The Presentation Book

‘Brilliant tips and strategies for not only developing an effective ‘Good presenters work hard to make presenting
‘Good presenters work hard to make presenting look easy.

presentation but also how to successfully deliver a message to The Presentation Book is their secret.’
an audience. Every professional should read this no matter what Denise Fay, founder and MD, Achieve Marketing, award-winning author, TEDx speaker
stage of their career they’re at.’

Tiffany Poeppelman, organisational psychologist, speaker, business consultant
Have you ever watched a TED talk and

wondered what their secret is, or a
THE PRESENTATION BOOK

business leader influence with impact
and wished you could emulate it?
Now you can!
The second edition of this #1 bestseller will show you the presentation
techniques and insider secrets used by expert speakers globally. Having
presented to over three million people for MTV and the BBC, Emma Ledden
shares the method, mindset and mastery she has learned to empower you
to present like a pro.
Plan and prepare properly – learn how to inform, inspire and

entertain through a proven three-step visual approach.
Profile your audience – quickly understand what your

audience needs and how to banish your nerves.
Shape your message – transform your raw data into three
THE
cleverly crafted points.
PRESENTATION
Design your slides – get the right visuals in the right place, at second edition
the right time.
Make your next presentation the best you’ve ever done.
BOOK
HOW TO CREATE IT,
Emma Ledden
Visit our website at £12.99

Designed by redeyoffdesign.com
www.pearson-books.com
SHAPE IT AND DELIVER IT!
BUSINESS
Cover images © Shutterstock.com and coyoteuss/Shutterstock.com
second edition
Emma Ledden
Untitled-1.indd 1 25/11/2016 10:02
Praise for The Presentation Book
‘A succinctly written book on the dos and don’ts of presenting. Detailed
and informative, this book not only teaches you the best skills to have in
your presenting tool-belt, but also teaches you the importance of a good
presentation in the modern world. A must-have for anyone entering or
already part of the work-place!’
Claire Fox,
Freelance writer
‘This book isn’t just for presentation beginners! It has very valuable insights
on how to get an audience spellbound and engaged with your presenta-
tion. This is a must-have for beginners and experts alike. If you like the
stage, this book will make your audience like you on stage. If you have
any degree of stage fright, this book will give you the confidence to be the
presenter you always wanted to be.’
Frank Hattann, The Sales Institute of Ireland,
Digital Sales Advisory Council Member
’Not surprisingly, Emma has delivered the best book on presentation skills
I have ever come across. Having experienced her training course first
hand, and immediate success in selling consulting work shortly after, I
can say with full confidence that she is exceptional at what she does. The
Presentation Book provides compelling, practical and pithy advice that is
easy to take in and apply. It will be my go-to resource for presentations and
communications in general from now on.’
Robert Freese, Director, Talent and Organisation Development,
First Data Corporation
‘The Presentation Book exemplifies what Emma does best – c ommunicate

the complex clearly, concisely and with great consideration for her
audience. This is a truly insightful and practical book that will undoubt-
edly inspire many in the delivery of more impactful and influential
communications.’
Johanna Fullerton, business psychologist and Director,
SEVEN, Psychology at Work
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 1 28/11/2016 15:18

’Finally, there is a book that can guide the most inexperienced presenter
to deliver a top class presentation, as well as help the more experienced
presenter figure out how to get better results from the presentations they
deliver. Full of simple yet incredibly effective models that will help shape
and create powerful presentations, as well as practical advice on deliver-
ing compelling messages that connect with the audience and create the
right impression.’
Mary O’Reilly, Senior Manager, Talent, Development and Learning,
Deloitte & Touche
‘The Presentation Book is a really practical guide for anyone who is involved
in presenting. It is very engaging and an easy read with lots of useful real-
life examples and templates for guidance. This book will support those new
to presenting through the preparation process and encourage the more
experienced presenter to improve and refine their approach.’
Elaine McGleenan, Director, Learning and Organisational
Development, KPMG
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 2 28/11/2016 15:18

The
Presentation
Book
iii
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 3 28/11/2016 15:18

At Pearson, we have a simple mission: to help people
make more of their lives through learning.
We combine innovative learning technology with trusted

content and educational expertise to provide engaging
and effective learning experiences that serve people
wherever and whenever they are learning.
From classroom to boardroom, our curriculum materials, digital

learning tools and testing programmes help to educate millions
of people worldwide – more than any other private enterprise.
Every day our work helps learning flourish, and

wherever learning flourishes, so do people.
To learn more, please visit us at www.pearson.com/uk
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 4 28/11/2016 15:18

The
Presentation
Book
How to create it, shape it
and deliver it!
Second edition
Emma Ledden
Harlow, England • London • New York • Boston • San Francisco • Toronto • Sydney
Dubai • Singapore • Hong Kong • Tokyo • Seoul • Taipei • New Delhi
Cape Town • São Paulo • Mexico City • Madrid • Amsterdam • Munich • Paris • Milan
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 5 28/11/2016 15:18

PEARSON EDUCATION LIMITED
Edinburgh Gate
Harlow CM20 2JE
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1279 623623
Web: www.pearson.com/uk
First published 2013 (print and electronic)

Second edition published 2017 (print and electronic)
© Emma Ledden 2013, 2017 (print and electronic)
The right of Emma Ledden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The print publication is protected by copyright. Prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a
retrieval system, distribution or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
recording or otherwise, permission should be obtained from the publisher or, where applicable, a
licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom should be obtained from the Copy-
right Licensing Agency Ltd, Barnard’s Inn, 86 Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1EN.
The ePublication is protected by copyright and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, dis-
tributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted
in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was pur-
chased, or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of
this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and the publisher’s rights and those responsi-
ble may be liable in law accordingly.
All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. The use of any trademark
in this text does not vest in the author or publisher any trademark ownership rights in such trade-
marks, nor does the use of such trademarks imply any affiliation with or endorsement of this book
by such owners.
Pearson Education is not responsible for the content of third-party internet sites.
ISBN: 978-1-292-17198-2 (print)

978-1-292-17199-9 (PDF)
978-1-292-17200-2 (ePub)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for the print edition is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ledden, Emma.
Title: The presentation book : How to create it, shape it and deliver it!/ Emma Ledden.
Description: 2 Edition. | New York : Pearson Education, [2016] | Revised
edition of the author’s The presentation book, 2013. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016044171 (print) | LCCN 2016048941 (ebook) | ISBN
9781292171982 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781292172002
Subjects: LCSH: Business presentations.
Classification: LCC HF5718.22 .L424 2016 (print) | LCC HF5718.22 (ebook) |
DDC 658.4/52--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016044171
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
21 20 19 18 17
Cover designed by redeyoff design.com

Cover images © Shutterstock.com and coyoteuss/Shutterstock.com
Print edition typeset in 9.5/13 and Mundo Sans Pro by SPi Global
Printed by Ashford Colour Press Ltd, Gosport
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 6 28/11/2016 15:18

CONTENTS
About the author ix

Acknowledgements xi
Why buy this book? xiii
Chapter 1 The presentation that tried to save lives 1
Chapter 2 The way we are presenting is not

working 9
Chapter 3 Presentation 101 17
Chapter 4 The six golden rules of Audience Focused
Presenting 27
Chapter 5 The communication factor 51
Chapter 6 The Audience Focused Presenting way 61
Chapter 7 Delivering a great performance 89
Chapter 8 Presenting virtually 115
Chapter 9 Become a world class presenter 125
Chapter 10 Move the needle on your presentation
skills 137
Conclusion 147
Two final tip sheets 149
Index 153
vii
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 7 28/11/2016 15:18

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 8 28/11/2016 15:18
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Emma is an international bestselling

author, speaker and communication and
learning specialist. During her career to
date she has been an MTV VJ, BBC TV
presenter, radio host, business woman
and author.
Emma began her career presenting for

Irelands National broadcaster produc-
ing and presenting her own slot for two
and a half years. Following this, Emma Source: LÍosa McNamara – Anchorbird
was chosen from over 2,000 hopefuls
to become a VJ for MTV UK. This involved being in front of a television
camera five days a week. Here, she presented The Dancefloor Chart Show,
Select, Weekend Edition and MTV News.
Within six months Emma landed another very high-profile television posi-
tion. She was chosen to present BBC’s flagship program Live and Kicking.
During this time Emma fronted major ad campaigns including Pepsi and
Lee Jeans as well as gracing the front covers and pages of international
magazines including Maxim, Ministry, Loaded, Heat, FHM and Company.
Over the past ten years, after making the move from Media into B
usiness,
Emma developed a unique three-step approach to business commu-
nication called Audience Focused Presenting based on her exceptional
experience.
ix
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 9 28/11/2016 15:18

This globally recognised approach is based on the professional presenta-
About the author
tion secrets Emma learned while working as a television presenter for MTV
and the BBC.
This approach was first published in The Presentation Book in September

2013 and The Communication Book in September 2014. Today, Emma is a
leading international communication and learning specialist.
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 10 28/11/2016 15:18

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For my wonderful Granddad Richard Mc Mahon

You are loved beyond words and missed beyond measure
Firstly, I want to say a massive thank you to Eloise Cook at Pearson. Your
support, advice, guidance and positivity have been invaluable. I am so
happy we got to do this second edition together.
To the whole Pearson team for all your work and partnership. Dr. Priyad-
harshini Dhanagopal, Melanie Carter, Sarah Davies and Jessica Houlihan,
you have made it all so easy. I feel very lucky to have worked with you all.
Thank you.
Also a very special thank you to the amazing designer Patricia Fox who
designed all the graphics for this book. You were a dream to work with.
To my lovely mum for always being my no 1 fan. To Michael, there aren’t

enough words to express my love for you. Thank you for letting me be The
Chief. To my granny Una. You are an inspiration and I am so proud of you.
And to the rest of my family for all your love and encouragement. I feel
very blessed to have you all.
Finally, to the amazing people I work with every day that are brave enough
to put themselves out there and work to be better presenters. This book
would not be possible without you. Thank you.
xi
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 11 28/11/2016 15:18

Publisher’s acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright

material:
Author photo on p ix by LÍosa McNamara – Anchorbird; all other illustra-

tions created by Trish Fox.
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 12 28/11/2016 15:18

WHY BUY THIS BOOK?
In business today, very little time is available to prepare for a presentation.
It’s real. The call to present with one hour’s notice. Being told to use other
people’s slides, sometimes more than one person. Your workload being so
heavy it’s impossible to prepare for a presentation on top of it.
Add to this the human factor; we procrastinate with the time we do have.
We begin to panic when we have time to think about our presentation and
we go into self-protection mode. This self-focus causes us to think only of
our own agenda, forgetting we have an audience we need to communicate
to, persuade and influence.
Finally, and I believe worst of all, when we overcome all these hurdles
and we start preparing, we have only an outdated presentation approach
to help us. We don’t know any other way but to open a laptop and start
writing slides. We are not equipped with a methodology and framework
to help simplify our message and have impact. A methodology and
framework to take our expertise, tailor it, shape it and edit it. A frame-
work to talk about what we do in an impactful and meaningful way to our
audience, to talk about what the audience cares about at the right time,
in the right way.
And it doesn’t end there. There is one final layer to all this. The world has
changed. We now live in a digital age. Not only do we have to present, we
have to present globally, virtually and with cultural intelligence. We have
to present to people in different countries and times zones, thousands of
miles away, who we cannot necessarily see and persuade them to engage
with us.
xiii
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 13 28/11/2016 15:18

These are the real challenges we all face every day and they create real
WHY BUY THIS BOOK?
problems for individuals and businesses such as:
1. Presenters who are overwhelmed with information
2. Audiences who need to be re-educated multiple times
3. Bottom line impacts such as wasted time and money/longer sales

cycles/misunderstandings and damaged reputations
The approach of using slides alone to prepare a presentation is simply not

good enough anymore. It doesn’t work. I want to offer you a new and dif-
ferent presentation approach.
This approach is based on the professional presentation secrets I learned

while I worked as a television presenter for MTV and the BBC. In these
roles I presented to over 3 million people at any one time and my sole
purpose was to keep them engaged. I want to share with you the approach
I took to do this.
The approach is called Audience Focused Presenting.
A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 14 28/11/2016 15:18

1
M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 1 28/11/2016 15:19

O n 16 January 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia was launched from
the Kennedy Space Center. There were seven astronauts on board.
Eighty-two seconds after the shuttle launched, an incident occurred.

What happened was a piece of debris from the shuttle broke off during
the launch and hit the wing. This type of incident is called a foam strike.
Foam strikes are very common and happen during nearly all shuttle
launches; however, in the case of the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia
the engineers at NASA, having watched a playback of the launch, believed
this foam strike was out of the ordinary. The engineers feared the foam
strike that occurred during this launch was bigger and faster than any
other they had seen before and had, as a result, caused damage to the
shuttle’s wing and heat shield.
The shuttle was now in space.
The problem
The difficulty, however, was the engineers in NASA were not 100 percent
sure the shuttle was undermined because foam strikes occur all the time
without damage. What they needed was a photograph of the shuttle in
space taken with high-resolution spy cameras to see if there was indeed
damage to the wing as they suspected.
Now, getting a satellite photograph of this nature is expensive

business and must be justified to senior management in NASA.
Why was this foam strike different from any other that had occurred in
the past?
This was the question NASA management needed an answer to. In the
hope of getting the approval for the photograph, the engineers, based on
3 reports, prepared a presentation with a total of 28 PowerPoint slides
to present.
The engineers’ approach to preparing this PowerPoint presentation was a

typical Slide-Based Approach. Using the PowerPoint slides as a structuring
tool and a presentation aid:
• They began the presentation with a general introduction to foam strikes

and their history.
M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 2 28/11/2016 15:19

• They then went into detail on all the past foam strikes that had occurred
THE PRESENTATION THAT TRIED TO SAVE LIVES

and had been tested for. Ensuring to cover all the detail, including many
instances when foam strikes did not cause damage.
• Then, at the very end, they delivered the key message.

