37- Closing your presentations more strongly
The introduction and the closing are the most important parts of a presentation. This is simply because people often remember the initial impression you made on them as well as the last thing they heard. In psychology, this is called the Serial Position Effect.
The Serial Position Effect states that people will remember the last thing they heard more clearly than any of the other information presented. Knowing this, you should focus on making sure that the last thing your audience hears meets your objective, and theirs, for the presentation.
Have you ever attended a presentation and walked out thinking, “So what?” Keep this feeling in mind when you present. You want your audience to leave thinking about what action they are going to take based on the information you presented. From the audience’s perspective, you’ve given them a lot to think about regarding your topic. Information has been relayed to your audience, hopefully in a selective fashion, because you followed the Need Block recommendation previously discussed. However, it isn’t enough to just get the information to them. Rather, you need to finish by telling them what to do with it- this is the so what part of the presentation.
Commonly, professionals provide presentations that give information on a technical project that may be of use to a client. These are generally referred to in most industries as brown bags, or lunch and learns. I have sat through many lunch and learns where the speaker spends most their time discussing how the system works and providing great features and benefits. However, I leave the presentation asking myself, “What do I do now?” or “So what?” For example, picture yourself as the head of purchasing for a company. You are looking to acquire new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Therefore, you attend a sales presentation by one of the leading CRM providers. Throughout the presentation they show you all of the “bells and whistles” of their system. It seems to meet your needs and is an economic choice for your group. You sit through the entire presentation getting excited about the opportunity to implement the system. However, at the end, the presenter closes by thanking you for your time and leaves. They don’t give you information on how to purchase or implement the new system. You are left feeling frustrated and disappointed, and thinking “What’s the next step?”
To strongly close a presentation, you need to keep audience members from asking these questions. You can do that by using these two tools. First, summarize the features and benefits you have already presented. Don’t forget to remind them how the benefits meet their needs. Second, after you have summarized these points, check that your audience is following along and agrees with you by asking a confirmation question such as, “Do these sound reasonable?” Second, and this is the big one, finish with a call to action. This is the answer to the so what question. You have armed your audience with all the ammunition they need, now they need to know what to do to act.
Use the objectives you developed during your research phase to decide what actions you want the audience to take. For example, if you are presenting a lunch and learn and your main objective is to work with the client on a new project, end your presentation with a call to action that encourages the audience to talk to you about new projects. The call to action should be very clear to the audience. Remember, they need to be told what to do with the information you provided. In the lunch and learn example, you can say, “I will be here for a little while. If anyone has a project they would like to discuss please let me know, I am here to help.”
Now that we’ve worked the presentation from introduction to closing, it’s time to work on how you can handle the question and answer portion of the presentation like the professional you are. I’ll address that topic in my next blog.
