If a presentation is to be successful, it must meet three conditions: it must be understandable, memorable and emotional. This is explained in an interesting article on Forbes.com by American speaker and coach Carmine Gallo, who is also the author of several international bestsellers on presentation skills. His most well-known work is the series of books about Steve Jobs and Apple (The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, The Apple Experience).
1. Understandability
According to Gallo, successful presentations contain no jargon, incomprehensible popular expressions, complicated semantic structures or any other confusing elements. Following the model of Steve Jobs, begin by summarizing that which you want to introduce in your presentation into one sentence that could be written on Twitter (no more than 140 characters).
2. Memorability
If nobody remembers your presentation, then it’s definitely not as great as you think. Gallo therefore advises to stick to the rule of three. This rule is based on the scientific assumption that people can only retain three to seven items in their short-term memory. You should therefore divide your presentation into three parts, talk about the three key benefits of your product, offer the audience three action steps, etc.
3. Emotiveness
Of course the presentation must offer some data and facts, but only its emotional component will actually get the audience to take action. According to Gallo, the easiest way to include emotion is storytelling.
-kk-