This approach of moving from general information about a topic through
detail and data to get to a concluding key point is called deductive reason-
ing. Simply put this means building up to your strongest point instead of
leading with it.
This approach was also very evident in their slides. The bullet points
moved from large, general, more optimistic bullet points to concluding,
smaller, lower-level bullet points mentioning doubts and uncertainties.
I would like to show you what I mean.
The slide
Below is the final slide the engineers presented to NASA. This is the slide
that tried to save lives.
M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 3 28/11/2016 15:19

Do you have any idea what the key message is here?
Because they had used deductive reasoning and a slide-based approach

when preparing this 28-slide presentation, the engineers placed the
key message as a fourth-level sub-bullet in the PowerPoint on the
last slide.
The key message the engineers wanted to get across was – ‘Flight condition
is significantly outside of test database’.
M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 4 28/11/2016 15:19

What they were trying to communicate was that this foam strike was out-

side of anything they had seen or tested for in the history of NASA.
The decision
Let me remind you what the purpose of this presentation was. The engi-
neers believed (they feared) seven astronauts were in space in a shuttle
with a damaged wing. They wanted a satellite photograph to verify this.
They needed budget sign off from NASA management for the photograph.
They didn’t get it.
The relevant NASA managers attended the presentation given by the

engineers and made a decision.
They decided the Space Shuttle Columbia was safe and there was no
need for a photograph.
On 1 February 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated

on re-entry to earth and all seven astronauts died.
The foam strike that occurred during the launch created a hole in the wing,
resulting in the disintegration of the shuttle, exactly as the engineers had
suspected all along.
M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 5 28/11/2016 15:19

The investigation
After this terrible accident the Columbia Accident Investigation Board

(CAIB) was set up to investigate how this tragedy could have occurred.
As you would suspect this was a very detailed investigation and blame was
found in many places, one being the culture of NASA (this is a whole other
book) and the other being the communication.
Specifically, the CAIB found fault with the 28-slide PowerPoint pres-
entation the engineers prepared and delivered to the management in
NASA.
The CAIB concluded that despite an abundance of data, the crucial

message, that the shuttle was in imminent danger, was completely lost.
They determined that:
Key information was so buried and condensed in the rigid format of the
PowerPoint slide that it was rendered useless.
They also criticised the use of PowerPoint as a preparation tool saying

it was:
• An obstacle to internal communication

• Had a dampening effect on clear thought and expression.
M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 6 28/11/2016 15:19

And had the uncertainties been more clearly expressed, the need to

inspect the wing may have been more obvious.
“It is easy to understand how a senior manager

might read this PowerPoint slide and not
realise that it addresses a life-threatening
situation,”
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board concluded, citing E

dwards
Tufte’s work.
The conclusion
The crucial message of the presentation was completely lost because of a
presentation structure that does not account for how we listen and engage
as human beings.
The presentation the engineers delivered:
• Was complex, when it should have been clear and concise

• Demonstrated data, when it should have been delivering key messages
• Was overloaded with facts and statistics giving different perspectives,
when it should have been organised by giving only critical detail at the
early stages of the presentation
The truth is the engineers struggled to do what we are all struggling to do –

They struggled to simplify their message.
And they are not alone. The need to make the complex understandable is
the biggest challenge all presenters face today.
Most business people today are:
• Given product/technical training to equip them to be experts but no

methodology to take this knowledge and talk about what they do in an
impactful and meaningful way to their audience
M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 7 28/11/2016 15:19

• Given multiple slides from multiple sources but no technique that
allows them to pick out the critical messages
• Talking about their concepts or products but are not necessarily

equipped with the ability to relate these to the audience and talk about
real business problems or needs
This book aims to change that.
For more details on the CAIB report and Edward Tufte’s finding please visit
www.edwardtufte.com
M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 8 28/11/2016 15:19

9
M02_LEDD1982_02_SE_C02.indd 9 28/11/2016 15:19

M icrosoft estimates that there are 500 million PowerPoint users in

the world, with an estimated 30 million presentations created daily.
Right now as you read this there are 1 million PowerPoint presentations
being delivered somewhere in the world. I am sure there are also many
thousands more using other presentation software too.
Slide Focused Presenting

Many presenters use slides as a preparation tool to help them organise
their thoughts. They look to PowerPoint to give them structure in a pres-
entation. I call this approach to presentations Slide Focused Presenting.
It typically follows this approach:
• The slides are prepared first: In preparing their presentation, most

presenters open their laptop and start typing data onto their slides,
believing this is the only step in the process of preparing a presentation.
The truth is this is fundamentally destroying your chance of being an
effective presenter before you have even begun.
• There is no difference between the handout and the slides: Present-

ers will regularly prepare a handout which they will then use as their
slides and also as their notes. In reality a handout, a visual aid (slides)
and your notes have three completely different purposes and all need
to be prepared separately.
• Presenting a written document: With a Slide Focused Approach the

presenter has effectively written data onto slides. Very often this is
every single word they are going to speak in case they lose their way.
Plus the slide is also doubling up as the handout so it needs all the
information. The presenter is now left with no option but to:
• Deliver a whole heap of information with no clear messages
10
M02_LEDD1982_02_SE_C02.indd 10 28/11/2016 15:19

• Follow a structure dictated to them by their slides rather than their
THE WAY WE ARE PRESENTING IS NOT WORKING

own natural way of thinking
• Speak the written word
The reality is the majority of these Slide Focused Presentations leave their
audience feeling confused, frustrated or jaded.
What is even crazier is this out-of-date approach turns what could be

a great presentation into an average one. And worse still, turns what
could be a very engaging speaker into, at best, a mediocre one.
Slide Focused Presenting doesn’t work because this modern world we live
in demands so much more of us and our presentations.
The real world

As I stated at the beginning of this book, in business today, very little time
is available to prepare for a presentation.
It’s real. The call to present with one hour’s notice. Being told to use other
people’s slides, sometimes more than one person. Your workload being so
heavy, it’s impossible to prepare for a presentation on top of it.
Add to this the human factor, we procrastinate with the time we do have.
We begin to panic when we have time to think about our presentation and
we go into self-protection mode. This self-focus causes us to think only of
11
M02_LEDD1982_02_SE_C02.indd 11 28/11/2016 15:19

our own agenda, forgetting we have an audience we need to communi-
cate to, persuade and influence.
Finally and I believe worst of all, when we overcome all these hurdles and
we start preparing, we have only an outdated presentation approach to
help us. We don’t know any other way but to open a laptop and start writ-
ing slides. We are not equipped with a methodology and framework to
help simplify our message and have impact. A methodology and frame-
work to take our expertise, tailor it, shape it and edit it. A framework to
talk about what we do in an impactful and meaningful way to our audi-
ence, to talk about what the audience cares about at the right time, in
the right way.
And it doesn’t end there. There is one final layer to all this. The world has
changed. We now live in a digital age. Not only do we have to present, we
have to present globally, virtually and with cultural intelligence. We have
to present to people in different countries and times zones, thousands
of miles away, who we cannot necessarily see and get them to engage
with us.
These are the real challenges we all face every day and they create real
problems for individuals and businesses such as:
1. Presenters who are overwhelmed with information
2. Audiences who need to be re-educated multiple times
3. Bottom line impacts such as wasted time and money/longer sales

cycles/misunderstandings and damaged reputations
The approach of using slides alone to prepare a presentation is simply not

good enough anymore. It doesn’t work. I want to offer you a new and dif-
ferent presentation approach.
This approach is based on the professional presentation secrets I learned

while I worked as a television presenter for MTV and the BBC. In these
roles I presented to over 3 million people at any one time and my sole
purpose was to keep them engaged. I want to share with you the approach
I took to do this.
The approach is called – Audience Focused Presenting or AFP for short.
12
M02_LEDD1982_02_SE_C02.indd 12 28/11/2016 15:19

Audience Focused Presenting

Audience Focused Presenting is a very simple three-step methodology
you can use to prepare any presentation.
Step 1 – Profile the audience – Truly valuing the audience and investing
in what they need from you as a presenter is the secret to
presentation success. This means the first thing you must
do is close your computer and understand your audience
before you can build any slides.
Step 2 – Structure your messages – This methodology includes the

world famous Audience Focused Presenting preparation
structure. This storytelling framework will provide an
organised way for any presenter to effectively prepare
and deliver best-in-class presentations to any audience. It
enables you to:
• Stop and think

• Sort through your tsunami of data
• Slow down your fast thinking for a short time
• Give yourself a structure for your messaging
• Be simple and meaningful
• Save time, money and reputation
13
M02_LEDD1982_02_SE_C02.indd 13 28/11/2016 15:19

Step 3 – Design visual aids – Once you have relevant structured
messages you can build amazing visuals to match them.
So the Audience Focused Presenting is:
• Profile the audience.

• Structure your messages.
• Design visual aids.
This is the simple three-step approach you are going to take away and be
able to implement immediately after reading this book.
Audience Focused Presenting can be applied to all types of presentations

including:
Everyday presentations – A small, informal presentation, as simple

as a meeting to discuss the status of a project, or to present
some research, strategy or inspiration. Many times these
presentations are internal and often include only members
of the team.
Formal presentations – These include the decision makers who’ll give

the go ahead for the project or sales pitch to move forward.
Often these presentations are offsite and require significant
preparation. There is more at stake here because this type of
presentation proves the presenter properly understood the
problem and created great solutions.
14
M02_LEDD1982_02_SE_C02.indd 14 28/11/2016 15:19

Keynote presentations – This is where you speak to a larger audience,

say over 20 people. There’s less interaction between the
presenter and the audience. And the presentation is highly
structured and choreographed.
Before we get into the detail of Audience Focused Presenting, let’s go back
to basics in the next chapter and explore what makes a great presentation.
15
M02_LEDD1982_02_SE_C02.indd 15 28/11/2016 15:19

16
M02_LEDD1982_02_SE_C02.indd 16 28/11/2016 15:19

17
M03_LEDD1982_02_SE_C03.indd 17 28/11/2016 15:19

What is a great presentation?
You know it when you see it, don’t you? But it can be very hard to pinpoint
what you’re seeing. Usually we attribute a great presentation to the pre-
senter’s personality, charisma or style. It seems that great presenters have
some intangible quality that is just out of reach.
This good news is once you examine what a great presenter is actually
doing you realise charisma and personality are not at the heart of great
presenting.
Let’s examine exactly what happens in a great presentation.
A great presentation grabs the mind of the

audience at the beginning, navigates them
through all the various parts, themes and ideas
easily, never letting go, and then gets them to
the point of action or result.
It does this by:
1. Beginning with the audience’s needs, thoughts and feelings. A great

presentation ensures right from the beginning the audience recognises
how the messages of the presentation will relate to them.
18
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2. Having structure and flow that allows the presenter to take the audience
PRESENTATION 101
through the data in the most direct, easy, jargon-free, enjoyable and
understandable route possible.
3. Achieving the goal of the presentation. This means the audience is

thinking, feeling and doing what the presenter planned for. For example
the audience understands the concept or has bought into the idea.
The wrong presentation path

Unfortunately, very few people do this. Most people take a path similar to
that shown below.
Most presenters don’t consider the audience and their needs properly
when they are preparing the presentation so they start the presentation
at the point they think is important and then they simply dump data in all
directions. While they talk their messages get lost in a fog of facts.
Because of a lack of structure the audience has to work very hard to

unearth the point of the talk and understand the data being flung at them.
In most cases an audience is not prepared to work this hard. In some
presentation scenarios an audience may not even know why they should
listen in the first place.
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The sum of the parts
Presenting is a skill. The skill of presenting involves two distinct, individual

parts you must consider separately:
Communication – Content Delivery – Standing and

Crafting Speaking
Both have different elements you need to master:
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A great presentation is made up of all the elements above; however, please
PRESENTATION 101
note that 90 percent of the success of your presentation is determined
in the Communication – Content Crafting Phase.
In order to stand and speak with confidence and impact you must prepare
a great story you can wow the audience with.
What is your presentation skill

level?
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What your presentation score tells you:
Score of 194 = very nervous and no presentation skills
A person on the lower end of the scale usually has limited or sometimes
no experience on their feet so presenting is terrifying for them. Couple this
with a lack of knowledge about what makes a really great presentation and
this person is left feeling unsure and incompetent.
Score of 5—7 = confident but limited presentation skills
The majority of people I train, especially business people, fall into this cat-
egory. They do have experience on their feet. They are also what people
might call talkers or extroverts.
If you fall into this part of the scale the good news is you have overcome
the hurdle of managing your nerves, which is fantastic. You may feel com-
fortable and even enjoy presenting. However, what you still don’t neces-
sarily have at this stage is the skill to structure and shape a message that is
engaging, impactful and meaningful for your audience.
You can present for 20 years and stay at this level. Conference rooms
around the globe are filled with presenters who like to talk and have lots
of data but never actually get a clear message across.*
Score of 8—10 = confident and presenting skilfully
When you are truly at this level you have mastered your delivery skills
(although you will still get nervous, which is vital) and you will also be
capable of crafting a message that always gets the right results. At this level
it is about inspiring and leading with your presentations.
*FYI – The most common ratings I get from this assessment are 5 or 6.
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How do you know where you really are on this scale?
PRESENTATION 101
Your feelings are not an indicator of your abilities. You must examine the
components that make up the skill of presenting and objectively measure
yourself against them. You must experience yourself as the audience does.
Becoming a presentation leader

The only way to be successful in a presentation is to lead your audience
from the start of your presentation to the end.
To do this, firstly you have to make a decision to take the focus off you and
make your audience number one. You must make them the most impor-
tant person in the room.
Secondly, you must get to grips with your words and your messages. Own-
ing what you say is vital to being credible and authentic. If you don’t own
what you are saying all you are doing is impersonally reading data.
Unfortunately a lot of people when they present struggle to feel

empowered and lead their presentation because they are too focused
on the nervous feelings that arise when they have to stand and talk.
Being judged by an audience is difficult for all of us. Every human being
has a fear when they present of embarrassing themselves or making a
fool of themselves. Because of this real fear they don’t lead when they
present; they merely survive. In an effort to survive the experience of
presenting they prepare a Slide Focused Presentation that acts as a
crutch. They then stand up and read the slides as quickly as possible
and sit back down, relieved it’s all over.
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Ultimately, they approach their presentation in self-survival mode. The
problem with this mode is it is about the presenter surviving the experi-
ence of standing and speaking rather than putting the audience first and
creating a positive and engaging experience for them.
A final word on this

Every so often I come across someone who has a presentation horror story.
This is a time when they presented and it all went unspeakably wrong. I am
talking worst case scenario, the scene we all dread, the silence we don’t
recover from, the going blank that breaks us.
Sometimes this experience is so traumatic it causes an individual to avoid

presentations at all costs. They simply can’t risk another failure, another
humiliation, another public defeat.
If you are someone who has had such an experience I want you to think
back to your horrible experience for me. I want you to be really honest
and ask yourself why it went so wrong.
1. Were you told to speak at the last minute without any warning?
2. Were you not prepared enough but maybe didn’t realise it until it was
too late?
3. Did you realise too late your audience were not who you thought they
were or your information was not relevant to them?
4. Did you have a catastrophic technology breakdown and were unable

to deliver the talk without the slides?
5. Did you prepare in your head and then were unable to find the words?
6. Did your negative beliefs (nerves) gain control of your presentation

leaving you paralysed with fear?
Any human being would fail in these circumstances because it was too
late to deal with the situation they found themselves in. All of the above
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s cenarios can be overcome with forward planning and preparation. One
PRESENTATION 101
bad experience presenting does not need to dictate your presentation
future.
I want you to chalk your negative experience up to just that, experience –

something to learn from. The question is what did you learn?
In the following chapters I am going to equip you with a method and

framework that will give you the structure, security and sureness you
need be a great presenter.
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1. Begin with a clear purpose
To be a successful presenter you must ensure every single word you
speak (from start to end) is relevant to the audience you are talking to.
The first and best way to ensure your presentation content is relevant is
to begin your preparation by asking and answering a simple question.
By identifying the purpose or objective of your presentation, you will

ensure everything you say is focused, clear, concise and purposeful.
More is not always better

A great presenter decides what information to leave in and take out as
they prepare their presentation. A great presenter knows more information
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does not equal a better presentation. In fact studies show the more choice
THE SIX GOLDEN RULES OF AUDIENCE FOCUSED PRESENTING

you give an audience the less likely they are to act. We as human beings
become paralysed to choose when we have too much choice. Your goal as
a presenter is to empower your audience not immobilise them.
As much as you feel you want or need to, you can’t say everything there
is to say on a topic.
As part of the preparation of your presentation you must figure out what
you will and will not say. As you prepare and rehearse your presentation
keep asking yourself:
• ‘Why am I saying this?’

• ‘What is the purpose of telling my audience this?’
Imagine your audience reacting to your information by saying ‘So what?’
Being clear on the purpose of your presentation also allows you to make
decisions such as:
• Will I have audience interaction? If so, how will you do this?

