Making your presentation persuasive is one of the most vital parts of a successful presentation. It doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to gain potential clients, clinch that all important deal, or impress your colleagues – they’ve got to be invested in what you are saying and therefore, you.
The best way to see your presentation is as a bridge. Your presentation is an opportunity to take someone from what they originally thought, to what you want them to think. Whether that being to invest in your business, your idea or yourself, or to believe in your capability or skill set or proposal.
If we continue with our visualisation of your presentation and your presentation design as a bridge, then at the start of the journey you want to place in your audience’s mind a certain picture.
Curiosity and interest should build at the opening of your presentation, as well questions arising such as what and why. You may also want to reiterate where your, or their, current situation is, whether that is as a company or as a client or even as your classmates and their current mindset. If you are going to be presenting a drastic change in policy for example then you might want to even explain or remind your audience of the current values or mission statement of the group.
By the end of your presentation, you want these feelings and thoughts and questions to be answered and your audience to be ultimately committed to your ideas and proposals. Curiosity and interest should now be transformed to excitement, and any questions should have been confidently answered. You can give or propose results that will come around due to the changes you are suggesting and then significantly, highlight the changes that could happen in the future. Those changes should lead to success.
Making the content of your presentation persuasive is not that difficult when you know how. When creating your presentation, you need to be meticulous about what information is key to making your audience engage, and believe in what you are presenting. Ultimately, less is more. Take the key points and focus on them – anything more could hinder your argument. The best way to do this is when you are collating all the information you have and are splitting it into slides or under headings – think about what each piece of information is bringing to your presentation.
Another point is to always try to express features as benefits. This may not seem like it applies to all presentations, but if you think creatively then it will. Instead of just listing features, or what a deal or new partnership will provide, explain how your audience will benefit.
Similarly, you can even use your sentence structure and the way you pitch to make a more persuasive presentation. Inserting suggestions in between your facts is one of the best ways to become more persuasive. For example, if you give two short facts about your policy, or product, or idea, and then follow it simply with, ‘This will make your life easier’, your audience will find it hard to argue with you. Instead, you are placing in their minds this suggestion as fact.
And finally, thinking back to the bridge metaphor we introduced earlier, try to create a narrative that runs throughout your presentation. Stories are inevitably more interesting to your audience that just facts, and if you can engage them on an emotional level then your presentation will be more persuasive. Use anecdotes from your own life to interest them and increase their curiosity, you may even be able to insert some humour or empathy.
Can you remember a particularly persuasive presentation you have watched? Do you try to make your presentations more persuasive? Any personal tips for a successfully persuasive presentation?
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Presbee’s Top Tips on How to Create a More Persuasive Presentation
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