By: Brittney Prophete, CommCore Fall Intern
Presenting in front of an audience can be challenging. Whether the goal is to inform, persuade, or even arrive at a decision or course of action it is always important to express it in the most powerful way possible.
An article in Business Insider suggests 5 key steps that will “leave audiences feeling enlightened, hopeful, and inspired.” The steps include: consider the audience’s needs, catch the audience’s attention, hold audience’s attention for the next 15 mins, offer a solution to their problems, and provide a call to action.
As communications experts, CommCore has suggestions to guide you to communicate most effectively when building strong messages. Our best-selling book, Get to The Point: How to Say What You Mean and Get What You Want, written by CommCore CEO and President Andrew Gilman, is filled with practical and easy to implement communication techniques to prepare you for your next big presentation:
- Don’t tell, Illustrate. Engage the audience’s imagination by choosing words they can visualize.
- The KISS Principle. In general, use one word where several might do, define technical jargon and avoid acronyms.
- Incorporate selling points. Use a positive statement or assertion followed by an illustration to back it up or prove your assertion. We refer to this as the headline/specific technique, it is the specific that gets the most attention.
- Make it strong and positive. Replace modest and relative words with positive and emphatic ones.
- Use signal words. Summon people’s attention by using phrases such as “What’s significant here,” “I want to stress,” or “This can’t be overemphasized.”
- Be consciously aware. Have a message that you want your presentation to be focused around. Use retention factors like clarity, simplicity, and repetition. The more conscious you are of an active goal, the more powerfully your message will be communicated.