• Will I include a role play, PowerPoint or a demonstration? If so, how
will you do this?
The mark of a great presenter is not what they say, but what they choose
not to say. Being clear on the purpose of your presentation enables you
to decide what to include or exclude and is the first step to building and
delivering a successful presentation.
2. Don’t assume interest
Before a presentation, any audience anywhere in the world is thinking

two things:
i. How long will this presentation last?
ii. And … What’s in it for me?
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What all audience members really want to know at the beginning of any
presentation is:
Research tells us an audience will engage and listen only if there is a reason
for them to listen, for example:
1. If they are sincerely interested in what you have to say
2. If they know there is a benefit to what you have to say
3. If they fear there will be a negative consequence/or pain for them for
not listening
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Making assumptions about your

audience
One of the biggest mistakes I see presenters make is assuming their audi-
ence will listen to them out of interest. The truth is maybe they will,
maybe they won’t. Maybe they should, maybe they shouldn’t. Maybe
they will hang on your every word or maybe they will tune out in the first
minute. You really have no idea. Therefore:
A great presenter doesn’t leave the choice to

listen in the audience’s hands.
In order to ensure an audience will listen, you need to tell them why they
should listen to you. You need to entice and seduce them into listening.
How do you do that? You simply need to tell your audience the value of
your information to them. You need to tell them the benefit of listening
or the pain for them of not listening.
Going forward you must never assume an audience will listen out of inter-
est. For each presentation you prepare you need to give the audience a
reason to listen.
Just a final note on this. I have come across presenters who tell me there is
no specific reason for their audience to listen to them as their presentation
has no real value. My recommendation in this situation:
If you don’t have anything of real value to say to

your audience please stop talking and sit down.
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3. Hook the audience in
We have just learned in Rule 2 we must never assume an audience will
listen to us out of interest. We must give an audience a reason to listen.
That is telling them the benefit of our information or the pain for them
if they don’t listen to us. But when do we do this?
The Remote Control Test

I would like you to think for a second about the way you watch televi-
sion. You are sitting on your couch channel surfing. You change to a new
channel, you ask yourself: Is this interesting (interest)? Worth watching
(benefit)? Do I need to watch this (fear)? Eh no. Next!
As human beings we watch a presentation the same way we watch TV. We

decide very quickly if this is something of value to us and if not, we switch
off or go to another channel.
You will not be surprised to learn audiences make the decision to listen
to you very quickly.
Your audience will decide if your presentation is of benefit or if they really

need to listen in the first 45 seconds.
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Unfortunately, a lot of presenters spend the first 45 seconds and the major-
ity of the rest of their presentation telling their audience:
• What they are going to tell them

• What they already know
• What they don’t want to know
This approach guarantees an audience will switch off right from the start.
The key to a great presentation

is getting the beginning just
right
To be a successful presenter you have to cut to the chase, get to the point
and be direct. You need to inspire your audience, engage them, and let
them know this presentation is worth listening to. When it is your turn to
talk please connect with the audience straightaway with the benefit or
the pain in the form of a hook.
A hook can be a:
• Question
• Story
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• Quotation
• Visual
• Video
• Statistic
• Startling statement
• Personal anecdote or experience
• Expert opinion
• Sound effect
• Physical object
• Testimony or success stories
Here are some examples of hooks:
‘Sadly, in the next 18 minutes when I do our chat, 4 Americans that are alive
will be dead from the food that they eat.’
— Jamie Oliver’s TED Wish
‘Okay, now I don’t want to alarm anybody in this room, but it’s just come
to my attention that the person to your right is a liar. (Laughter) Also, the
person to your left is a liar. Also the person sitting in your very seat is a liar.
We’re all liars. What I’m going to do today is I’m going to show you what the
research says about why we’re all liars, how you can become a lie spotter
and why you might want to go the extra mile and go from lie spotting to
truth seeking, and ultimately to trust building.’
— Pamela Meyer How to spot a liar
‘Imagine a big explosion as you climb through 3,000 ft. Imagine a plane full
of smoke. Imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack,
clack. It sounds scary. Well I had a unique seat that day. I was sitting in 1D.’
— Ric Elias 3 things I learned while my plane crashed
‘There have been many revolutions over the last century, but perhaps none
as significant as the longevity revolution. We are living on average today
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34 years longer than our great-grandparents did. Think about that: that’s

an entire second adult lifetime that’s been added to our lifespan.’
— Jane Fonda in Life’s Third Act, a TED talk
A gentle word of warning

There are so many ways you can hook your audience, from the most
simple to the more extravagant. You can have a lot of fun coming up
with alluring and impactful ways to engage your audience at the start
of your presentation; however, I do have a gentle word of warning for
you on this.
I see so many presenters today play videos or tell stories that are not rele-
vant to the presentation topic and don’t actually tell the audience why they
should listen. The presenters are doing this because they think something
novel will ensure engagement. It won’t. You must make sure your hook has
both style and substance.
Something funny or unpredictable might get the audience’s attention for a

few seconds but ultimately you will still be left with a room full of people
asking, why should I listen to this presentation?
The purpose of a hook is to tell the audience in the first 45 seconds why the
presentation is of value to them. Please make sure your hook achieves this.
But wait, what about an agenda?

Traditional Slide Focused Presentations tend to begin with an agenda slide.
This is a slide that lays out exactly what will be talked about, in sequence,
sometimes with exact timings.
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For example:
But is this a good thing or a bad thing to do? Let me try and answer that.
Imagine you turned on the radio in your car to your favourite station and
the DJ was telling you what was coming up in the next hour. They began:
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Have you switched over to another station yet?

They would never do this because they wouldn’t have any listeners.
A radio station picks the best bits coming up in

the next hour and uses this to hook you in and
keep you listening for as long as possible.
For example:
‘Coming up in the next hour, we will be playing our mystery voice and if you
guess right this hour you win €5,000. We are going to play last night’s number
one and of course, we are going to give you all the latest celebrity gossip.’
This is what you must do as a great Audience Focused Presenter.
Audience Focused Agendas

The first thing to say on this is an agenda is not the same as a hook.
A hook gives the audience a reason to listen. It tells them explicitly why the
content is of value. An agenda simply lists the topics that will be covered
in the presentation. The audience may deduct from the agenda the value,
but they may not.
The problem with the traditional agenda slide is it is long and boring to get
through for the presenter and can give the audience an option to decide
not to listen at certain points, if at all. I completely agree it is important
to let an audience know what is coming up in the presentation BUT you
need to do it in a smart way. You need to do it in an Audience Focused way.
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If you want people to know what’s coming up once you have hooked them
in, instead of giving them a full topic list, give them an overview of what is
going to be covered to keep them interested or tell them what value they
will walk away with at the end.
You don’t get a second chance to

make a first impression
I cannot stress how important the beginning of your presentation is. The
stronger the hook the more durable the audience’s engagement will be. It
is not easy to get someone to listen to you, but if you make sure they really
understand the value of your information and what it can do for them you
will succeed in getting their attention.
You do not need to employ any out-of-the-ordinary antics like juggling or

joke-telling at the beginning of your presentation to get attention. I have
seen so many of these tricks go horribly wrong and the presenter doesn’t
recover from the bad start.
All you have to do is answer one very simple question for your audience:
‘Why should I listen to this presentation?’
4. Start at the end
The presentation structures I typically see fall into three categories:
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Presenting the wrong
way up
Most people when they structure presentations do so using what
is called deductive reasoning. We saw this structure in action in
C hapter 1 in the Space Shuttle Columbia story. Deductive reasoning
moves from a general introduction to a more specific conclusion.
Simply put, this means building up to your strongest point instead
of leading with it.
The main reason this is a chosen approach is presenters want to establish

themselves and their credibility before they give conclusions. Traditional
Slide Focused Presenting heavily influences this approach.
Deductive reasoning means:
1. Beginning with a general overview, background or intro to the presenter

and company
2. Going into detail about the topic, covering all possible areas
3. Finally, at the end, showing an executive summary or final slide that

reveals the key message
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Just to be clear this is a very legitimate approach to structuring a presenta-

tion but there is a massive vulnerability to using it you need to be aware of.
This model of communication, building up to your strongest point instead

of leading with it, assumes the audience will listen throughout the build-
up till you get to the key message. In this structure you do not give a
reason to listen, a hook, you simply dive into the information and hope
the audience will still be there at the end when you get to the key mes-
sage or point.
If you are using this presentation structure, I do understand why but you
must ask yourself if your audience is going to wait until the end to get
what they need. Would you wait that long? This approach may be fine for
a book or a written document because people are choosing to read it at
their leisure or dip in and out at certain points, but for a presentation this
is a very uncertain approach.
Now here is the good news: you can transform this presentation structure
in one easy step.
All you have to do is turn the triangle the right way up.
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Presenting the right way up
As we have already learned you must start with your most relevant, engaging
and striking point for the audience. You must be confident in yourself and
your communication and lead with your strongest point for the audience.
You then spend the rest of the presentation building your story and cred-
ibility around that opening point. This is what is called inductive reasoning.
Inductive reasoning moves from a specific opening statement to the more
general yet relevant material to substantiate it.
Why is this the right structure?

• Itbenefit
gives the audience a reason to listen because you are telling them the
or addressing the pain factor straight away.
• Itingallows for repetition. You can keep linking back to the hook, remind-
the audience why your content or new point is relevant to them.
• Itning
holds people’s attention. When you state your key point at the begin-
of your presentation, you can then weave it throughout the pres-
entation, showing how each point you cover relates to and supports it.
Rule 5 next explains exactly how to do that.
5. Use the word YOU
The right start is vital to a successful presentation but the best start
alone is not enough to guarantee presentation victory.
Once you have the right presentation structure you will be leading with
your strongest point and hooking the audience in the first 45 seconds
by giving them a reason to listen. But then, as you continue through the
rest of your presentation you have to keep the audience captivated and
engaged. You must keep the connection you have formed with the
audience from the start of your presentation to the end.
Stay connected to your audience

The best way to keep your audience engaged as you deliver your full pres-
entation is to intentionally, actively and continually link your relevant facts
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and data back to the audience’s needs and make sure the audience knows

why every point you make is relevant to them.
During your presentation you need to talk to your audience about them,
their reality and how your company or concept will be of value.
The secret to great presenting is to talk to your audience about them

even when you are talking about you . . . think about it for second.
And how exactly do you do that?
By using one simple word.
The word YOU.
Here comes the science

Researchers at Yale have identified the 12 most powerful words in the
human language proven to attract attention and stir emotion. At the top
of the list is the word you!
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The word you is the most powerful word you can use in a presentation.
Using the word you is how you relate your data back to the audience and
what is important to them.
Here are two examples of the power of the word YOU in action.
Example 1:
Before:
‘We have 45 offices worldwide with 10,000 staff.’ Audience – ‘So
what?’
After:
‘We have 45 offices worldwide which you can access to leverage
your existing business. We also have a huge support team which will
be available to you with a range of languages and contacts already
in place. We intend to give you a key contact in each country if you
choose to do business with us.’
Example 2:
Barack Obama, the US President, addressed supporters in Chicago
after decisively winning a second term using the word you to relate
and engage:
‘Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to
determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves
forward.
It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you

reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression,
the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to
the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue
(Continued)
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our own individual dreams, we are an American family, and we rise

or fall together as one nation and as one people.
Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us

that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long,
we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we
know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best
is yet to come.
I want to thank every American who participated in this election.

Whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very
long time, by the way we have to fix that, whether you pounded the
pavement or picked up the phone, whether you held an Obama
sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made
a difference.’
6. Have a middle not a muddle
The success of your presentation is determined by your ability to put

your information together in a way that is meaningful for the audience.
This is where the skill of presenting really comes in.
Words and ideas have great power when they are linked together

properly and in the right order.
A great presentation has a beginning, a MIDDLE and an end and NOT

a beginning, a MUDDLE and an end.
The only way to avoid the muddle is to structure your data around three
digestible groups of information. Any more than three and the audience
will struggle to remember them.
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The rule of three
The rule of three is a very general rule in speaking, writing and music that
states concepts or ideas presented in threes are inherently more interest-
ing, more enjoyable and more memorable.
Good stories have a beginning, a middle and an end.
The number three is universal in well-known stories: the three little pigs,
the three musketeers or the three wise men.
And of course many advertising or political taglines take the form of three-
part quotes: ‘Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’; ‘sex, drugs, & rock
‘n’ roll’; ‘Work, rest and play’.
It is vital not to overload your presentation with too many ideas and
messages.
Three core messages illustrated in different ways, re-visited and re-emphasised,

will make sure your messages are understood, remembered and most import
antly will guarantee you have a middle not a muddle. I call this the 3 : 3.
And finally, end on a high

So far we have spoken about the beginning of your presentation and how
important it is to hook your audience in the first 45 seconds. We have also
just looked at the middle of your presentation where you will structure
your content based on the rule of 3 * 3.
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But can you just stop there? What about

concluding at the end of your presentation?
The primacy and recency effect claims we remember the first thing we
hear and the last thing we hear in a presentation. Your conclusion is very
important as it will be the last and most recent message your audience will
receive and walk away with.
Have a smooth landing

Concluding a presentation is like landing a plane. There are a few ways
you can do it.
1. Crash landing: You can crash out of the sky. You can suddenly and
abruptly finish your presentation with no warning at all.
2. Circling: The presenter is coming to the end and realising they haven’t
got their message across, just keeps going in the hope they will get there
at some stage. No one has ever said – I wish that presentation were
longer. Only speak for your allotted time.
3. Smooth landing: You tell your audience what they have gained from the
presentation and what action they need to take, if any, such as:
• Tell the audience you are coming to a close.

• Summarise the key points.
• Leave them with something to remember or a call to action (not some-
thing new).
• Thank them and ask for questions.

Preparation Structure
One of the main reasons people become Slide Focused Presenters is
because they are dependent on slides to give their presentation structure
and to give them as the presenter a feeling of security.
When we are asked to present on a topic we have so much data to choose

from and so many thoughts in our heads, we need a method and frame-
work to prioritise our information and construct our presentation. Slides
seem to offer us this. But please don’t be fooled.
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The purpose of a slide in a presentation is to act as a visual aid and if used
correctly it works amazingly. Slides are not designed as a tool to structure

content. When they are used for this purpose they force presenters to think
and speak in a very unnatural way.
It is vital you have a great presentation structure for your audience to fol-
low, for your own self-confidence and for your peace of mind. One of
the main goals of this book is to give you a framework to organise your
thoughts and allow you to present logically, impactfully and most import
antly as yourself.
I want you to be able to create an engaging, relevant and clear piece of

communication that you can add visual aids to if needed. The Audience
Focused Presenting Preparation Structure will allow you to do this.
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T he success of your presentation lies in your ability to put together a
relevant, understandable audience focused piece of communication

before you stand up to present it.
This vital skill, the ability to make data understandable, relevant and digest-
ible, is one that is being overlooked in presentations today. I find present-
ers are so busy trying to stand out, trying to do something quirky or funny
or impactful that they are missing the point of presenting. I am a massive
fan of a great video, a funny joke or an impactful picture but only as part
of a great story. Great presentations are not about the elusive X Factor, they
are fundamentally about The Communication Factor.
There can be different ideas about what communication is defined as, but
it’s really quite straightforward.
Communication is creating understanding. It’s telling a story.
Great communication is about making sure your audience engages with,

understands and remembers your key points. It is about taking the driest
of topics and making it relevant, interesting and even enjoyable for your
audience. Great communication is about you doing all the work to create
a great experience for your audience.
To be a great communicator you must know your audience inside and out.
You must talk to your audience about them and things that interest them.
To explain your ideas you must find great stories, examples and analogies
your audience can relate to. You must talk with passion and interest in
your own subject.
Great communication takes work on the part of the presenter as you must
research, develop, organise, structure, shape and rehearse your presen-
tation before you stand up and deliver it live. Creating a great piece of
audience focused communication is the most important ingredient for
any presentation today.
But how do you do that?
What kind of communicator

are you?
I want you to imagine for a second that your presentation is like a car jour-
ney for your audience. They have to get from one destination to another
and your presentation is the road they travel on.
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Are you a super slick motorway that allows the driver to effortlessly get
THE COMMUNICATION FACTOR

from A to B without stress or hassle?
Is your road signposted clearly to ensure your audience has a smooth

journey with no wrong turns or unnecessary stops?
Does your road make it easy and effortless to reach the place the audience
wants to get to?
Or is your presentation journey more like this?
Is your road so intertwined with so many other roads and options that the
audience feels overwhelmed and confused before they even start?
Do you have no clear signs to help the audience distinguish which road
is right for them?
Does getting to your destination leave your audience exhausted and frus-
trated about how long and unnecessary the journey was?
To ensure your presentation road is easy to travel down you must avoid
the four presentation pitfalls.
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1. Not making the content relevant to the audience
After hooking the audience in the first 45 seconds you then have to
keep them.
You must be consistent with your engagement and linking throughout

the talk. If at any time the audience feels your data is not relevant they
will lose interest and you will lose them.
2. Overloading the audience with too much data
Too often in presentations audiences are overloaded with too many

facts and details.
This is done for many reasons. The most common are the presenter:
• Thinks this is the best way to give their audience value for money
• Feels all the information is important
• Iseverything
unable to choose what to take out and leave in so they present
and hope the audience gets something
• Isandusing the data as a crutch to fill time or showcase their knowledge

expertise
• Is doing what everyone else in their company is doing

Ultimately though the main reason for data overloading is the presenter
hasn’t focused on the audience and thought about what they actually
need and want to hear.
Here comes the science

