ILTA White Papers

www.iltanet.org Firm University 29 for a system to work, it had to be simple, reliable and flexible. After much debate, we've settled on the idea that effective presenters have to be persuasive, provide context and be authentic. persUasIon: movIng the aUDIenCe Let's not mince words. Live presentations live or die by the presenter's ability to persuade the audience. While many things can, and likely will, go wrong with a presentation, one thing determines its success. Has it won the audience over to the speaker's point of view? Are audience members ready to rush out and buy the product that's being pitched, adopt the new process they're being trained to use or approve the budget numbers that are being proposed? Presentations can easily divide into two different camps: persuasive and passive. Persuasive presentations are a call to action. They support the presenter's point of view and clearly identify the desired outcome. Persuasive presentations are inherently more bulletproof than passive presentations. Crashing laptops, terrible acoustics and all the other little catastrophes can be overcome if a presenter connects with the audience and shift its perspective to be more in line with his or her own. On the other hand, any presentation that doesn't manage to persuade has to be considered a failure, no matter how slick, entertaining or informative it might be. Sounds simple enough, but how do we make our presentations more persuasive? the bIg QUestIons Start by asking yourself, "Why am I giving a presentation, and what do I hope to accomplish?" Are you trying to sell something? Changing someone's mind? Building a more cohesive team or community? If you can't come up with a reason beyond simply sharing information, or if you aren't sure what you're trying to accomplish, start over. Next, ask yourself, "What do I want people to do after the presentation that they aren't doing today? What are their next steps?" As speakers, we often get so caught up in the mechanics of dumping everything we know about a subject from our heads to the screen, we neglect to take advantage of the live moment and the rare opportunity it provides to connect with people and to win them over to our way of thinking. Whether you're doing classroom training, giving an update at a project status meeting or delivering the keynote session at a big conference, every presentation should have an underlying element of persuasion. You need to help the audience understand how it should feel about the information you are sharing. If delivering information is your only goal, and you can't identify how you hope to persuade people, you should probably rethink the whole idea of having a live presentation. An e-mail message or memo could be just as effective and certainly would be less stressful and time- consuming for both you and your audience. One of the worst things that can happen at any talk is that the audience members walk away wondering what the message was about or feeling angry that they've wasted their time. If your audience ends up resenting you, you have very little chance to be effective. Further, if those listening don't know what you want to have happen next, there's little chance that they can do it.

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