The first rule of creating a Powerful Presentation is to have a clearly defined purpose.
Answer the question, "why am I giving this presentation?" The stronger your purpose, the stronger your presentation.
If your purpose is vague, or if it is just to convey information, then seriously consider another format. Perhaps a report or an email would suffice. The whole point of a presentation is to create some sort of change or action in your audience. We call these "take-aways." Each presentation needs at least one and the most powerful presentations have no more than two, maybe three. To come up with your take-aways ask yourself the following questions:
What do I want my audience to do, think, feel or believe differently as a result of this presentation?
How will they benefit from this change?
Why is it important?
Some examples might be, I want them to save for their retirement, I want them to vote for the school bond, I want them to call on more prospects, I want them to more closely manage their departmental budgets,
Even if you are giving a presentation on the status of a project or your departmental budget, you should think carefully about the purpose of your presentation. Are you highlighting a certain risk? Are you reassuring a nervous leadership team? Are you illustrating the excellent work of your team? The more you clarify your purpose, the more focused and powerful your presentation will be.
Here's a trick that will help you develop a powerful purpose. As you think about the purpose of your presentation, consider the phrase, "so they/we can..." This helps you focus on the needs of your audience instead of your needs. What benefit or results will your audience receive as a result of your presentation? Even if the benefit is the avoidance of something unpleasant, "so that we can avoid layoffs." Be truthful, remember that audiences are quick to sniff out insincerity and manipulation.
When we lead organizations through defining their purpose, we use a series of questions.
What do we do?
Who do we do it for?
What change to they experience as a result of our product/service?
What benefit can they realize as a result of this change?
Those same questions, slightly modified, can be used to develop your presentation's purpose.
What information am I presenting?
Who am I presenting it to?
What change will they experience as a result of receiving this information?
What benefit can they realize as a result of this change?
Here's another trick. Once you have fleshed out your purpose, try to boil it down to one sentence of about ten words or fewer. My mentor, Craig Valentine calls this the Foundational Phrase. A Foundational Phrase should be concise and easy to remember. For example, if I were presenting on this topic my Foundational Phrase might be "Every presentation must have a solid purpose." Alliteration, imagery, repetition or rhyme can make your Foundational Phrase even more memorable. So I might decide to make mine, "Powerful Presentations are built on Powerful Purpose." Your Foundational Phrase is an important anchor for your presentation. I'll talk more about anchors in a subsequent article.
Depending on the length and scope of your presentation you may have several important points you want to include. Consider those points sub-points to Foundational Phrase If a sub-point does not clearly fit with the main point, eliminate it. Each sub-point must contribute substantially to the main point or your presentation will be weakened. I know firsthand the reluctance to eliminate points that you want to make in a presentation. You work hard on these points. They're your babies. And now you're faced with choosing to leave some of your babies at home. It's heart-wrenching but it has to be done. (Don't worry, they won't even feel it.) As Craig Valentine says, "If you squeeze too much information in, you squeeze your audience out!"
The amount of time you have for your presentation also plays a role in the number of points you are able to make. My general rule is 10 minutes per point. Certainly no less than 5-7 minutes per point. So rather than trying to squeeze things in, I will edit out as time requires. (We will discuss exactly how to do that using the PARTS Framework later.) It can be helpful to come up with a Foundational Phrase for each of your sub-points as well.
Clarifying your presentation's purpose does take some time, and it is time wisely invested.