Research over the last 20 years, by Professor Iyengar (https://sheenaiyengar
.com/the-art-of-choosing/), shows that overloading people with too many
choices (or too much data) reduces engagement in a process, the quality
of decisions and ultimately the satisfaction with those decisions.
When we gear presentations to the needs of the listener, the messages do

not get lost in the muddle of data overload.
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In order to clearly communicate an idea so the audience understands and

can take action, remember: Purposeful, Audience Focused Presenting
is better.
3. Using PowerPoint the wrong way
The point of a PowerPoint slide is not to cram as many words as possible

onto it and then stand up and read it to an audience. The idea of a slide
is to help the audience visually understand your ideas and concepts.
PowerPoint is a very powerful visual aid when used correctly. It really

is. Unfortunately many presenters do not use it as a visual aid, instead
they use it as:
• Their notes
• A crutch
• A substitute for preparation
• The handout (given before, during or after the talk)
• The
talk
PowerPoint that gets circulated to the people that weren’t at the
I will talk about PowerPoint in more detail later in the book but please
know that what you think is helping you could be the reason you are
being branded a lacklustre presenter.
4. Using too much industry jargon
The best presenters speak in plain English.
‘Plain English is clear, straightforward expression, using only as many

words as are necessary. It is language that avoids obscurity, inflated
vocabulary and convoluted sentence construction. It is not baby talk,
nor is it a simplified version of the English language. Writers and speak-
ers of plain English let their audience concentrate on the message
instead of being distracted by complicated language. They make sure
that their audience understands the message easily.’
— Professor Robert Eagleson
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I know you don’t want to be seen to ‘dumb things down’ or speak in what
you perceive to be baby talk. Dumbing down and baby talk are very differ-
ent from being clear, concise and understandable. I am not asking you to
dumb anything down; I am asking you to speak in a universally understood
language rather than your industry dialect. In everyday conversation we
speak in plain English using first-degree words. These are words that have
only one meaning that everyone can understand. For example ‘road’ is a
first-degree word. ‘Infrastructure’ is not.
To be understood you have to stop:
• Using concepts, acronyms and jargon without explanation

• Assuming levels of understanding that are simply not there
• Bombarding the audience with too many numbers with no context for
those numbers
• Using ten sentences to say what could be said in two

• Talking about what you are going to talk about instead of just talking
about it. You need to get to the point
Facts are, of course, critical but the reality is they take time to penetrate
the brain.
A mistake many presenters make is assuming their colleagues, customers or

clients understand the everyday jargon they use. In most instances, this is not
the case and can result in serious miscommunication and misunderstanding.
Please believe me when I say your audience (internal and external) does
not understand your industry language as much as you think or maybe
in the way you think. They may have heard the acronym or come across
the theory but that does not mean they understand it in the way you do.
Don’t make the mistake of being over-confident in your assumptions

about your audience’s level of understanding. There is a very good chance
you’re mistaken in assuming understanding that simply isn’t there.
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The onus is on you the presenter

The purpose of a presentation is to create understanding.
If you don’t make your facts understandable you are essentially expecting
your audience to:
• Take on board a catalogue of data

• Assimilate the data immediately with no real context
• Reach the same conclusion you have reached
(And all of this in 20 minutes.)
The onus is never on the audience, it is always on the speaker to keep the
listener engaged and ensure they understand the data.
You must know your audience and how they will interpret what you are
saying. Something that is incredibly natural and everyday to you may
not be to them. You must speak to your audience in a language they can
understand.
You have to step back from your own assumptions. If in doubt start at the
beginning and make sure everyone understands.
To ensure engagement throughout and to make sure you are creating

understanding you must avoid the four presentation pitfalls (pages 68–70)
and always do the following:
• Speak in plain English to explain your messages and concepts.

• Relate your information to how it affects your audience.
• Use real-life examples, stories or analogies to explain your concepts and
bring your facts to life.
The power of a picture

A concept is an abstract general idea that could have many meanings.
‘Sustainability’ is a concept. I don’t think anyone actually knows what that
word means. Children and adults think in pictures and concrete thoughts
rather than general ideas.
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We go through years of education and all we are taught is how to memo-
rise data and concepts. Only a very small percentage of teachers take those
concepts and make them stick, make us understand and remember them.
Great presenting is about the creation of understanding. Presenting con-

cepts to an audience and assuming they will be able to take the general
abstract ideas and understand them as you do is senseless and ultimately
ineffective.
You, the presenter, must take the concepts and make them real. You must
present them so the audience can touch them, taste them and feel them.
People relate easily (and emotionally) to stories, examples, analogies and

case studies. More importantly, people remember them. Our brains are
hardwired for story. Story was how cultures were passed from generation
to generation. Stories are interesting, easy to listen to and you remember
the message. If you have an important message, concept or idea that must
be remembered by your audience concentrate on telling a story or find-
ing one concrete example to support your point. Facts are important and
can even be critical but they penetrate the brain very slowly – remember
learning your times tables or your French verbs.
Stories make facts speak. They give them an emotional context. They make
facts digestible and appetising. As well as the facts entering the brain more
quickly, in the process you become more human, more approachable and
more audience-friendly. The best speakers reach into their bag of stories
and examples and this is what brings their presentations to life. This is what
connects them to the audience.
I hope I demonstrated the power of story in the opening chapter of this

book when I told you about the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy.
Let’s talk about TED

It is very important, before I finish this chapter, to talk about TED Talks as
I believe many TED Talks and TED presenters are the benchmark against
which today’s presenters measure themselves.
TED is an organisation devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form

of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a
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conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and

today it covers almost all topics – from science to business to global issues
— in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events
help share ideas in communities around the world.
TED Talks are excellent presentations.
But why and how are each of these talks consistently so engaging, under-
standable and powerful?
One of the reasons the presentations are so good is because TED’s organ-
isers send all upcoming speakers a stone tablet, engraved with the ‘TED
Commandments’.
Speakers must follow these rules.
• Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot out Thy Usual Shtick.

• Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New
Thing, or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.
• Thou Shalt Reveal Thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.

• Thou Shalt Tell a Story.
• Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the
Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.
• Thou Shalt Not Flaunt Thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of Thy
Failure as well as Thy Success.
• Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither Thy Company, Thy Goods,
Thy Writings, nor Thy Desperate Need for Funding; Lest Thou Be Cast
Aside into Outer Darkness.
• Thou Shalt Remember all the While: Laughter Is Good.

• Thou Shalt Not Read Thy Speech.
• Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them That Follow Thee.
Presenters at TED events follow these commandments and that is why
they are so great.
The reason I share these with you is the TED Commandments are the same
presentation best practice guidelines you will find in this book.
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O ver the next few pages I want to take you through the Audience
Focused Presenting three-step method and introduce you to the

One-Page AFP Preparation Cheat Sheet.
This three-step approach and preparation cheat sheet is a time-efficient

and structured way to prepare for your presentations in three easy steps.
This approach is tried and tested and if followed it guarantees results.
One step at a time

The Audience Focused Presenting approach is three separate steps you
take in sequence when preparing your presentation. The steps are:
• Profile the audience.

• Structure your messages.
• Design visual aids.
It is vital for your success that you move through these one step at
a time.*
• Firstly, understand your audience and their needs.
*Please note, each step informs the next so it is vital you complete step 1 before you
move to Step 2. And again you must complete Step 2 before proceeding to Step 3.
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• Then analyse all your data and extract and group the relevant messages.
THE AUDIENCE FOCUSED PRESENTING WAY

• Finally, build valuable visual aids to support your content.
Finally, the most important thing to remember about the Audience
Focused Presenting approach is all three steps need to be worked
through before you go near your computer or slideware.
AFP APPROACH STEP 1

PROFILE YOUR AUDIENCE
Early in my media career I went to work for a radio station. On my very

first day I was given a piece of paper with some writing on it. I was told
no matter what I was talking about, ever, I had to make sure I was talking
about it in relation to Orla (below), my audience.
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Audience profiling in real life
I was always aware every television or radio show I worked on had a spe-
cific segmented target audience they aimed the programme at, but I had
never seen it written down so clearly. Orla was our ‘listener persona’. She
was a single representation of the whole audience the show was aimed at
and every time I presented, I needed to keep her in mind.
Audience profiling is the act of knowing in as much detail as possible who

your message is aimed at so you can tailor your content to them. Audi-
ence profiling is understanding the needs of your audience beforehand,
so you can put across your messages in the most effective way to produce
the best result.
The right diagnosis

The right diagnosis is crucial to success in the medical field. Without it,
patients suffer and sometimes die. Diagnosing the state of a patient is an
organised and logical process. Diagnosis is more than just gathering infor-
mation; it is applying that information in a way that brings a successful and
wanted outcome.
A great presenter knows there needs to be an organised and logical diag-

nosis of the audience to deliver content which is relevant and accom-
plishes the right result. Audience profiling is an indispensable part of the
design of a presentation.
Presentations need to fit a specific audience the way a prescription is given

to fit a specific diagnosis.
Mixed audiences
Very often you will have a mixed audience with different needs and
questions. There is no one simple answer to this scenario. This is
very testing as a presenter and you need to ask yourself some serious
questions:
1. How many groups of people do I have in my audience exactly? For

example, if it was an all company presentation you might have an
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audience made up of interns, managers and directors. These are all at

a different level with different needs.
2. Do I want or need to talk to them all? You need to identify who you
actually want to convince. Who is the decision maker or who does your
content affect the most?
It is not possible to talk to a mixed audience with different needs at the

same time in your presentation. You can address a mixed audience one at
a time in the same presentation.
However, if you need to talk to everyone about a topic then you must
begin your presentation from the place of the person with the least level
of knowledge and go from there. Bear in mind that this approach means
people with more knowledge may switch off.
Please remember the only guaranteed reason an audience listens to you

is if there is a benefit or a fear. You must accept that if your presentation is
not relevant to a section of the audience they will switch off.
The first step to preparing your presentation is to profile your audience by

grabbing a pen and paper and answering the ten questions below.
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If you are unable to answer these questions yourself, reach out to a repre-
sentative of your audience in advance of your presentation or gain some

insight from a colleague. In most presentation situations, it is completely
acceptable to ask your audience before what they need from you.
You must answer these questions before you move onto Step 2. This audi-
ence insight is what will allow you to structure and shape your data into
a compelling story.
AFP APPROACH STEP 2

STRUCTURE YOUR MESSAGES
The mark of a great presenter is not what they

say, but what they choose not to say.
Would you like a piece of

chocolate cake?
I want you to imagine you’re at a party and you have just been told they
are about to serve chocolate cake. You like chocolate cake. You would love
a piece of the chocolate cake.
Next thing the hostess appears with the chocolate cake on a dirty plate.
She then starts using her bare hands to break off pieces of the cake. She
then places the mashed-up piece of cake on a piece of toilet paper and
hands it to you.
Would you still want the chocolate cake?
Now imagine the hostess wheeled the cake out on a silver cart. She then
divides it into perfect slices. She serves it on a china plate and unexpectedly
also gives you a glass of champagne.
Now how would you feel about accepting the chocolate cake?
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The cake is still the same cake. The way the hostess presents the cake to
you is the difference between you wanting it or rejecting it.
The way you introduce, structure and deliver your content in a presenta-
tion is what makes an audience accept it or not. Every day I see business
people serve an audience unprepared, unplanned, unrehearsed, mashed-
up content on ad hoc PowerPoint slides.
The worst part is the audience that would easily accept the information, if
served as it should be, is left with no choice but to reject it. This outcome
leaves both the presenter and the audience feeling disappointed, frus-
trated and ultimately unfulfilled.
Moving from slides to the

structure
Most presenters I work with know they have an over-reliance on slideware,
using it as a crutch to support the structure of their presentations.
BUT – If you don’t use the slides to structure your content, what do you use?
You use the Audience Focused Presenting structure. This is a simple

storytelling framework you can plug your content into for any presentation
for any audience.
Once you have completed Step 1 and Profiled Your Audience, the next step
is to create your presentation outline.
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The AFP structure is based on the communication best practices we have
looked at earlier in the book. It will ensure you:
1. Introduce yourself
2. Hook your audience in
3. Have three key themes with supporting insights and evidence
4. Conclude convincingly
Let’s now look at how you plug your content into the AFP structure
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1. The Greeting

This is simply deciding how you will say hello and introduce yourself.
Things to think about when deciding how to greet your audience:
• Does your audience know you?

• Do you have a relationship with them?
• Is it morning or afternoon?
• Are you the first or last to present?
There is no right way to greet an audience. Your greeting must be genu-
ine, real and short as this is eating into your 45 seconds.
2. The Hook
As we explored earlier in the book, a hook is leading with your strong-

est point and telling your audience why they should listen in the most
engaging and relatable way possible.
3. Shaping your content using the 3 : 3 format
Before you begin preparing for any presentation all you will have is
data. What you need to do as a presenter in preparing for your talk is
package or group that data into a story-like format that is really easy for
you and your audience to understand and follow.
Please be clear, I am not asking you to exclude any important information.

I just want you to give it to the audience in a way that is digestible and
chunked.
The goal is to have three clear core themes
explained and expanded on with the three most
compelling and impactful pieces of information
you have to support each message.
This structure ensures you have a story-like flow and you don’t have mixed
messages.
Theme 1 is the beginning of your story. Theme 1 and the supporting infor-
mation is explained and delivered, then you move onto Theme 2 and then
finally you address Theme 3. With this structure you have a very clear
beginning, middle and end to your presentation.
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NB You don’t have to have exactly the full 3 * 3 in every presentation.

You can have less. This is, however, the maximum I recommend for a busi-
ness presentation.
Joining the DOTS

How do I decide what to say under each theme? What you need to do is
join the DOTS.
• D – Do a data dump
• O – Out or in
• T – Test for relevance
• S – Segment into your themes
• Do a data dump
Begin by simply brainstorming all the possible things you could say
about your presentation. Get everything out of your head and onto
paper. Don’t hold back here. Anything at all you think you might want
to talk about or might be relevant for this presentation – get it on
paper now.
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• Out or in

Now it’s time to apply the MoSCoW principle (a business prioritisation
method) to your data dump. Ask yourself what information is a:
• Must have
• Should have
• Could have
• Won’t have
Remember to refer back to your Audience
Profile answers at all times during this process
so you can be diagnostic in your approach and
have your audience at the top of your mind.
• Test for relevance
With whatever data you have left at this point, apply the ‘So what?’ principle.
Just imagine your audience saying ‘So what?’ at the end of everything
you are proposing to say.
• Segment into your themes

Finally, you need to take your relevant content and like a jigsaw puzzle
you need to group it together into three themes and three supporting
insights and information. Again if you are having trouble here go back
to the Audience Profile and look at the answers. Everything you need
to help you decide what goes where will be there.
4. Concluding
Finally, you have hooked the audience and have given them three under-
standable and clear messages. Now you just want to remind them of the
value of your presentation, thank them and open the floor to questions.
The Audience Focused

Presentation structure in action
Below are four examples of the AFP structure in relation to four types of
real-life presentations.
• Presenting to inform
• Presenting to influence
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• Presenting to motivate
• Presenting to sell
Because of confidentiality I have had to make these 4 examples quite
generic but they are based on real-life 30–60 minute presentations I have
worked with clients on.
Once the presenters have the structure in place they would then decide
exactly what they will say under each theme and supporting insight
depending on how much time they have and the relevance to the audience.
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AFP APPROACH STEP 3

DESIGN VISUAL AIDS
The Results of the 2015 Annoying PowerPoint survey carried out by Dave
Paradi of Think Outside the Slide* found:
Reading slides is still the biggest issue
audiences have with presentations.
This finding is followed closely by three other related frustrations:
So why are these three things happening?
They are happening simply because presenters are using slides in the
wrong way.
*http://www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/free-resources/latest-annoying-
powerpoint-survey-results/
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Are you missing the point of
PowerPoint?
Today, more than ever, presentation slides are being over-used and
abused.
People give the following reasons for over-using and exploiting

slideware:
• ‘Everyone else’s slides look like this.’

