English guide for economists and managers (руководство на английском языке для экономистов и менеджеров). Учебное пособие

There are three components of a presentation. There’s actually the preparation for the presentation, there is the presentation itself, and there’s follow-up after the presentation. So, let’s break it down. Preparation is, «What do I do before I give my presentation?». So, there are a lot of things to do. Here are a few categories.

One is expectations. What are the expectations for your audience or for whoever is bringing you in? If you are giving a presentation to your executives, your stakeholders, maybe a client, your project team, number one, define your audience. But also talk with them and get clear expectations. I’ve got an SOW here because in the work that I do, I get a statement of work. It’s actually a documented, signed off, statement of work so that both parties know and agree to, and understand the expectations of that presentation.

So, it’s important to understand, what is the topic? What are you going to be presenting? Is it a status report? Is it a keynote? Is it information to a team? Are you rolling out a new project? Are you launching a new product line? What is it that is going to be the topic of your presentation?

Knowing the audience, who’s going to be there? Are you going to be presenting to executives, your stakeholders, your project team? Is it going to be different business units? Are there going to be internal, external people there? Is it going to be mix of people who are at different levels, different experiences?

What is the location? Where will this presentation be? Is it going to be in your office? Is it in the city? Is it in the country? Is it out of the country? What is the venue? Is it going to be a conference hall? Is it going to be a conference room? Is it going to be an office? What is the venue for the presentation?

Time, how long will you have? Will you have a 20-minute presentation? Is this a one-hour keynote? Is it 90 minutes? Do you have a half an hour? You need to know how much time you have. What takeaways are the clients or the people bringing you in expecting? What are you going to leave behind so that they can follow up, understand, read up on after your presentation, after you’re gone?

The second part is, once you have a clear expectation of what you’re going to be presenting, it’s researching. Researching through – I love Google. Google is one of my best friends. When I’m researching

101

things it’s so easy to go Google a topic. I can also go to a library. I can also interview people.

One powerful thing for companies, your project teams is to interview the people who are going to be in the audience. Interview the people who are bringing you in for the presentation. The reason you want to do that is you want to find out what are the issues? What’s bothering them? What are you there to really address? Once you start talking to people you get different perspectives. Different perspectives of how people see the common issue and what you can do to actually address some of those issues.

Through that you want to remain relevant. Relevancy to your audience, you want to be talking about things that matter to them that’s timely. If you’re in technology you don’t want to be talking about technology that’s really old, that’s not applicable to them. If you’re doing green projects, non-profit projects, construction, engineering, whatever you’re doing you want to stay relevant to what they care about.

So you also want to keep in the back of your mind why do they care? Why are they bringing you in and why are they going to listen to you about this topic? What does this mean to them? People are always coming in for presentations. You want to keep them engaged, keep them excited, and tuned in to what you’re saying during your presentation. So it’s important to have them be thinking all the time, «What does this mean to me and how can I take this back and use it?».

Professional materials, so whether you’re delivering a PowerPoint, you’re actually giving handouts or presentation materials in hard copy, you want them to remain professional. If you’re going to be presenting something online it’s important to know how to get in, make sure you can have access, make sure that you have the log-ins and passwords and they’re still active and valid.

Then takeaways, making sure that your takeaways are ready. That you know where to ship them to and what’s actually needed. So, that’s a lot of preparation before you even begin. Those are only a few of many other things, which is an idea of where to start. Then I feel like there are some best practices before the presentation, before the day of.

It’s important to visit the venue. Actually go to the place where you’re having the meeting. If it’s in your office building just go make sure they have enough seating, the tables are arranged how you like it, the look and feel. If it’s a conference area, if it’s a stadium, if it’s on lo-

102

cation, off location, visiting that before so you have an idea and you have a feel of what it feels like for you. How are you going to project? How many people are going to be there so you know what equipment you might need?

Also, rest and relax. Again, this is one of the most frightening things that most project managers do. Even professionals speakers always still get those butterflies in their stomachs before they speak. So it’s important to get a good night’s rest, not worried about your presentation, how things are going because you’ve done all this preparation.

103