Presentation Tips from my buddy Duke in Houston

Dutch Holland of Holland & Davis Inc. www.hdinc.com has a masterful way of passing understanding onto his audience. Reflecting back on what made his presentation more meaningful than just its content, I came up with ten features that could turn a good presentation into a great one. Duke Rohe drohe@att.net

1. Share strategic information in a homestyle way. Clear, understandable, pertinent. The best is when the material is profoundly simple. Common sense that is not commonly exercised. Remember: being ‘expert’ distances you from the audience; being human draws you nearer.

2. Use the audience to have fun. Keep score of smart-alek remarks, yawns, whatever helps them laughing at themselves.

3. Create a mood of humor which keeps a giggle on tap.

4. Ping-pong understanding between content knowledge, real world parallels (seasoned with humor or experience), and audience answers to questions.

5. Relay two takeaway things that are MOST important. If you remember anything, remember these.

6. Describe a problem that the audience commonly experiences, expose the clockwork behind it, then share the high-level strategy needed to change it. All in nugget form.

7. Be so good that you can give away your slides, packed with helpful how-to’s, without giving away your intellectual capital. So good you don’t need to sell, just share a useful ‘part’ of what the audience needs.

8. Pause to let the audience arm-wrestle understanding among themselves; yet move on to cover the essentials of the material. Burn-in learning through exercises or sharing real-life examples.

9. Shift the attention from sniper ‘inquiries’ which want to ‘show’ you what they know by humorously saying, “Oh, I’ll let you finish my presentation”.

10. Have fun while you present. If you had a good time, more than likely, the audience did too.