Delivering Pitch Perfect Presentations

By Robin Das.

Delivering the perfect presentation depends as much on who your audience is, as it does on the content of your pitch. Is it work buddies or potential clients?  Focus groups or an all-important interview panel? These tips will help you deliver the perfect presentation.

Formal presentations are held by an individual or small group of individuals to an audience. The presenter  plan and will often incorporate a visual presentation such as a slide show, video, or physical demonstration.

There will normally be an expected outcome from the presenting individual or team, such as the sale of a product, recruitment of the individual, explanation of a subject or sign up to a programme.

Examples of formal presentations include a sales pitch, a presentation as part of an interview, a lecture, presenting to a group of colleagues or a client presentation.

It is key when presenting formally to strike the correct register both verbally and nonverbally. The presenter should introduce themselves and ensure they speak clearly and respectfully. The speaker could use humour or an anecdote to illustrate a point in their presentation perhaps at the opening, but this should be kept short, be appropriate and not over-used. When presenting the speaker can gesture or indicate with their hands towards the screen on a point or when they are going to move on to another slide. Presenters should refrain from using filler words or informal words such as ‘like’ instead of ‘such as’ or ‘for example’.

Different styles can engage with the audience such as the Connector style which presenters use to show similarity with their audience and to build rapport.

A visual style is most used in formal presentations as normally key and factual information needs to be presented in a clear and explicit way.

A storytelling style could also be used in a formal setting, and could be combined with visual aids to create a sense of desire and buy-in about a particular product or service.

Informal presentations are normally held internally such as a group of students or colleagues getting together to brainstorm an idea or issue, an in-house design team discussing an issue or a focus group giving feedback on a subject or topic.

The style of informal presentations could be which is called free-form, whereby the presenters ‘go with the flow’, there are no visuals or slides and presenters may ‘pitch’ ideas for feedback, give anecdotal evidence or storytelling and get the rest of the audience to interact more with them they would in a formal presentation. This could be used in an in-house work team brainstorm meeting.

A storytelling style of presentation could also involve anecdotes to engage and connect with the audience, create emotion and rapport and sets the scene for the rest of the presentation. This could be used in a in-house design team work meeting.

A connector style of informal meeting involves creating rapport and empathy with an audience about a product or service to get buy-in. This could be used in a focus group where informal feedback is sought. The skills that you need when presenting informally are largely the same as when presenting formally, but can be done in a more relaxed manner.

It is still important to use informal body language to encourage interaction, gesture, and movement to relax the audience. Speaking should be paced appropriately and be measured with the right cadence. The presenter is more likely to already know and be familiar with their audience so they may be able to bring points into their presentation based on a sense of shared history that the audience will relate to.

Following these easy tips and keeping in mind your audience throughout, will help you on the road to success.