How to Build Support Quickly for Your Presentation

Last year I wrote about what to do if you need to create an important presentation at the last minute in The Dog Ate My Speech: Preparing an Important Presentation at the Last Minute. This focused on techniques for creating and learning effective content with very little time.

But if you have time, another way to make last minute presentations more effective is to get the support of the audience before you start. Before most presentations there are breaks where people drink coffee and chat. You can use this time to mention your most important points to as many people as you can. Later when you are presenting you will probably notice these people nodding as you mention these points. Your ideas sound familiar so people show signs of recognizing them, and this gives encouraging body language feedback that will make you more confident.

If you have a little more time, you could also try to organize a practice session with some of the people who will attend the real presentation. This will give you some feedback about potential weak points and more confidence in the best parts. It will also help to ensure that there are some people in the audience who have already heard it and are nodding enthusiastically as you speak, rather than looking surprised and puzzled.

Apart from the face-to-face opportunities, you can also expose the audience to your messages through other channels, like your social media, blogs, company newsletters and so on. A well-timed post on LinkedIn can make people aware of at least your key message, which is often all that you need to make a successful presentation.

Preparing your audience in this way is always important, but it is even more critical when you have little time for preparation.



Lectures, Workshops, Coaching and Writing

 If you would like a lecture, an interactive workshop or one-to-one coaching about ethical influencing techniques like this you can contact Andrew Hennigan on +46 730 894  475 or speaker@andrewhennigan.com  Individual coaching can be face to face in the Stockholm area or through Skype from anywhere in the world. You can get blocks of coaching hours very quickly to respond to urgent situations.

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