A lot of presentations we hear are what I call ‘Pogshams’ presentations.
What is a ‘Pogshams’ presentation?
It stands for ‘plenty of good stuff, hardly any memorable stuff.’
Plenty of speakers know their subject and put in some work.
These two factors above will generally prevent it from being a poor presentation.
But they are not enough to make it a great presentation.
Most of them, therefore, end up being ok but no more than that.
Here is one idea to help you.
Go through the material that you have, line by line.
Circle anything that you think is potentially memorable.
Use a snap judgement here.
And set the bar quite high.
At the end of the process, put yourself into one of two categories:
- Category one: I have some potentially memorable material
- Category two: I have no potentially memorable material
If you are in the second category above, you need to go and do more research and homework.
Do not proceed any further until you are certain you have some memorable material and that you have moved into category one.
Once you are in category one, your job is to really focus on this material.
Our job is to ensure that potentially memorable material becomes guaranteed memorable material.
Think about some of the following:
- What is the optimum way to express the material to make it memorable?
- Could a visual help here?
- How will you set it up?
- What can you do before/after to make it land?
Put the effort in here and there is minimal chance of a ‘Pogshams’ presentation.
This will give you a strong chance of standing out.
Or alternatively, just leave it to chance.
And you are bound to blend in!
For more simple and informative tips to help you when presenting – why not check out the following article – focusing on the importance of your opening words…
