule to be maintained, in fact, her annual bonus is based on the project finishing on-time. Eric is concerned about the project budget due to commitments he made to his bank. Sadie, who is in charge of the performance of the system as the Professional Engineer, needs to understand how the solar panels work. Lastly, David has reservations about the amount of required maintenance that the solar panels will require once in operation. With this information you can add relevant information to your presentation and hit on each person’s needs.
Fill in with Meso
Once you have the Macro and Micro research finished, fill in with Meso research. Unless it is a very small company, it is likely that two or more people in your audience belong to a group. Drill down into more specific role(s) of the group you are presenting to. From your conversation with the host, you know which departments or specific project teams will be represented. This adds another layer of information you can use to develop your presentation. For example, if you are presenting a new product to a customer you could have several teams in the audience including finance, operations, and marketing. Each of these teams is composed of different types of people and has different goals. The financial team is likely to be concerned with upfront costs involved in taking on this new product as well as the long-term return on investment. In contrast, the operations team may be focused on how to build and ship this new product in the most efficient way possible. Meanwhile, the marketing team is concerned about how to brand the product to maximize visibility with potential customers. You can see how each of these teams is going to be focused on a different aspect of presentation. By identifying these teams before you walk in the room, you will be better able to address the overall needs of each group in a more focused manner.
How do you prepare a presentation that addresses the needs of all of these people? More importantly, how do you address needs you didn’t know existed? There is no “silver bullet” to preparing a perfect presentation. In fact, I would argue there is no such thing.
However, the first step to a great presentation is finding out who will be at the presentation and what their needs are. Ideally, your audience will tell you their needs, but you need to help them by taking the time to do to proper research. Simply by asking a few questions you will be able to prepare an audience-specific presentation. By researching your audience and their needs, you are significantly better equipped to address those needs and use the time you have with of them wisely.
Now that you have established the needs of your audience the next logical step is to set objectives. Your objectives should include answers to these two important questions: What is your desired outcome? and What is your audience’s desired outcome? A process for setting objectives based on your research will be presented in the next blog.
What research tips do you have?
