Raybould’s Rules for Presentations #3

Some things are more important than others

Top of the List Of Important Things is your message, not you.

You’re not that important, deal with it.

Swallow your pride and learn the next of Raybould’s Rules for presenting… brace yourself, you might not like it…

You’re not important.

Simon Raybould - conference speaker on emotional resilience

No one turns up to hear me speak: I do a lot of speaking at conferences about ‘emotional resilience‘ and related issues such as stress. People don’t sign up ‘cos it’s me. (Actually that’s not literally true, some people do come along to my presentations because they know it’s me, but you get the idea!).  Generally people turn up to hear about the topic – and only then because they recognise they need (or might need) the things they will learn in the presentation (or think they will).

Unless you’ve got yourself a bit of a reputation as a presenter or your name is Bill Gates or Tony Blair, no one comes to see you.

They’re not sitting in the audience thinking “How can I make this a great experience for the speaker?”.

Nope.

They’re thinking WIIFM – the old marketing adage of ‘What’s In It For Me?”

Why?  Because you’re not important.  Remember that – and design your presentation accordingly.  It’s all about your audience and what you can do for them: they’ve given you the most important thing they can, their time, so the least you can do is do your best to give them something worthwhile back.

How does that apply to what you do in reality? Lots of ways, but let’s focus on just a few. Before you start designing your presentation, ask yourself a few questions:

1. What do you know about your audience – what do they want to know and why?
2. Can you do something to help them? If so, do it.  If not, step back and get someone else in to do the presentation.
3. What’s the best way you can give people what they need?  Do you need backup? Handouts? Slides? Props? Rehearsals?

And while I’m talking about it – not being important is a great thing to think when you get hit by the Nerves Monster.  But thinking that people are listening to you is just a kind of hubris! They’re there for what you might be able to tell them. That means that if you blow it, no one will want to kill you for it – so long as it hasn’t got in the way of the message, of course! :)

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Rule one is here.