Most presentations sure are dull, aren’t they? Awful slides, monotonous delivery, zero engagement, some – as we discussed in the last chapter – even discuss the wrong thing!

This means it should be pretty easy for yours to stand out. This chapter shows a very simple way to ensure they do.

Firstly, since you want to interest others, start by thinking about what others find interesting. For instance, they like:

• Interactivity – pretty much everyone would rather join in a dialogue than listen to someone talk at them
• Interesting stories
• Brevity
• Fun
• To learn something new
• Good visuals
• To achieve something important
• Interesting quotations
• Variety

Then expand this list by adding the opposite of what people hate. For instance, since people hate word-y slides, using “sparse slides” would make you more interesting. Your list might now include:

• Sparse slides (not word-y)
• Short paragraphs (not long)
• Clear headings (not too few, or too boring)
• Minimal background information, especially at the start (avoids the tedious 10-slide scene-set).
• Using the right channel (don’t give a presentation if a chat’s all that’s needed).
• Relevant (thus avoiding the dreaded “why am I here?”).

The next step is to think what you could do, to be more like the list. For instance, if you want your presentations to be more interactive, you could ask more questions, or put people in pairs to discuss topics. Your list might now look like this:

This table isn’t exhaustive. But it’s a good start. In fact, it’s such a good start, you might think “How on earth am I going to do all that?”

Well, you don’t have to do “all that”. But, to be more interesting, you’ll have to do more than none of it.

So, identify 1–2 things from the right-hand column that would make a huge difference and be relatively easy to do. Do them; fine-tune them; then, once they’re working, incorporate another 1–2 and so on.

Or, of course, you can set your sights higher, and incorporate all the techniques in this chapter. A good example of someone who’s done this is Charlie Lawson, who is the UK National Director of BNI, the world’s largest referrals and networking organization. He uses pretty much every tip in the table, and is an excellent trainer. I asked him what his favourite one was. He said: