In this episode, we talk about storytelling, the importance of understanding your audience, and the biggest presentation failures both of us have ever seen.

Your presentation can be a work of art visually, but not leading with the story and your key message is a mistake. It is like a beautiful package but with nothing inside to endure after it has been opened. It is important to implement storytelling for your presentation to be one of value.

Check if the presentation is focused on your audience as it is your most important stakeholder. A huge problem anyone might face is being focused on the execution – thinking solely about how good they look, how slick they present, what they do with their hands, and such. A similar blunder is not recognizing the privilege to be taking people’s time. You have to be sure you give them value and that you understand them even before you start crafting your presentation.

Audience heat mapping is a series of questions that help you place your audience on an axis that can help you establish a remarkable connection. Doing the hard work before you even start thinking about design is an important part of a proper presentation process.

On-stage presentations and virtual ones are not the same but both can benefit from this formula. Also, it is not about how great your slides look, the real measure is how much your audience remembers your message. If they only remember how pretty your slides were – that was a failure. And nobody ever complained that a presentation is short. What you can add is a follow-up. By repurposing your content to support the message you can ensure that people remember your ideas, the sustain part of the formula.