• ‘They were used by the last speaker therefore I have to use each
and every one of them!’
• ‘If I don’t use them people will think I have not prepared properly.’
• ‘They help me remember what to say next.’
• ‘The slides are doubling up as the audience handout.’
• ‘The audience will be more interested if there are words they
can read.’
• ‘If I miss a point the audience can read it on the slides.’

• ‘People will think I’m more professional.’
You are the presentation

I have no preference when it comes to slideware. To me PowerPoint,
Keynote, Prezi and any other programs are all tools to build slides. They
are slide-centric, rather than message-centric.
However, 99 percent of the people I work with use PowerPoint so I am

going to draw on that as my basis for talking about slides in this chapter.
Please note any point I make about PowerPoint relates or can be adapted
to the other presentation software.
The first thing I hope to help you understand is that the slides are not for the
presenter, they are for the audience. Slides are a visual aid to help the audi-
ence understand and remember your messages. You build the slides around
your presentation structure and messages and not the other way around.
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A presentation is not about the slides, it is about YOU. It is about you
engaging with the audience and presenting a clear relevant message, slides
or no slides.
We do not walk around in everyday life accompanied by slides. Imagine

going to a party and plodding through a PowerPoint to talk about your
week. Going home to your partner and whizzing through a Prezi as you
talk about your day. Lunch with your friends would not be the same if you
had to keep in line with your Keynote talk.
The truth is you don’t have to use slides to deliver a great presentation.
Using slides in a presentation should be an option. A choice you make
to enhance your content. Slides should not be a critical crutch you can’t
present without.
If you prepare a great presentation using the Audience Focused Presenting

structure the option to use slides or not use slides is just that, an option.
They do not become a must, they become a ‘would be good to have for
the audience to understand the message better’.
One of the big issues with slideware is people spend more time picking
animations than profiling their audience and pay more attention to sound
effects than structure.
It isn’t which software you use that is important, but how you use it. The
important part is what goes on before you prepare the slides. You are
going to have to experiment with the software yourself to decide what you
like, but whatever your preference you must take the three-step approach
before you go near your PowerPoint, Prezi or Keynote:
1. Profile the audience.
2. Structure your messages.
3. Design visual aids.
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Putting the power into your

PowerPoint
At this stage you have completed Steps 1 and 2 of the Audience Focused
Presenting method.
Now you take your Step 2 completed presentation structure sheet and use
that to storyboard out what your slides might look for each section. At this
stage ask yourself questions such as:
• Will I use a slide for the greeting?

• How do I visually depict my hook?
• Will I have a slide for each theme and supporting insight?
• Do I need a slide for every point I am making?
• What if I didn’t use a slide here, could I use a prop, flipchart, video or
just talk?
• Do I need to use slides at all?

There is no right number of slides. You might use 1 or 100. It is not about
the right number of slides, it is about using a visual only when it adds to
your presentation.
What follows are my top ten tips based on industry best practice for putting
the power into your PowerPoint.
1. PREPARING VISUAL AIDS IS THE LAST THING YOU DO
You must profile the audience, structure your messages and then work
on how to make your messages visual using the story board template
demonstrated on page 87. Always ensure you design your slides around
your Audience Focused Presenting presentation structure.
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2. A VISUAL AID (SLIDE) AND A HANDOUT OR SLIDE DOC ARE TWO

COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PIECES OF COMMUNICATION WITH TWO
COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PURPOSES
There is a concerning amount of overlap in business today between

visual aids and slide docs.
The term ‘Slide Doc’ was coined by the wonderful Nancy Duarte to
describe a visual document, developed in presentation software, that
is intended to be read and referenced instead of projected. In other
words a handout, report, proposal or information for the people who
can’t make the presentation.
Presentation slides are meant to be presented accompanied by

a speaker. Slide Docs are meant to be read alone by an audience
member.
They are not the same thing. They should never be the same thing. They
should never look the same.
A visual aid is supposed to complement what you say, not act as a dis-
traction. The handout is what the people in the room are meant to take
away and refer to after or before the presentation, when you are not
there to wow them with your brilliant presentation skills and charm.
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If you give an audience a handout during the presentation or have slides

full of text, the audience will read ahead and not listen to you. If that is
happening then what is the point in you being there?
3. DO NOT USE A PICTURE FOR THE SAKE OF IT
I was working with a group in a law firm, telling them their presentations
should be visual.
The next day, I got a phone call from my client to say this group stood
up to present and had random pictures of judges and legal scales all
over their presentations. When they were asked why, they said, ‘Emma
told us to use pictures!’
I did not tell them to use pictures, I told them to use visuals. A visual
is an image that helps make your message easier to understand. Your
image has to have meaning. No random judges allowed!
4. BEST PRACTICE SAYS YOU SHOULD ONLY HAVE ONE MESSAGE PER
SLIDE
The audience should look at your slides and have an ‘Aha’ moment.
Your slides are supposed to create clarity. Your audience are not sup-
posed to have to squint, have speed-reading abilities or have to franti-
cally search through the spreadsheet on the slide to find the number
you are referring to when you say ‘as you can see from this slide’.
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It doesn’t matter if you have 20 slides or 2 slides. They are just for you
to speak with. The handout, of course, does not have to follow this rule
as it is a written document so you can go crazy with the number of
messages per page on that.
5. FIVE WORDS ACROSS, FIVE WORDS DOWN
You are of course allowed to use some text on your slides but there is a
rule about how much text is effective. For best results limit your text to
five words across and five words down.
Now, I did not say five sentences. There are no sentences allowed on a
visual slide. It is PowerPOINT . . . You the presenter are the full sentence.
You are the text. You are the presentation.
That is why you are there.
Talk to the audience and stop making the slides do your work. The
slides just show the key points. If you have more than five across and
five down you need two separate slides.
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6. ANIMATING TEXT

Animating text means that each bulleted point of your slide appears on
the screen one at a time. For example, if you are going to have five words
across and five down then you need to animate them so they appear on
the screen one by one. If you put all five up together then you will be
talking about point number one and your audience will be… well you
have no idea where they will be. Point 2, point 3, point 5, wishing you
would hurry up because this is time they are never getting back.
7. TRANSITIONING BETWEEN SLIDES
When you are moving from one slide to another there are many fancy
ways you can do this – it is called slide transitioning. You can have your
slides fly in, float in, fade in, appear, wipe, zoom, swivel AND bounce
to name but a few.
As cool as all the above ways are to make your slides move, please use
just one slide transition type in each presentation.
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So for the people who use all of them in one presentation (I’ve seen
you), you need to stop showing off. It is disorientating, you are giving
your audience motion sickness, and many fancy transitions are not what
make a great presentation.
8. THE PRESENTER LEADS THE SLIDES NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND
This is what most people do when operating their slides:
1. They click onto the slide.
2. They pause and have a look at the slide to get a prompt. This pause is
possibly accompanied by a look of shock (did I put that slide there?),
an expression of fear (what am I going to say about this?) or an air of
apathy (this talk is very boring).
3. They then start talking about whatever point is on the slide.
They repeat this for the entire presentation.
This is not how it should be. You the presenter should introduce your
slide and tee up what is coming before you click on the slide itself. You
are the leader and the slide is the follower. You must introduce your
slide before you click on the slide itself.
The presenter leads the slides and not the other way around.
How do you get to the point where you can do this? There is only one
way: preparation.
9. THE SCREEN IS NOT FOR YOU
The people in the audience have taken the time to come and hear your
presentation so the least you can do is look at them and not turn your
back and talk to the slides.
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Yes, maybe they have been forced to come and listen to you but either

way you have more chance of actually engaging them if you turn
around and look at them.
But how will you see your slides? Some conference rooms will actually
have special screens so the presenter can see the slides while looking
at the audience. If this is not available to you all you have to do is put
your laptop in front of you somewhere so you can see it (and your notes
if you need to) and you are going to use this to see the same slides the
audience can see.
The laptop is for you, the screen is for the audience. You must stand
with your hips facing the audience at all times.
If you need to point something out on the screen you step back in line
with the screen and you turn your head and your arm to point. You do not
turn your back on the audience at any time during a presentation. Ever.
10. B AND W
This is just a little trick I thought you might find useful. When your
slide show is on full view if you press B or W the screen will turn to
black or white, respectively. If you hit B or W again it will come back
to the same slide.
This is really powerful if you want to blank the screen, grab the audi-
ence’s attention and make a point. It also means you do not have to use
slides if you don’t need to.
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Design visual aids
You need to begin the process of creating your visuals away from the com-
puter. Using your structure sheet, start moving through your presentation
and seeing what visuals might add to the message. As you do this I recom-
mend you sketch out what your slides might look like and in what order
they may go in the template provided here. Once you are clear on the
visuals you can start creating them on your computer.
Pulling it all together

On the next page is the Audience Focused Presenting One-Page
Preparation Cheat Sheet.
This is the AFP three-step method in an easy to use and time efficient
one-page format.
You can use this to help you prepare for any presentation you have going
forward.
You can download this cheat sheet and all the templates in this book at
www.thepresentationbook.com
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A presentation is made up of two parts:
Communication – Content Crafting, and Delivery – Standing and

speaking.
Up to now we have been looking at communication and the approach

to structure and shape your messages. I would now like to address deliv-
ery skills. These are the skills needed when you’re standing in front of the
audience. If you do all the preparation we have looked at up to now then
a lot of what I am going to talk about will happen naturally because you
will own your messages. However, there are a number of things you must
be aware of and in some cases manage when you stand up in front of an
audience.
It’s a performance
The part of a presentation where you stand up and speak, your presenta-
tion delivery, is a performance.
A lot of people don’t like it when I say that to them. They recoil in disgust,
believing I am now asking them to do something that goes against their
nature.
When I talk about a performance, I don’t mean an act. You don’t need to
be someone else. I don’t mean something false or fake. You don’t need to
pretend to be something you’re not.
What I mean by a performance is you need to be in a great mood when

you present. You need to be the best version of yourself when you present.
You need to bring energy and enthusiasm to the presentation.
You can’t just go through the motions when you present.
Here are the things you need to consider and master for your delivery style
to complement your communication.
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DELIVERING A GREAT PERFORMANCE
Passion, humour, energy and
personal style
Passion
Passion is an essential ingredient for your delivery skills to be impactful.
Passion simply means you care about what you are talking about, your
subject, your audience, getting the right result or simply being a great
presenter.
Passion is the opposite of indifference. If you feel your presentation/

content is boring and irrelevant then this is how you are going to make
the audience feel. I know some content is easier to get excited about than
others but the truth is all data is boring and dry in its rawest form. A great
presenter brings it to life. If you are not engaged in your own topic then
you need to find a way to get engaged. Change the content around and
get some great examples and stories. Find the value in your messages from
the audience’s point of view. Find a way to make your content enjoyable
and digestible.
Unfortunately, passion is not a skill. It is not something I can teach you.

If you hate your job or you think what you do is boring then a book on
presentation skills is not what you need. A new job is what you need.
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Humour
You do not need to be a comedian to deliver a great presentation. I really

mean that.
I get asked a lot by budding presenters if they should tell a joke or be funny.
There is nothing more cringe-worthy than someone trying to be funny – I

believe either you are or you aren’t.
What you do need to do is bring your data to life by telling stories and
using your experience and personality to make the presentation enjoyable.
Focusing on being funny is going to stop you being yourself. Be authentic and
trust your own style. You never know, you might make the audience laugh.
Energy
OK, you like your job. You enjoy talking about numbers. You see the value
in your processes. You get excited about your service.
But here’s the thing. You got two hours sleep, had a fight with your partner,
your most valued client is unhappy and your deadline has just been moved
to a time sooner than you’re ready for. On top of that you now have to
deliver a presentation and perform.
‘Are you kidding me, Emma?’ I hear you cry.
I am not kidding and it is not easy to perform when you have a life going
on around you. What you must do is leave it at the door.
I was told about this when I worked for MTV and I rejected the concept
at first. I found it very challenging to leave my life at the door, forget my
frustrations and worries, and perform. That felt false to me.
It took me a while to understand that my audience had no interest in what

was going on in my life. I couldn’t bring that into a TV studio and today I
can’t bring that into a training room. If I do, it may not be obviously visible
but it will be present in everything I do and say and the audience will be
able to feel it.
I have to leave it at the door and find a way to be in the room and in a good
mood. I need to get my head in a good place before I begin presenting.
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I have two strategies to help me do this. I listen to music (I have a specially

prepared playlist) or I go and have a few minutes to myself before I talk to
clear my head.
You set the mood and tone of the room as a presenter. Your audience
deserves the best version of you no matter what is going on in your world.
Eye contact
Eye contact is how we build relationships. It is how we build trust and
credibility. We are always suspicious of someone who doesn’t make eye
contact with us. When you are presenting you must make meaningful eye
contact with the audience.
This is sometimes easier said than done because audiences have a way of
being very distracting when you look at them during a presentation.
There are four reasons why people fail to make eye contact:
1. Denial: The belief that ‘if I don’t look at the audience and don’t see them
looking at me then maybe they are not really there’. They are there, they
do see you and you do need to look at them.
2. The slides are the presentation: This is the presenter who actually turns
their body away from the audience and talks to their slides for the entire
presentation. (Please see point number 1: your audience is there, they
do see you and you need to look at them.)
3. Anywhere but the eyes: Instead of meaningful eye contact a presenter

will pick a spot at the back of the room to stare at or will look at their
audience’s foreheads and not their eyes. Please don’t do this. It is daft
and the audience can see you!
4. It’s the audience’s fault: Audiences have a way of being very distracting
when you look at them. They move, they cross their arms, they check
their phones, they frown, they talk, they look confused, they seem
annoyed, they appear bored, they remain silent and most annoying of
all they are sitting there judging you. With all this in mind it is no won-
der it is an undertaking just to look at them. Nevertheless they deserve
proper eye contact.
You need to look at the audience. This is how you do it.
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Be a lighthouse!
You must stand with your entire body facing the audience. You need to
make eye contact as if you are a lighthouse. You must ensure you are
sweeping around the group slowly moving from left to right or right to left.
As you sweep you must engage with each person for roughly two seconds.
Be careful to really look at each person so that they know you’re inter-
ested in each one of them. Do not look at any one person for too long or
they will feel uncomfortable. This applies to both small and large groups.
However, in a large group you may not be able to look at each and every
person, but ensure you are sweeping across all areas of the general group.
Root yourself to the ground – my

one body-language rule
There are entire books written about body language and the nuances of
non-verbal communication. I have just one very simple thing to say to you
about body language.
Don’t let your body language take away from your messages.
Your audience is not supposed to be leaving a room talking about your

body language.
• Ifis your body language is good the audience won’t even notice it. That
how it should be.
• Ifandyourtakebody language is ineffective it is all your audience will talk about

away from your presentation.
I live by one very simple rule when it comes to body language. Don’t let it
be a distraction for the audience.
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Distracting body language behaviours look like this:

• The presenter dances around, taps toes, or rocks back and forth.
• The presenter sways hips from side to side or constantly shifts weight
from one foot to the other.
• The presenter moves around the room with no purpose.

Body language best practice:
• The presenter should stand with feet shoulder width apart, toes pointed
forward, with weight distributed equally on each foot – almost as if feet
were in a block of cement. The hips of the presenter should be facing
the audience at all times. This is what is called being rooted to the
ground.
• When a presenter moves, it should be with purpose (e.g. to go to the

flipchart, to move to the other side of the room, to walk into the group
to make a point). Once the presenter has arrived at the destination, he/
she becomes rooted.
Filler words – banish your ums

and ahs
Um . . . Eh . . . I think . . . I suppose!
Filler words are . . . eh . . . I suppose . . . words that find their way . . . um . . .
into our presentations and . . . eh . . . I think . . . most presenters don’t want
to say them but they . . . I suppose . . . don’t really know how to stop!
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Your filler words, sounds and phrases are actually pot holes in your presen-
tation road for the audience. Every time you use a filler word the audience
experiences a bump and discomfort. Too many bumps and your audience
will leave the talk feeling a little bruised and battered.
One of the most common challenges I come across on a daily basis in my

training courses is the use of filler words. People know they are doing it but
can’t seem to stop it. There are some really common filler sounds, words
and phrases used by most people such as:
• Filler sounds – e.g. um, uh, ah, mm

• Filler words – e.g. basically, actually, like
• Filler phrases – e.g. ‘I think’, ‘you know’, ‘I suppose’
So what exactly are filler words?

Filler words represent a verbal hesitation that has to be filtered out by
your audience. Repeated and excessive use of filler words weakens your
credibility. It may be perceived as indicating lack of preparation, lack of
knowledge or lack of passion.
You can most easily identify a filler word if it’s a part of the presentation
that is said but never written. It’s often an irrelevant transitory word used
to give yourself more time to find the right word you’re looking for, gather
your complete thought or idea and finally finish your sentence.
So why do we fill our presentations with words that add no value and in
fact detract from both our message and our overall impact?
There are three main reasons for the use of filler words:
1. We are thinking as we are talking live in front of an audience. We are

thinking about what comes next because we haven’t quite figured it out
yet. The reason is lack of proper preparation and rehearsal.
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2. We are afraid of silence. When you are presenting, a three-second

pause can feel like three hours and rather than feel the discomfort a
presenter fills every second with a sound.
3. We really are not sure what we are talking about so our filler words
reflect the real amount of understanding we have about our topic – i.e.
not enough.
So how do you overcome these challenges?

1. The first step is awareness. You must become aware of what filler words
you are using and then identify from the list above why you think you
are using them.
2. The most simple and effective way to reduce and even eliminate filler
words is to practise out loud a minimum of three times before you
present for real. This way you will have done your thinking and found
your flow.
3. Replace the filler word with a pause. You must plan to pause at key
points in your presentation either before or after you deliver an impor-
tant message. A pause is when you stop, breathe in and breathe out. It
lasts between two and three seconds. It will take time to get used to the
silence but persevere.
4. You must understand and get to grips with your own topic before
you can communicate it to someone else. If you are not sure of your
message no one else in the room is going to get clarity.
One point at a time – planning to

pause
We talked earlier in the book about self-survival. When you are standing in
front of an audience it is natural to want to talk through your presentation
as quickly as possible and sit back down again. The faster you get it over
with the less chance there is of things going wrong. Also that awful audi-
ence is still judging you so the quicker the experience is over the better.
On top of that you probably have lots of data to get through so you have
to talk fast to get through it all, right?
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Not anymore. One of the most important delivery tools you need as a
presenter is the pause.
A pause is when you stop talking, you take a breath in and then a
breath out.
As I mentioned when I was addressing filler words, it lasts about three

seconds. Those three seconds will feel like three hours. The silence in the
room can be very overwhelming for any presenter (hence the enormous
urge to fill up every single second of the talk with your voice).
You pause:
• For your audience to digest your messages

• So you, the presenter, can breathe
You need to embrace, plan and practise your pausing.
Most presenters don’t talk too fast; they simply don’t allow any space
between their key points.
• You need to pause at the beginning of your presentation before you

start to make sure the audience is ready to listen.
• You need to pause either before or after you make an important point.
• You need to pause when you put up a slide to allow people to take it in.
Rehearsal – the secret weapon

of great presenting
One of the most overlooked areas in a presentation is the need to rehearse.
The truth is in most cases the presenter only realises how vital this step is
when they are presenting in front of a real audience and the words won’t
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come, at least not the right ones. Their talk is full of ums and ahs as their

brain scrambles desperately under pressure to find a flow between words
and points. They take 20 sentences to say what could be said in 2 because
they didn’t find the most direct path to their message before they decided
to bring their audience there. They didn’t rehearse.
Why rehearse?
Here comes the science . . .
David Weiner, author of several psychology bestsellers, including the new

Reality Check: What Your Mind Knows, But Isn’t Telling You, writes:
‘Now there’s new clinical research that shows

there’s a physical reason why rehearsing
works so well and why those hours of out-
loud practice can make you a more confident
presenter.’
Weiner states:
‘The research shows there are two important

reasons why practice makes perfect. The first
is that when you practice anything – be it a
business, sales or scientific presentation or
even Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ sonata – you
essentially carve a path for it in your brain.
Without practice, your brain can take any of
tens or hundreds of paths to reach its final
destination.’
Practice reduces the number of potential pathways. In other words, by
repeating your presentation again and again you’ll start using about eight
to ten pathways, says Weiner. ‘The brain will know what you want it to do,’
he says, ‘so you’ll become more precise.’
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A real rehearsal
A real rehearsal is when in advance of your talk you deliver your content
with slides, while standing and saying the words out loud in real time with-
out skimming over any detail.
Glancing over your notes or reading through your slides in bed or on some
sort of public transport is not a rehearsal.
To ensure your audiences are taking the right path you must rehearse a
minimum of three times for any presentation.
Rehearsal rules – seven steps

to success
1. Rehearse your presentations at least three times.
2. Always rehearse out loud not in your mind.
3. Always rehearse with all your slides and props.
4. Always endeavour to rehearse once at the final location.
5. Check from the back of the room that your visuals can be seen
clearly and you can be heard.
6. Arrive before everyone else (a minimum of 30 minutes before).
7. Check all the equipment 24 hours before, bring a back-up and

have a plan B.
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My hands – what do I do with

them?
Picture the scene. I have just delivered a one-hour presentation. I have
spent two weeks preparing and rehearsing. I have just discussed my three-
step approach in detail.
I have left my negative feelings at the door and I have talked with passion
and energy (if I do say so myself). I am exhausted but happy.
I feel I have really got my point across about how a great presentation
is about ownership and content crafting. I open the floor to questions. I
wait with held breath for feedback from my audience and for a glimmer
of insight that shows me my messages have landed. The first question
comes: ‘Hi Emma, yeah that was great and all, but what do I do with my
hands when I present?’
I am not going to lie. I die a little inside. I jest, because the reality is this
is a real concern for millions of people. Like body language, gestures and
information on what to do with your hands can take up entire books.
My understanding and practice of what to do with your hands is the same

as what to do with your body language.
Don’t let your gestures take away from your messages.
Your audience shouldn’t be leaving the room talking about your gestures.
• Ifnotice
your hand movements are appropriate the audience won’t even
them. That is how it should be.
• Ifwillyour gestures are distracting and ineffective it is all your audience

talk about and take away from your presentation. This is not how
it should be.
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Don’t let your hand movements be a distraction for the audience. Distract-
ing hand movements look like this:
• Fidgeting of any sort

• Nervous repetitive movements (e.g. touching your face or hair)
• Hands on hips or both hands in pockets
• Holding/clicking/fidgeting with a pen
• Holding/fumbling/fidgeting with your notes
Gesturing best practice looks like this:
• First and foremost you must be yourself. Some people gesture a lot,
some not at all. There is no right or wrong as long as it is not a distraction.
• Become aware of your gestures through feedback or watching yourself

on video.
• Place your hands at your sides, unless gesturing or using a visual aid.
• The key is to practise this, and it will eventually feel more comfortable.
This is a very confident, open stance.
• Gesture from your shoulder and not from your wrist.

Anxiety – please make the
nerves go away
If there is anyone reading this book who can stop me feeling nervous can
you please email me immediately? Seriously!
I have been presenting for 20 years and I still get nervous all the time.
Usually my level of nervousness depends on the group in front of me and

how intimidating I perceive them to be. I am also one of those people
who gets more nervous in front of people I know. I prefer talking to an
audience of strangers.
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I have always accepted my nerves as part of what I do. The days on televi-

sion when I felt comfortable were the days I performed the worst, so as
much as I don’t like feeling nervous I reckon my nerves must be doing me
some good. I would be worried if I wasn’t nervous.
I never focus on my nerves, and I never think about my nerves. I know my

nerves will be there. I work very hard to ensure that when my nerves are at
their worst at the beginning of an important presentation, I have prepared
to get me through it.
The only two techniques I have found to help me when I am feeling very
nervous and I can’t get my mind to quieten down are:
1. Mentally challenging the fear
2. Mindful breathing
Here comes the science . . .

Anxiety or nervousness is the body’s way of responding to being in a life
or death situation.
Adrenaline is rushed into our bloodstream to enable us to run away or

fight. This happens when the danger is real or when we believe the dan-
ger is there when actually there is none. It is the body’s alarm and survival
mechanism.
This is what happens to people when they present, especially in the few
minutes before they are about to speak. What this simply means is your
internal survival system cannot tell the difference between a life and death
situation and a presentation.
Embarrassing yourself in front of a room full of people is life or death for

your ego so that is why the feelings are so strong.
The first step in managing your nerves is recognising this response and
why it is happening. Your body is just telling you this is important and you
don’t want to mess it up.
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Thoughts that often occur when you are about to present:
• This is a life or death situation.

• The worst possible scenario is going to happen and I will embarrass
myself.
• I won’t be able to cope with this and I will make a mess.

PHYSICAL SENSATIONS – THE ADRENALINE RESPONSE
When there is real, or we believe there is a real, threat or danger, our body’s
automatic survival mechanism kicks in very quickly. This helps energise us
to fight or run away (‘fight or flight response’). The action urge associated
with anxiety is to escape or avoid. We will therefore notice lots of physical
sensations, which might include:
• Heart racing: This helps to take the blood to where it is most

needed – the legs so that we can run faster (flight); the arms so that we
can hit out (fight); the lungs to increase stamina. At the same time blood
is taken from the places it is not needed, for example fingers, toes and
skin. These changes cause tingling, coldness and numbness.
• Breathing gets faster: This helps the bloodstream to carry oxygen

to the arms, legs and lungs. This will give us more power. The side
effects may include chest pain, breathlessness and a choking feeling.
As there is a slight drop in the blood and oxygen being sent to the
brain we may feel dizzy or light-headed, and we may experience
blurred vision.
• Sweating: This helps to cool the muscles and the body. It helps to stop
them from overheating. Sweating can also make us more slippery to
our enemies!
• Digestive system slows down: This is not important while in dan-

ger and so is slowed down for the saved energy to go to where it is
most needed. Side effects may include nausea, butterflies and a dry
mouth.
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Behaviours that will happen to you during the presentation:
• Self-talk/inner critique
• Fiddling with clothes, hair or jewellery
• Avoiding eye contact with the audience
• Moving from foot to foot
• Talking fast
• General fidgeting
You will do a lot of these things to help you cope with anxiety and yet these
behaviours will only show an audience your fear.
WHAT IS YOUR BELIEF ABOUT PRESENTING?

Negative beliefs make us prone to failing if we try or may even hold us back
from making any effort at all.
It is our limiting beliefs that stop us from reaching our potential. It is the
negative voice in our head that repeats to us daily all the reasons we will
fail. Negative beliefs are a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Our negative thoughts cause us to behave in a negative way therefore

ensuring a negative outcome:
Negative belief = Negative feelings = Negative actions = Reinforced

negative belief
With presentation skills the belief cycle goes like this.
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The negative belief is:
• ‘Presenters are born not made.’

• ‘I am not naturally good at this.’
• ‘If I stand up, I will make a mess of it.’
• ‘I hate presentations. I can’t do presentations.’
• ‘Isenting
don’t have time to prepare and anyway people who are good at pre-
don’t prepare.’
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The negative behaviour is:

• No preparation
• Last-minute preparation
• Preparation that is focused on getting the presenter through the talk
rather than the audience
The final result the audience and presenter experience is:
• A nervous unprepared presenter with the wrong focus

• No engagement with the audience
• Negative feedback
Because of this result the original belief is reinforced. In order to change
the result you must change the belief and you must prepare.
Mentally coping with nerves

STOP! Pause, take a breath and don’t react automatically.
Ask yourself:
• What am I reacting to?

• What is it that I think is going to happen here?
• Is this fact or opinion?
• What’
happen?
s the worst (and best) that could happen? What’s most likely to
• Am I getting things out of proportion?

• How important is this really? How important will it be in six months’ time?
• Am I overestimating the danger?
• Am I underestimating my ability to cope?
• Am I mind-reading what others might be thinking?
• Is there another way of looking at this?
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• What advice would I give someone else in this situation?
• Am I putting more pressure on myself?

• Just because I feel bad doesn’t mean things really are bad.
Thinking through the list of questions here can often help you recognise
that things are not as threatening as they might seem!
Physically coping with nerves

Practise calming or mindful breathing – this one act alone will help reduce
the physical sensations, emotions and intensity of thoughts.
WHAT IS MINDFUL BREATHING?

Imagine your mind when you are nervous as a brand new puppy that you
need to toilet train. You allocate an area for the puppy to do his business,
you put down some paper and then you show the puppy this area.
What are the chances of the puppy getting it right the first time around?
None. The puppy will keep wandering to all sorts of other places you don’t
want him to go and you will have to keep bringing him back to the area
with the paper.
This is what it is like trying to calm your mind before you present. Your
thoughts will be like the puppy, full of energy about all the possible out-
comes and dangers when you present. You have to find a way to keep
bringing your mind back to a calm and confident place.
You do this by mindful breathing and it is very simple:
• Asbreath.
you are sitting waiting to present, observe the natural rhythm of the
You don’t need to force it to be longer, deeper or slower.
• When your mind starts to wander off simply take note of this distraction
and bring your attention gently back to your breath.
• Ifwander
you like, either count up to ten in-breaths or ten out-breaths. If you
off mid-count go back to the start.
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Notes – can I use them?

Yes, you can use notes and you should use notes in case you lose your way,
which can happen to any presenter. However, you want to use notes in the
right way so here are a few things to consider.
• Ifthem
you are going to use notes use them openly. You don’t need to hide
from the audience or pretend you’re not using them. Please
remember that the audience can see everything you are doing.
• You’re allowed to look at your notes. A good time to do this is when you
put up a new slide and the audience is getting to grips with the visual.
This is also a good time to take a drink of water. Yes, you are allowed
to do that too.
• Notes are the outcome of your good preparation. They should be very
legible, in a good large font and have minimal use of sentences – try
using one word to remind you of the point you want to make. Your
notes are not supposed to look like an essay. If you write your notes
like that you will look down during the presentation and not be able to
see the wood for the trees.
• Simple cards or A4 sheets of paper are fine for your notes. Never staple
the pages of your notes together. It is very distracting when you are mov-
ing through them and when you are turning the pages over. It also looks
very sloppy. Leave them unstapled and slide them aside once you’re
finished. Make sure each page is numbered in case you lose the order.
• Your notes should always be in your gaze path. This means placed
ahead of you so that your eyes only have to move slightly to look down
at them rather than bending your head right down. If you have to look
straight down, your head goes down, your voice becomes muffled and
all the audience can see is the top of your head.
Confidence – how do I get it?

It is the people with very limited presentation experience who talk to me
most about having no confidence. They feel vulnerable and exposed when
they present. They feel genuinely shocked they feel this way yet their lack of
presentation experience means it is impossible for them to feel anything else.
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I don’t have a magic solution to this I am afraid.
To have confidence you must have experience of doing something a lot

and belief you can do it without making a fool of yourself (this comes from
the experience).
We feel confident about the things in our life we are skilled at. We are
skilled at them because we work hard at them and have earned the right
to feel confident and competent. Just think for a second about something
you feel confident about – I bet you worked very hard to earn that feeling.
Confidence is not acquired easily and you don’t get it for free. There is
no shortcut to real confidence. The reasons you don’t feel confident as a
presenter are:
• You lack the experience (the skill)

• You are not preparing properly or enough (you have not earned the
right to feel confident)
Do your best to gain more experience to build the skill or do as much

preparation as possible and you will feel more confident.
Expect the unexpected – how to

manage questions
‘What if I get asked a question I don’t know the answer to?’
I believe this is a dread that keeps many a presenter awake at night. What
will you do if you are asked a question you don’t know the answer to? Let
me tell you.
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1. This will happen to you. I guarantee it.

2. You do not know everything. I am sorry if this is brand new information
to you.
3. You can say you don’t know or you can try and bluff an answer
(have you ever seen someone bluff an answer . . . not a pretty sight).
Either way the audience knows you don’t know the answer to the
question.
4. You must admit you don’t know. Explain why you don’t know and then
tell them you will get back to them with an answer in due course.
5. You must manage your own anxiety around not knowing as you will
feel very exposed. (This is not what the audience thinks, just what
you feel.)
As well as preparing for the presentation you must also prepare for ques-
tions. I know you can’t foresee 100 percent of the questions you will be
asked but you can certainly predict a number of them based on your audi-
ence profile.
In preparing for questions write down:
• The obvious questions you think you will be asked

• The challenging questions you fear
• The one question you are most panicked about being asked
The template below will help you prepare for questions. You might want
to brainstorm with someone else in case you are too close to your topic
and are unable to identify the angles of the audience.
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Finally, when you are asked a question you can answer confidently, follow
this simple method:
• Take the name of the audience member.

• Repeat or rephrase the question for the rest of the audience.
• Answer it.
• Check the response to your answer with the audience member.
• Thank the audience member.
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T oday more and more of us are delivering presentations in a virtual
environment.
Global companies with multiple worldwide offices seeking their employ-

ees to work together collaboratively is just one of the reasons meeting and
presenting virtually is on the rise. The ability to reach thousands of people
worldwide and connect with a diverse audience with no travel costs is
another reason this method of communication is escalating.
Presenting virtually can be an incredibly effective means of communicat-

ing your message, but delivering a presentation remotely brings a whole
new set of challenges and demands a more advanced set of delivery skills
from the presenter.
Face-to-face versus virtual

presenting
In the hierarchy of communication speaking to someone face to face is
considered the most effective interaction. In a person-to-person, face-
to-face environment you have the best chance of communicating and
convincing.
Presenting virtually, although modern and valuable, will never be as per-

sonable or natural as face to face.
But why is that?
The reason is down to a very famous piece of research conducted in 1967 by Dr

Albert Mehrabian, a Professor of Psychology at UCLA (http://www.toolshero
.com/communication-skills/communication-model-mehrabian/). He
found that:
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This piece of research has been quoted in many different ways and unfor-
PRESENTING VIRTUALLY
tunately it has also been misinterpreted in the past. This study is not saying
what you say is not important. What this study is saying very simply is:
• When we communicate people receive our message in three ways,

through our body language, our tone of voice and our words.
• For our communication to be effective all three of these must be in

sync. If they are not aligned the listener will get a mixed message.
For example, I say I am excited but I do so in a hushed voice while
shrugging my shoulders.
• Our non-verbal cues deliver our messages in partnership with our

words.
In face-to-face communication, as long as the presenter’s message, voice

and body language all say the same things, the communication has a good
chance of being successful.
In a virtual environment, these elements are either not all present (it may
just be audio) or even if the audience can see you, your non-verbal cues
will be dampened by the technology and distance.
This is why presenting virtually is a challenge both for the presenter and
the audience.
Virtual presenting should not replace face-to-face presentations. In some

cases, highly complex presentations that demand interaction may require
and benefit from an in-person presentation.
However, presenting virtually is a vital tool to have in your modern-day

toolkit. It is a great advantage to master this medium as it is the way of
the future.
Now here comes the good news. The same communication rules apply.
Preparing for a virtual presentation is no different to preparing for a tradi-

tional in-person presentation. The difference lies in the delivery or execu-
tion of the presentation.
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What follows are my five Virtual Presentation Tips.
1. Start with the Audience Focused Presenting Approach.
2. Master your technology.
3. Borrow some tricks from the media.
4. Eliminate distractions.
5. Get the timing right.
1. Start with the Audience Focused Presenting Approach
There are bad presentations and then there are bad virtual presenta-
tions. Whatever hope a presenter has of engagement in person will be
obliterated by technology.
The first step to preparing for a virtual presentation is exactly the same
as for an in-person presentation. Using the Audience Focused Present-
ing Approach you need to:
1. Profile the audience
2. Structure your messages
3. Design visual aids
The key to a successful virtual presentation is the same as the key to a

successful face-to-face presentation: preparation.
• You need to be clear on your purpose, figure out how you will use
notes and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
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• You need to tell great stories, use relevant examples and create real
understanding for your audience.
• You need to be passionate, lead your slides and have a strong hook
and conclusion.
2. Master your Technology
I have yet to be involved in a virtual meeting or presentation where

the technology does not go wrong in some way or other. I kid you not.
It doesn’t matter what technology I use, how many times I use it, how
much I prepare, how many people are on the call and even with IT
standing by – something will not work.
I can also report it’s not just me. I have yet to attend a virtual pres-
entation or meeting where I don’t see the same difficulties arising for
someone else.
Predictable virtual failures are:
• The dial in won’t work – it worked when you tested it 30 minutes

before the call, it worked last week, it will work after the call but it
will not work when you need it to.
• There will be a problem with sound – your sound or someone else’s

sound. There will be a building site or chatting person in ear shot.
There will be someone on the call who is unable or unwilling to use
their mute button.
• And of course the more important the call, the more likely it will go
wrong – it must be some sort of VC karma.
Our survey says

According to a survey by Corporate Visions Inc., two-thirds of selling/
presenting time is now spent in virtual interactions, not face-to-face
meetings.
In this same survey the no. 1 finding was those same professionals said
they lack proper training in giving virtual presentations.
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Takeaway: Too many companies give their salespeople a Web meet-

ing log-in, a PowerPoint deck, a pat on their back and send them on
their way . . . and then wonder why more meetings aren’t converting
into deals.*
Becoming an expert with the technology is vital to your success as

a virtual presenter. If you’re uncomfortable operating the technology
in any way, you and the audience will be so focused on trying to make
it work that it will undermine the natural flow of the presentation and
detract from your effectiveness.
As there are so many technologies and platforms out there it is impos-

sible for me to give you training on technology but what I would like to
offer you is a Virtual Presentation Checklist to ensure you are set up
for success with any technology.
* h t t p : / / w i n . c o r p o ra t e v i s i o n s . c o m / r s / c o r p v / i m a g e s / C V I Q u a r t e r l y
Report_Q112.pdf
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3. Borrow some tricks from the media
Presenting virtually is not unlike being a TV presenter. For that reason

I wanted to give you some media tips and tricks for your virtual
performance.
Smile, everyone can hear you
• When I worked as a radio DJ there was a sign in every studio that said
‘Smile, everyone can hear you’.
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The idea was to stand, smile and have energy during your delivery as the
audience may not be able to see you but they can hear you smile.
Look into the camera
Trust your microphone
I have to admit I still struggle not to shout during a virtual presentation.

Whether I am talking to people in Singapore, Sunnyvale or Spain, I always
feel I need to speak a lot louder than if they were in the room.
Your voice is your best friend in a virtual presentation. Speak slowly, pause,
pronounce your words, show your passion and trust the microphones in
the room are doing their job.
4. Eliminate distractions
This is a big one. If someone in the audience is making unnecessary

noises it can be very distracting. Distractions I have experienced, in no
particular order, are:
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The goal is to try and keep your computer and your surroundings com-
pletely free from sounds that can irritate and turn your audience off.
You can manage this with your audience by asking people to use their
mute button during the presentation when they are not talking.
5. Get the timing right
Unlike an in-person presentation, a virtual presentation can span s everal

time zones. You need to take this into consideration when schedul-
ing the presentation. If possible, give the presentation during normal
business hours for all audience members. Be aware of when audience
members at various locations usually take breaks or eat meals. Try to
plan a presentation time that is convenient for all of them.
Also speaking of timing please ensure to respect participants’ time.

Everyone has busy schedules, so it’s your responsibility to use the time
as effectively as possible exactly as you would in person.
The ability to present virtually is a fantastic technological advancement

that connects people across the globe.
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T
o create a clear and influential presentation and to give yourself
the confidence you need as a speaker you must schedule the time
to research, develop, organise, flesh out, script and rehearse your
presentation.
The best and most powerful presenters make the time to do this. This is
what sets them apart from the typical.
There is no shortcut to
presentation success
I have worked with thousands of presenters over the past ten years and
the one thing they all have in common is they don’t prepare effectively for
their presentations.
What I have discovered is there are three main reasons why:
1. The urban myth
2. Preparing the wrong way
3. I don’t have enough time
1. The urban myth
A massive falsehood believed by too many is the certainty you can

present well and feel confident with little or no preparation.
I am sorry to say you will never be a great presenter if you:
• Throw the slides together the night before and read them on the bus
or train that morning
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• Poach another person’s presentation
BECOME A WORLD CLASS PRESENTER

• Take three presentations already on the system; extract a few slides
from each, leaving you with a presentation that actually belongs to
three other people
If you do what I have just described this is what you look like from

the audience’s point of view:
• You let the slides lead the talk.

• You spend all your time talking to the slides and not the audience.
• You speak in a monotone voice with no breaks and no rhythm
because you are reading not speaking.
• You make no eye contact with the audience. Your focus is on the
slides and surviving in one piece.
• You have body language that says ‘I don’t want to be here’. You fidget
with a pointer or clicker while fumbling through slides and notes.
• You fill the slides with too many bullet points and full sentences.
• You do not have a logical flow or structure. You try to communicate
too much, too fast, causing information overload.
• You do not have clear, structured messages.

Speaking off the cuff
‘Our CEO here doesn’t ever prepare for presentations. He just gets up and
speaks off the cuff. If he can do it, why can’t I?!’
This is a regular justification I hear. There is always a person identified in the

company who they believe doesn’t prepare and therefore they conclude
preparation is not necessary. They also back this up with the argument that
they themselves are in a senior position therefore it seems unnecessary for
them to have to prepare at their level. Sound fair?
In most of the companies in which I have worked the person referred

to as presenting off the cuff has spent between two and four hours with
me preparing for the referenced presentation. They just didn’t tell anyone
about it.
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School girl error
When I was in school there was a girl in my class who told me she never
studied for exams. Despite this assertion she used to get straight As. This
baffled me because when I didn’t study I got Ds. I never questioned at the
time she might be lying to me; in fact, I concluded she was smarter than
me.
It took me a long time to realise my mistake. There is no such thing as a

student who gets straight As and doesn’t study. Similarly, there is no such
thing as a presenter who talks naturally (looks like they are talking off the
cuff) and is successful at delivering their message without proper prepara-
tion. It is not possible. It may look off the cuff or natural but that is because
the presenter has spent time preparing it to look that way.
A presenter must prepare and prepare effectively for the end result to be a
success. I didn’t know this truth in school when I thought (or wished) you
could get straight As without effort. I meet people every day who don’t
understand this reality applies to presenting.
A study conducted by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues,

with the help of professors at the Berlin Academy of Music (http://projects
.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.PDF), divided student
violinists into three groups:
1. Potential to be world-class soloists
2. Good, but unlikely to succeed professionally
3. Would become music teachers
Each violinist was asked the same question: ‘Ever since you first picked up
the violin, over the course of your entire career, how many hours have
you practised?’
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Everyone started playing the violin around five years old and during the

first few years everyone practised on average two to three hours a week.
At age eight, the amount of practice changed for those who later became
the best with the potential to be world-class soloists.
The ones who ended up with the potential to be the best increased their
practice time from 3 hours a week to over 30 hours a week until the age
of 20. By this time:
• These elite performers had each accumulated 10,000 hours of practice.

• The good violin students had totalled 8,000 hours.
• The future music teachers had totalled only 4,000 hours.
The same study was done comparing amateur pianists with professional
pianists. The amateurs never practised more than 3 hours a week during
childhood and by the age of 20 had totalled 2,000 hours. The professionals
increased their practice over time until by the age of 20 they had reached
10,000 hours.
In Ericsson’s study there were no ‘naturals’, musicians who effortlessly

floated to the top while practising less than others.
The research suggests that once a musician has enough ability to get into a
music school, what distinguishes one performer from another is how hard
he or she works. That’s it.
How the media professionals prepare

Early in my career I worked as a presenter on the BBC show Live and
Kicking. It was a live three-hour show that ran every Saturday for nine
months from September to May. We presented on air for approximately
two hours, allowing for other programmes we showed as part of the three-
hour show.
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We prepared in exactly the same way for the entire nine-month run. It
went something like this.
Thursday
The Live and Kicking week began on a Thursday at midday. I, my co-host

Steve, the producers and the editor would all sit in a meeting room and a
detailed document called a running order of items would be handed out.
This was literally how the show would run, what competitions, interviews
and games we were doing and in what order. We would then go through
each section in great detail and start to discuss how we would bring the
text and items to life. The producers’ role was to come up with ideas to
make each item work, but as presenters Steve and I had to figure out what
we would personally and individually bring to an interview or item. This
meeting ran for seven hours.
Thursday evening
On Thursday evening I would go home and start to put some structure on

my items. I would work on how to introduce and end each section I was
presenting. I worked on this for about two hours.
Friday
Friday was a full rehearsal day from 8am to 7pm. We went into the studio
where the show was transmitted from and we literally walked and talked
the entire show twice. Some sections were rehearsed more than that. Every
single detail from the way we walked, the way we talked and the way we
interacted was rehearsed and critiqued by the production team.
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Friday evening
Friday evenings would consist of two hours of me sitting on my couch,

speaking my scripts out loud, trying to link everything together and make
sure it all flowed.
Saturday
After hair and make-up we did another full run-through of the show and
even when we were on air we were continually rehearsing the upcoming
items before we got to them.
After the show or the next day I would sit down and watch a recorded
disc of the show in full. This was never easy to do and I rarely liked what I
saw but it was essential to see myself as I was, rather than how I felt I was.
What always amazed me was how unreliable my feelings were. I had many
Saturdays where I felt I was lacking in confidence and was very surprised
watching myself back to see this was not visible to the audience. Equally I
had Saturdays where I felt very self-assured, and again when I watched it
back in fact I was lacking a spark on those days.
Monday
Our post-show meeting would begin at 2pm with the ratings for that week.
We would get a breakdown of the 3-hour show in 15-minute segments and
we would know exactly who watched which part. We would then go back
over each section in detail to see why things did or didn’t work.
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It was consistent
Each week, without exception, for nine months this was my routine for
preparing for Live and Kicking. The reason I am telling you this is because
I would like you to understand the consistent approach to preparation
we took on a weekly basis while working in a professional presentation
environment. At no time was it felt we could ease off because we knew
our stuff or had been doing the show for a while.
2. Preparing the wrong way
Many people tell me they spend lots of time thinking about and plan-
ning their presentation and I get very excited before they explain all this
preparation took place in their head! This is probably the worst place in
the world to prepare.
In your head you will be clear on everything. You will never um and ah in
your own head. You will never go blank in your own head. You will never
get nervous in your own head. You will be brilliant in your own head.
Preparing a presentation in your head is like trying to learn to drive a car

on a bicycle – completely crazy and ultimately futile.
Preparing a presentation in your head is not the only way you can prepare
in the wrong way.
Another very common process is writing down every word you are going to
say, like an essay, and then learning it off word for word. With this approach
you will not be able to engage an audience as you will be too busy trying to
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remember every single word you learned, in the right order. Your biggest

fear will be missing a word. Because you have prepared a written document
and learned it off there is a very good chance this worse fear will be realised.
I don’t blame you
It is not your fault if you are preparing in the wrong way. We are not taught
in school or university or even in our workplace the right way to prepare
and deliver a presentation.
It is brilliant if you are putting in the time to prepare for yourself and your
audience. The aim of this book is to make sure you are using that time
effectively by giving you a three-step method to ensure your success.
3. I don’t have enough time
The no. 1 reason I hear for the absence of presentation preparation is a

lack of time.
I know some of you reading this book work 12-hour days just to meet the
demands of your day-to-day job. I know you have partners and children
with whom you like to spend time in the evenings and at weekends. I know
you want to prepare but the problem is time. Finding the time to prepare
for a presentation is an enormous challenge for many professionals.
I can’t solve your workload problems but I can tell you if you are ploughing
through presentations that aren’t working for you then you need to pre-
pare properly. Preparing for your presentations must become a vital item
on your to do list, not the thing you put on the long finger or leave to the
last minute because you have too much else to do.
People tell me all the time that when they prepare properly they perform
very well. A lot of the obstacles that arise with presenting become incon-
sequential with preparation.
Fundamental preparation steps like rehearsing your talk out loud a mini-
mum of three times before you do it for real is vital for presentation suc-
cess. If you don’t rehearse your presentation in full out loud it will be full of
hesitation, ums, ahs and long drawn-out sentences. You will look unsure of
your messages and as if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I have devoted an entire chapter to presentation preparation in the hope

of convincing you how worthwhile and essential preparation is. You can
be a really great presenter, but you have to prepare.
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The big question
How long do I need to spend preparing for my presentation?
Earlier in the book we looked at the three types of presentations – Everyday,

