Inform, Inspire, Persuade: Communicating Effectively with Clients and Peers

NancyDuarte_HeadShot_1_.jpgContributed by Nancy Duarte of Duarte Design

No matter how profound a presentation’s message is, it can be lost in a moment – buried beneath a web of uninspiring imagery and the monotonous recital of text on a slide. Many of us will be required to make a visual presentation at some point, but unlike verbal communication, which is practiced from day one, thinking visually isn’t easy, natural or commonly taught in schools or business programs.

The quality of your presentation depends on interaction – the interaction you have with your slides, and the interaction between your audience and the message you are attempting to deliver. If you merely stand and read bullet points, your audience will likely be disengaged. If you speak in concise terms while your slides are cluttered with text, your audience will be torn between listening and reading, and most likely won’t give either very much attention. As the presenter, the quality of your presentation is your responsibility, and learning to create visual stories that connect with your audience is imperative – especially in consideration of increasing competitive pressure on a global scale.

Before you start to focus on aesthetics, remember your message is the most important aspect of your presentation. Spend some time getting your story straight. After all, a presentation is basically a story, and great presentations are born from great stories. Take your audience into consideration – their goals, their concerns, how they will benefit from your message and why they might resist it. After you’ve pulled together your content structure, overlay real-world anecdotes that will meet their inquisitive needs and inspire them to feel or act differently. Examples bring the message home and create a much more meaningful and actionable presentation.

To get to the heart of your story:

  • Try some good old-fashioned brainstorming with trusted colleagues or peers. Have them generate as many ideas as possible about the audience and ideas that will resonate with them. Create a safe environment and let ideas flow freely.
  • Keep a stack of index cards or sticky notes and a Sharpie marker handy. Create one idea per index card per slide and use the Sharpie to add the main idea for each slide. Think through all the things you want to share with your audience and then structure and organize them in a way that flows
  • Keep it simple. Never underestimate the power of simplicity and clarity. Deliver one idea per slide and remove visual complexity to help enable the perception of your audience.
  • Try out your material on a trusted friend or colleague. Present your formal presentation. Because they are a friend, go ahead and stumble through the notes, repeat yourself, make mistakes, say “um” and “like” and “sooooo…”. Every single time you practice, you’ll know it a little better, and your increased confidence will make your story resonate better with your audience

My book, “slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations,” outlines practical approaches to creating ideas, translating them into visual representations and delivering them in your own natural, confident way. Whenever you’re preparing your next big presentation, remember the following “slide:ology” advice:

  1. Treat your audience as king: They didn’t come to your presentation to see you, they came to find out what you can do for them. Success means giving them a reason for taking their time, providing content that resonates and ensuring it’s clear what they are to do next
  2. Spread ideas and move people: Creating great ideas is what we were born to do, but getting people to feel like they have a stake in what you believe is the hard part. Communicate your ideas with strong visual grammar to engage all their senses and they will adopt the ideas as their own
  3. Help them see what you’re saying: Epiphanies and profoundly moving experiences come from moments of clarity. Think like a designer and guide your audience through ideas in a way that helps, not hinders, their comprehension. Appeal not only to their verbal senses, but to their visual senses as well
  4. Practice design, not decoration: Orchestrating the aesthetic experience through well-known but oft-neglected design practices can transform audiences into evangelists. Don’t just make pretty talking points – instead display information in a way that makes complex information clear
  5. Cultivate healthy relationships: A meaningful relationship between you, your slides and your audience will connect people with content. Display information in the best way possible for comprehension rather than focusing on what you need as a visual crutch. Content carriers connect with people

Nancy Duarte is president and CEO of Duarte Design, one of the largest design and woman-owned firms in Silicon Valley. Her client list is loaded with Fortune 500 companies, including Adobe, Cisco, Google, and Hewlett-Packard. Duarte Design is widely recognized as the leader in presentation development and design. Her first book, “slide:ology”, is published by O’Reilly Media.

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