I was attending an inspiring conference in Dubai yesterday, where speakers were supposed to share stories and best practices to enlighten the participants.

The event’s organization was great; the whole conference was free of charge for its participants, everything was so generous (giveaways, food networking gadgets), the idea of the displays and signage was very creative, in brief it had an amazing feel.

The only thing that stroke me was the level of most presentations. Some speakers started with about 30 participants in their sessions to find that only a dozen has left at the middle of it, others confused their audiences with mixed messages that lacked clear objectives. On the other hand only a few elite speakers presented in an innovative way that pushed their audience of their seats.

As a professional speaker, I might be a bit biased in believing that every presentation should leave a WOW effect, otherwise people could just watch a live streaming of an industry expert or a DVD of Anthony Robbins.

You don’t have to be in the position of Steve Jobs to be able to leave your audience with a lasting impression, you can apply the little changes as per the points below:

1- Find your WOW point: When working on your presentation, identify the points that will impress your audience. This could come in the form of a specific statistic that will shock your audience, an easy action point they can implement to make a significant change in their world, or a success story that will inspire them to take control of their life.

2- Provide the outline: By doing that you are aligning your audience’s objectives with your objectives; however make sure that your outline is not on a crowded powerpoint slide with a lot of text. Present the three major points that you are going to talk about and your interested audience will be excited to stay till the end.

3- Bring your slides to life: A slide full of text or loaded with graphs and info will overwhelm the participants. In here, the old rule of “More is less” applies. If you want to show a graph and the space is limited, split it, talk about each of its points and then show the holistic graph, otherwise provide a handout for your participants.

4- Engage your audience: One of the best ways to keep them hooked is by engaging them. This could come in the form of questions, exercises, votes etc... This way they will know that their presence is not just passive but an essential pillar of your presentation.

5- Give them something to remember you by: When presenting, you have to make sure that your speech’s effect will last even after the session. In addition to the WOW effect, you should give your participant a tangible reminder of you. Don’t be afraid. This tangible memory doesn’t have to kill your budget; a simple way of doing this is to print an action plan with one of your key messages printed on it.

Camil El Khoury

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