Formal and Keynote
Everyday presentations – A small, informal presentation, as simple as a

meeting to discuss the status of a project, or to present some research,
strategy or inspiration. Many times these presentations are internal and
often include only members of the team.
Formal presentations – These include the decision makers who’ll give

the go ahead for the project to move forward. Often these presentations
are offsite and require significant preparation. There is more at stake here
because this type of presentation proves the presenter properly under-
stood the problem and created great solutions.
Keynote presentations – This is where you speak to a larger audience, say

over 20 people. There’s less interaction between the presenter and the
audience. And the presentation is highly structured and choreographed.
Each of these will require a different level of preparation depending on the

topic, the audience and how long the presentation is. For example, if you
have a 40-minute presentation that means ideally you will need to find
3 * 40@minute pockets to rehearse as well as separate time to prepare
the content.
Below are some guidelines on how to best use your time.
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If you have . . .
My final word on this is, give yourself the best chance of success and use
whatever time you have wisely.
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137
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T he ability to be a great presenter is a skill.
What I want to do in this chapter is give you a long-term action plan to

help you make a noticeable difference in your presenting.
To move the needle on your presentation skills long term the five Actions
you need to consider are:
1. Present, present, present.
2. Employ the Audience Focused Presenting Approach for every

presentation.
3. Complete the checklists.
4. Continue to ask for feedback.
5. Make better presenting your goal.
1. Present, present, present
It might sound silly but the first thing you have to do to be a great pre-
senter or even a better presenter is to present.
That’s right, I want you to present as much as you possibly can. I want
you to present standing up and sitting down. I want you to present
to 2 people and if you can to 200 people. I want you to present daily,
weekly, monthly, as often as you can. I want you to volunteer for every
presentation opportunity in and outside of your work or college. I want
you to attend courses where you will present and I want you to join
presenting clubs such as Toastmasters: www.toastmasters.org.
Presenting is a skill and the only way to learn and master this skill is to
do it as much as possible.
The best way for you to become the presenter you want to be is to present.
2. Employ the AFP Approach for every presentation
Not only do I want you to present as much as possible but for every sin-
gle presentation, no matter how significant or trivial you feel it is I want
you to follow the Audience Focused Presenting three-step methodology.
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• Start by asking the ten Audience Profile Questions.
MOVE THE NEEDLE ON YOUR PRESENTATION SKILLS

• Structure your messages using the Audience Focused Presenting
Structure Sheet.
• Design visuals (If needed).
3. Complete the checklists
I am not a very good flyer. In fact, I am terrified of getting on a plane.

This is not something that is fun to live with so a couple of years ago I
took a course to help me overcome this fear.
What I learned on that course is that pilots and co-pilots always go

through a checklist before they take off and land. These are usually
pilots with years of experience flying but they still must go through the
checklist every single time they take off and land. Why? Because forget-
ting even one tiny detail (which is so easily done) can have very serious
consequences – life or death in the case of flying a plane.
The main reasons for using these checklists is to ensure the pilots do
not get complacent or overconfident.
Presenters who are complacent or overconfident are just as dangerous

for an audience.
It is for this reason I am giving you the Audience Focused Presenting

Pre-Presentation checklist. I would like you to use it as a support in your
presentation preparation.
My recommendation is you do not stand and present until you have

ticked all the boxes.
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140
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4. Continue to ask for feedback

Have you ever asked for feedback after a presentation only to be pla-
cated with some general statement like you were ‘fine’, ‘yeah it was
good’?
Or worse you are given critical feedback by a colleague: ‘I think you

were a bit nervous’, ‘You were talking very fast’. ‘I didn’t like what you
were doing with your hands’.
Getting real and relevant feedback on your presentation skills is vital.

Why?
Because how you feel you are presenting and how an audience is expe-
riencing you can be very different.
Feedback is important because you need to understand the impact

you are having on your audience. In order to get good feedback
you need to ask a person in the audience to assess you based on
specific criteria. You have to ask the right questions to get the right
answers.
On the next page is the Audience Focused Presenting Presentation

Feedback Sheet. You can give this to the person you’re looking for
feedback from and ask them to fill it out based on a specific presenta-
tion scenario.
Alternatively, there is one very simple question you can ask after
your presentation to the person you are seeking feedback from. The
question is: ‘What messages did you take away from my presen-
tation?’ Then wait and see what they say. No prompting from you
allowed.
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142
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5. Make better presenting your goal

Ultimately if you really want to be a better presenter, what you need
to do is come up with specific actions you can take over the next 12
months to reach that goal. You may need to attend a course, get more
experience presenting or read some more books. You might want to try
out Prezi, explore ways to get more energy or uncover ways to manage
your nerves.
The actions are yours to determine. I have shared with you in this book
what makes a great presenter so use that as your guide. Start by using
the Action Plan Template below to identify some specific actions you
can take to get you to the next level as a presenter.
If you want to create your own presentation action plan please do but
if you are not sure where to start I recommend the Audience Focused
Presenting 365-day Presentation Plan.
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Move your presentation
skills needle
You are actually always presenting; you just don’t realise it. Every time you
talk to someone face to face or on the phone you are presenting. Think
about it. The only area you may not get to practise day to day is standing
in front of a large audience and using visual aids but every other element
of presentations you can practise in your everyday work situations.
With that in mind our 365-day Presentation Plan means you select one
behaviour a month for 12 months and wherever and whenever possible
you put it into practice.
Ideally, try your new behaviour once a day for the month.
These are the 12 behaviours I would like you to practise over the next 12
months.
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145
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M10_LEDD1982_02_SE_C10.indd 146 28/11/2016 15:23
CONCLUSION
In business today no matter what our job title the ability to present a mes-
sage to a group of people is something we all have to do in one form or
another.
The reality is engineers don’t just deal with machines and models, account-
ants don’t just deal with numbers and solicitors don’t just deal with legisla-
tion. We need to present to our co-workers and managers. We need to go
out into the world and present ourselves and our ideas to audiences such
as clients, groups or agencies.
We need to know how to present with impact to do this effectively.
For a presenter to succeed he or she must figure out how to get the infor-
mation out of their mind to the people in the audience in a way they will
understand, remember and even act on. This is the skill of presenting.
This is the skill you may not have been taught despite graduating from a
top university, having a 25-year career under your belt or acquiring a very
impressive job title.
This is a skill you can acquire now using the Audience Focused Presenting
three-step method.
Don’t let yourself down when you stand up to speak.
Great presenters are created, not born.
Good luck out there.
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Conclusion
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TWO FINAL TIP SHEETS
All for one and one for all – group

presentations
A lot of you reading this book have to present as part of a group. The same
rules apply to a group presentation as an individual presentation. Below
are some quick tips for group presentations.
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Tips for group presentations
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151
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A one-pager for your desk
Top five tips for great presentations:
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INDEX
adrenaline response, 104–5 B and W, 85

AFP see Audience Focused back to future, 39
Presenting belief about presenting, 105–7
agenda slide body language, 117
Audience Focused body-language rule, 94–5
Presenting, 35–8
Slide Focused Presenting, 35 CAIB see Columbia Accident
animating text, 83 Investigation Board
anxiety, 102–8 challenges to presentation, 11–12
Audience Focused Presenting checklists
(AFP), 12, 13–15 completion of, 139
begin with a clear purpose, 28–9 pre-preparation of, 140
don’t assume interest, 29–31 Virtual Presentation
for every presentation, Checklist, 120, 121
employing, 138–9 Columbia, 2
have a middle not a decision-making about
muddle, 45–8 satellite photograph, 5
hook the audience in, 32–8, 69 Columbia Accident Investigation
One-Page AFP Preparation Board (CAIB), 6–7, 8
Cheat Sheet, 62, 86–7 communication, 20–1, 90
preparation structure, 47–8 Communication Factor, 52
profile of audience, 63–6 communicator, 52–6
start at the end, 38–42 confidence, 109–10
structure, 66–75 Corporate Visions Inc., 119–21
use the word YOU, 42–5 Virtual Presentation
virtual presenting, 118–19 Checklist, 120, 121
visual aids, designing, 76–88 critics against presentation, 6
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deductive reasoning, 3, 40 keynote presentations
Index
delivery, 20, 90 Audience Focused

denial, 93 Presenting, 15
distractions, eliminating, 122–3 preparation for, 134
DOTS, 70–1
Duarte, Nancy, 80 listening the presentation, 30
Live and Kicking, 129–32
Eagleson, Robert, 55
Elias, Ric, 34 maze, 39
energy, 92–3 media professionals preparation
everyday presentations of, 129–32
Audience Focused Mehrabian, Albert, 116
Presenting, 14 mentally coping with nerves,
preparation for, 134 107–8
expect the unexpected, 110–12 message structure, 66–75
eye contact, 93–4 Meyer, Pamela, 34
Microsoft, 10
face-to-face presenting, 116–24
mindful breathing, 108
feedback, 141
mixed audience, 64–6
presentation sheet, 142
mixed message, 117
filler words, 95–7
my hands, 101–2
first impression, 38
mystery tour, 39
foam strike, 2, 5
Fonda, Jane, 34–5 negative behaviour, 107
formal presentations negative belief, 107
Audience Focused nerves
Presenting, 14 mentally coping with, 107–8
preparation for, 134 physically coping with, 108
notes, 109
goal presentation, 143
great presentation, 18–19, 33–5,
Oliver, Jamie, 34
58, 98–100
One-Page AFP Preparation Cheat
greeting, 69
Sheet, 62, 86–7
handout see slide docs one point at a time, 97–8
humour, 92 overloading, 54
industry jargon, 55 Paradi, Dave, 76

information passion, 91
amount of, in presentation, performance, 89–113
28–30 anxiety, 102–8
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body-language rule, 94–5 real rehearsal, 100
Index
confidence, 109–10 rehearsal, 98–100
energy, 92–3 real, 100
eye contact, 93–4 rules, 100
filler words, 95–7 remote control test, 32
humour, 92 right diagnosis, 64–6
my hands, 101–2 right presentation, 42
notes, 109 right time, getting, 123
one point at a time, 97–8 rule of three, 46
passion, 91
rehearsal, 98–100 school girl error, 128
physical sensations, 104–5 screen and visual aids, 84–5
physically coping with sensations, physical, 104–5
nerves, 108 shortcut to presentation success
picture, power of, 57–8 timing of presentation, 133–5
presentation leader, urban myth, 126–32
becoming, 23–4 wrong way preparation, 132–3
presentation skill, 144 slide, 3–5
level, 21–3 slide-based approach, 2–3
presenter, 57 slide docs
slides leaded by, 84 distinguished from visual
presenting, 138 aids, 80–1
Audience Focused Presenting Slide Focused Presenting, 10–11, 23
see Audience Focused agenda slide, 35
Presenting deductive reasoning, 40
belief about, 105–7 slideware, over-using and
face-to-face, 116–24 exploiting, 77
to influence, 73 stories, 58
to inform, 72 structure of Audience Focused
to motivate, 74 Presenting, 66–75
to sell, 75 DOTS, 70–1
Slide Focused Presenting, greeting, 69
10–11, 23, 35, 40 hook the audience in, 69
virtual, 116–24 presenting to influence, 73
profile of audience, 63–6 presenting to inform, 72
in real time, 64 presenting to motivate, 74
right diagnosis, 64–6 presenting to sell, 75
purpose of presentation, 3  3 format, 69–70
28–30 sustainability, 57
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technology, mastering, 119–21 technology, mastering, 119–21
Index
TED, 58–9 tricks from media, borrowing,

3  3 format presentation, 69–70 121–2
365-day Presentation Plan, 143, 144 visual aids
timing of presentation, 133–5 animating text, 83
tone of voice, 117 B and W, 85
transitioning between slides, 83–4 best practice, 81–2
tricks from media, borrowing, designing, 76–88
121–2 distinguished from slide
trigger, 106 docs, 80–1
Tufte, Edwards, 7, 8 five words across and down, 82
preparation of, 79–80
urban myth, of presentation purpose, 81
success, 126–32 screen and, 84–5
slides leaded by presenter, 84
Virtual Presentation Checklist,
transitioning between slides,
120, 121
83–4
virtual presenting, 116–24
Audience Focused Presenting warning, 35
approach, 118–19 Weiner, David, 99
distractions, eliminating, wrong presentation, 40–1, 55,
122–3 132–3
right time, getting, 123 path, 19
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The Presentation Book - How To Create It, Shape It and Deliver It! Improve

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‘Brilliant tips and strategies for not only developing an effective ‘Good presenters work hard to make presenting

‘Good presenters work hard to make presenting look easy.

stage of their career they’re at.’

Have you ever watched a TED talk and

Plan and prepare properly – learn how to inform, inspire and

Profile your audience – quickly understand what your

Shape your message – transform your raw data into three

Make your next presentation the best you’ve ever done.

Visit our website at £12.99

‘The Presentation Book exemplifies what Emma does best – c­ ommunicate

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 1 28/11/2016 15:18

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 2 28/11/2016 15:18

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 3 28/11/2016 15:18

We combine innovative learning technology with trusted

From classroom to boardroom, our curriculum materials, digital

Every day our work helps learning flourish, and

To learn more, please visit us at www.pearson.com/uk

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 4 28/11/2016 15:18

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 5 28/11/2016 15:18

First published 2013 (print and electronic)

© Emma Ledden 2013, 2017 (print and electronic)

ISBN: 978-1-292-17198-2 (print)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cover designed by redeyoff design.com

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 6 28/11/2016 15:18

About the author ix

Chapter 1 The presentation that tried to save lives 1

Chapter 2 The way we are presenting is not

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 7 28/11/2016 15:18

Emma is an international bestselling

Emma began her career presenting for

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 9 28/11/2016 15:18

This approach was first published in The Presentation Book in September

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 10 28/11/2016 15:18

For my wonderful Granddad Richard Mc Mahon

To my lovely mum for always being my no 1 fan. To Michael, there aren’t

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 11 28/11/2016 15:18

We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright

Author photo on p ix by LÍosa McNamara – Anchorbird; all other illustra-

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 12 28/11/2016 15:18

In business today, very little time is available to prepare for a presentation.

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 13 28/11/2016 15:18

problems for individuals and businesses such as:

1. Presenters who are overwhelmed with information

2. Audiences who need to be re-educated multiple times

3. Bottom line impacts such as wasted time and money/longer sales

The approach of using slides alone to prepare a presentation is simply not

This approach is based on the professional presentation secrets I learned

The approach is called Audience Focused Presenting.

A01_LEDD1982_02_SE_FM.indd 14 28/11/2016 15:18

M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 1 28/11/2016 15:19

the Kennedy Space Center. There were seven astronauts on board.

Eighty-two seconds after the shuttle launched, an incident occurred.

The shuttle was now in space.

Now, getting a satellite photograph of this nature is expensive

The engineers’ approach to preparing this PowerPoint presentation was a

• They began the presentation with a general introduction to foam strikes

M01_LEDD1982_02_SE_C01.indd 2 28/11/2016 15:19

THE PRESENTATION THAT TRIED TO SAVE LIVES

• Then, at the very end, they delivered the key message.

I would like to show you what I mean.

‘The Presentation Book exemplifies what Emma does best – c ommunicate