Get your Audience Raving about your Next Presentation (AKA – How to Give a Good Presentation)

What this episode covers

Giving a good presentation can be a burden, and many lawyers don’t have the training or inclination to do something that is memorable, educational and has a lasting impact. Sounds like an opportunity, doesn’t it? And you’d be right. Developing a great presentation takes a lot of effort, but is absolutely worth it. Microsoft PowerPoint is not the speaker, Keynote is not the speaker. You are the speaker! In today’s podcast I deal with the following: Why the identification of your topic is the starting point to giving a good presentation; Why you need to be an expert in answering the right questions; How to map out your presentation so it’s effective, meaningful and memorable; How many topics and questions you should deal with in a presentation; Why your presenting skills are dependent upon your preparation; Why you shouldn’t write out your presentation in full. Transcript – How to Give a Good Presentation Note – These transcripts have been modified to make some kind of sense as a written document. Don’t send me emails if there is a mistake, if you please. If you’re a young lawyer in practice, then you know that one of the things we do pretty regularly is to give presentations. Sometimes as internal presentations to colleagues. Sometimes it’s external presentations to clients and sometimes it’s just presentations really for any particular purpose. You might have a podcast, you might give some sort of presentation to your group. You might think of advocacy in court as a type of presentation. Fundamentally the same thing which is using your voice and your words to persuade someone of something or to teach someone something and so today I want to have a talk about some tips to make your next presentation better than those around you. This is tips for lawyers podcast, and this is episode number 27. If you need to get the show notes for today you can get www.tipsforlawyers.com/podcast/27, my name is Chris Hargreaves and let’s get into it. This is about Content in your Presentation, Not Pretties I guess the first thing I wanted to say today that I’m not talking about in this particular podcast is slides. I’m not talking about the visual. I’m not talking about really anything other than you and your presentation. In particular, with a focus on your words, your content. Now there is a lot to say of course about body language, about tonality, about voice but that’s not what I’m actually going to get into today. I’m going to focus on the content because I think really this is fundamentally where most presentations go awry for today’s purposes. Although it is possible for presentation to be viewed in a number of different contexts, I’m going to be contemplating what I say today from the point of view of giving some sort of educational seminar. By and large that’s because that’s what you’re going to be doing the most during your period as young lawyer to a mid-level to a senior lawyer. All across the spectrum you probably are going to have or at least are going to get in short order some opportunities to give presentations to people, the point of which is to educate them in some way. Now the first thing I guess it’s important to say is that what I’ve noticed over the years in frankly increasing proportions is that the quality of presentations you get is extremely variable. What do I mean by that? I mean that some people give truly terrible presentations and some people give very polished very expert presentations about which you go back to your office and you rave to your colleagues. Now there are many many different iterations in that spectrum. Sometimes we might find the content good but the presentation bad or the visual is good, but the words bad. Or the person has some irritating habits or any number of different things, but by and large, if you can be an effective presenter, it will give you a great platform to have opportunities to speak, it will give you a great...

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