Why most presentations fail badly, and why your next one won't.

Why bother with a so-called "presentation" unless your desired outcome is a positive result, meaning that people will act on your suggestions. Let's be realistic, it takes time and effort to put a good one together, and how do we know if what we think is good will be well received or get results for us? What costitutes "good" or "effective"? Is it the quality of our slides, our well researched evidence or maybe by the humour we add? In reality, good presentations are built on a handful of basics and more often than not, people mistake what the basics are.

Perhaps many presentations are dismal failures because they just feel too much like presentations. The presenter's emphasis is too strongly focused on the content of the presentation instead of developing the relationship with the client.

Anyone from a CEO to a Buyer feels most comfortable doing business with a human being than a programmed robot. Yet we so often allow the advantage of visual aids to turn into a disadvantage by reading along off the screen and failing to get the business.

The first and most important rule of presenting is therefore to be human, and to communicate with the people in your audience through effective eye contact and warmth in your voice.

The second most important aspect is to know what you're going to say and in which order you want to say it. Your audience does not wish to be dazzled with your vast subject knowledge, they simply want the information they need to make a decision. In order to achieve this flow there are 5 basics

• Select the information you wish to present (from your bank of knowledge)
• Plan - structure it in a sensible format, usually with a introduction, body and close
• Prepare - get all your bits and pieces together
• Practice. This is the most neglected step, and one of the most vital.
• Review before going live, either by practising in front of a mirror, your camcorder or a person.

Part of your preparation may be to create PowerPoint slides to illustrate key points - not every point mind you, key points only. These will come across far more effectively if you avoid too much writing and make the slideshow visually pleasing and easy on the eye.

Thirdly, you have to be prepared to address the concerns of your audience. Presenters who mess up this part of their show not only fail to get the business, but leave feeling humiliated. The tools required to successfully accomplish this part is research, planning and a technique for answering questions.

Lastly, it's a good idea to ask for action. If you've really dazzled them you may not need to, but if you sense hesitation, a confidently hosted question time will go a long way to allay their concerns. This is often a good time to ask for the business and close the deal.

You can't afford to score 2 or 3 out of 4 here, you have to get all of these things right. If any of these four areas go wrong you can kiss goodbye to your sale. If you were to look back on presentations you've done that were not successful, chances are you may find that it was because one of these four areas were left out.

Surprisingly, the last one, although important, is the least important of the four. Research shows that closing is only necessary if there is still doubt or hesitation in the customer's mind. If you've done the first three properly, your clients usually close themselves for you.

Paul du Toit