Gilly Meek, Accredited The Skilled Presenter™ Trainer
You’ve been invited to present to a non-technical audience. Excited to share your expertise and insight, you open PowerPoint® and start building your slides. You include lots of information and data, as you know that this is essential information – after all you want to ensure your audience has the full picture. Because of this, you know your presentation is guaranteed to be a success, right? Wrong!
The right starting point
Before you even start your slides, you need to understand who your audience is. Then you need to consider what information they want to or need to know about your topic. So when presenting technical information to a non-technical audience, you need to think from their perspective to make it relevant to their world.
For example: when presenting a new process to a non-technical audience, we’d normally share multiple slides. Going into vast amounts of detail to explain how you, as the technical expert, concluded that this process is the best way forward. What we should be doing is focusing on practical examples of how the process benefits them. For instance, highlight time savings and error reduction rather than diving into technical details.
It may be obvious to us as technical experts, that a certain feature, specification, aspect of a process, or system or product leads to obvious benefits. We need remember that this will not be obvious to our non-technical colleagues. Put simply – we always need to be thinking about and spelling out in simple terms “what is in it for them?”
What should you consider?
So, when presenting to a non-technical audience we must always consider the following three things: what is in it for the audience to listen today, what information will the audience want to know and how can I present any technical information in a simple and compelling way?
So, when presenting to a non-technical audience, The Skilled Presenter™ recommends that you consider three things:
- The benefits for the audience,
- what information they need,
- and how to simplify technical details compellingly.
Building your presentation
Don’t just open PowerPoint® and start building multiple slides, full of complex data. Instead:
- List the things that your audience need to know in relation to the topic.
- From this list, pick three key themes to structure your presentation.
- Build the visuals or slides around the three themes – maintaining a very clear three-point structure throughout.
- Check that any data or technical information is explained in a way that a novice will understand.
- Ensure that the presentation includes a very clear “Why”. For Example: Why are the audience here? What will they gain from listening to you? Why should they follow your recommendations”.
The Skilled Presenter™ provides you with a simple to follow and highly effective structure that will enable you to confidently and quickly implement the five points, for every presentation. During the workshop you’ll learn how to:
- PLAN – Probably the most important step, often rushed, when preparing a presentation. The Skilled Presenter™ gives you the tools and techniques to present your ideas clearly and structure presentations in ways that match the message to the audience, presenting the information you want your listeners to understand and remember – without overloading them.
- PERFORM – Your non-verbal skills are your performing skills. The Skilled Presenter™ shows you how to maximise your impact by harnessing them, the way you dress, eye contact, gestures, your voice, stance and movement – even when presenting online. The workshop also provides tools and techniques to overcome nerves.
- PRACTICE – Bringing together content, body and voice skills for the perfect, effortless presentation. To master your newfound skills, the workshop also gives you time to practice, practice, practice.
You can be successful and be remembered by your audience, whether presenting face-to-face, online or a mix of the two! The Skilled Presenter™ provides everything you need to become more confident when planning, performing and practicing your presentation skills, whether at a management meeting or an organisation-wide conference – this workshop will significantly help you get your message across.
- More about the workshop.
- Public workshop dates.
- Enquire about in-house workshops for groups and teams.
More about Gilly Meek
Gilly is an accredited Think on Your Feet®, Lateral Thinking, Six Thinking Hats®, The Skilled Presenter™ and Stakeholder Engagement (including Simulation)™ trainer and has delivered these workshops to numerous clients. Gilly also trains in management skills, negotiation skills, facilitation skills, impact and influence, and time management.
Prior to joining Indigo, Gilly managed the learning and development function for Global Radio, the UK’s largest radio organisation; training and coaching employees across a number of brands including Heart, LBC and Galaxy Radio. She has also led global initiatives for numerous multi-national organisations – including the design and delivery of management, leadership and soft-skills programmes.
