What makes a good presentation" The number of people in the audience" The number of laughs the presenter is able to cause" The overall impression that participants of the said may have after" These observations may be minor ones but nevertheless are important constituents of a successful presentation. However there are, of course, the major benchmarks that you cannot do without when evaluating the effectiveness of a successful presentation.
Why do we like presentations so much" One of the reasons is that it is a most effective means to acquire new customers. Why is it effective" It uses the stratagem that most of us like and understand - performance. After all, the world is a stage and all the men and women are merely players. This truth has been expressed so perfectly in words three centuries ago and has been known to those who speculated on the intricacies of human nature for much longer. The success of a presentation is determined by two factors: the genius of the main performer - the presenter and the brilliance of the play - the presentation itself, its content, structure and reasoning. A mutually beneficial symbiosis and a balanced combination of both is a dream that may happen though as any dream not that often.
No doubt, the presenter must be a good performer, a wise psychologist and a brave heart. Sweaty palms, a heartthrob, a trembling voice - most public speakers experienced that. And if you still go through all these symptoms it does not mean you cannot make an excellent presenter after some training. As long as you are the only witness of your weakness and can pull yourself together there is a great chance you are able to turn your weaknesses into your strengths. Another quality an efficient presenter has to become proficient in is to learn to be a chameleon. You enter the stage and see the audience. Who are they" What are they" For one reason or another they are here and they are looking at you. You have a moment to conquer them - to conquer their attention, their mind and their interest. The only thing you know about them is that they are all different. Thus, you have to be different too. Feel them, try to guess want they want, what their expectations are. Try different techniques, be diverse, get them a ll
involved and meet their expectations.
They say that a good teacher is not the one who explains everything but the one who makes his students think. Drawing analogy to this piece of wisdom we would say that a good presenter is not the one who makes everything clear and vivid but the one who makes you want to find our more. Thus, do not table all your cards. Do not tell everything you can tell but create interest, tease your audience, make them long to find out more, make them go the show room and discover things for themselves.
An efficient presenter knows the material of the presentation so well that he/she feels free to play with it, to be creative with it. You should not underestimate the importance of the presentation material, of course. The novelty of the material, its level of difficulty and clarity, the logical structure of the presentation, the use of prime examples - every little detail matters. In fact when every single detail is thoroughly thought over it makes the presentation so good that it may achieve the necessary results independent of the skills of the presenter.
Overall, when evaluating the effectiveness of the presentation one should rely on something more than just subjective impressions of the presenter, organizers and the audience. The use of a scorecard where metrics diagnose and assess each of the above constituents of the presentation is the right way to put your presentation to test.