Today, I was going through my video collections and stumbled upon the video of my (6 year old) son’s graduation day speech which he delivered using a power point slide show. Now that I watch the video and remember the slides that he used (which I prepared for him with my wife), I can not help but get awed at the enormous potential we all possess as children.
As my son was 6 year old when he delivered the presentation, we could not use bullet points or text in the slides.
We were forced to use only pictures that we had taken during his 2 year tenure at the school.
– 1st rule of delivering impactful presentation – Minimal (or no) use of text in your slides.
Since, the slides were pictures of his journey in school, my son was able to talk about the pictures in his own style.
My wife worked with him on just a few aspects of the presentation, most noticeably, getting him to remember to thank all the teachers and staff before moving on to the next slide. She made him practice the delivery of the presentation atleast 15 times before he actually delivered it on stage.
– 2nd rule of delivering impactful presentation – rehearsals are crucial
– 3rd rule of delivering impactful presentation – engaging the audience is critical.
Unknowingly, when he was thanking all the teachers and staff, he was engaging with them at a physical and emotional level. This also helped the audience connect with him.
My son was talking about his experience in the journey of 2 years at the school. The parents could relate to him as their kids also had similar experienced the same journey.
– 4th rule of delivering impactful presentation – relate with the audience.
If audiences do not relate to what is being presented, they quickly become bored and you lose their attention. And it is very difficult to get their attention back during the same presentation.
Finally, his entire presentation lasted about 4 ½ mins. This helped him in keeping his audience’s attention.
– 5th rule of delivering impactful presentation – Keep it as simple and short as possible.
If required have a Q&A session or an open discussion rather than go on for an hour or so with no one caring to listen.
Hope you enjoyed my son’s presentation and learn some presentation skills.
2 thoughts on “How to deliver a killer presentation”
Very well said…All 5 rules you have mentioned here make me recall Steave Jobs presentation on iPhone.
Thanks for your kind words Vaibhav…
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