And he absolutely hated it.

While some of us may only have started dabbling with online conferencing since we started working from home, Prav has been telecommuting ever since Day 1 at this company.

He was required to make sales presentations to executives from around the globe – US, Germany, Hongkong and Japan.

And he would complain to me that no matter how hard he tried, he could never get them to understand him.

Whenever he spoke to international audiences, they would frequently ask him to repeat himself multiple times.

Prav wished he was fluent in English as he was fluent in his native tongue, Hindi.

When he came to me for help, he believed the main reason why they didn’t understand him was his accent.

I asked him, how do you know?

He said: my boss told me I needed to work on my accent.

But as a coach, I knew it was more than that.

Because Prav was convinced that his accent was the thing that stopped him from presenting effectively, he was blind to many rookie mistakes he was making in presenting.

He habitually assumes the audience knows what he’s talking about.

His slides were littered with irrelevant data.

And he didn’t have a clear structure for his presentations.

This created a chain of problems.

Because he was unclear in his presentations, he would always be asked many questions to clarify on specific points.

And each time he was asked a question, he would find himself explaining in circles and making his listeners even more confused than before!

As a result, his clients got frustrated with him.

His bosses got frustrated with him.

And he got frustrated with himself.

Frustration eventually turned into fear.

As a young boy, he loved to present in front of audiences. Now as a 38-year old man, he started to dread them.

Hours before he was to appear on stage or on-screen, he would feel sick and anxious, as if expecting himself to perform disastrously.

Are you like that too?

In order to resolve Prav’s issues, we had to go back to basics about how to make presentations clear and concise.

We sat down and dissected his typical presentation and we zoned in on all the different areas which he could improve, as he made many tweaks to his structure, phrasing and slide design.

Once he started practising the fundamentals, Prav started winning over clients… and most importantly, his confidence.

Shortly after we worked together, Prav had closed more deals in a month than he had for the previous 6 months!

His boss was surprised.

Because despite his improvement in results, Prav’s accent remained as thick as when he started.

In this post, I’ll be sharing with you the three tips that turned Prav from a slouch to a star.

Whether you’re presenting live in person or via online conferencing, here are three tips you can apply to make your presentations clear and concise.

3 Tips To Make Your Presentations Clear & Concise

Tip #1: Begin with the audience in mind

I always cite ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey because it truly is one of the best peak performance books in history.

Stephen Covey nailed it with one of his 7 habits: “seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

We all want to be understood.

Heck, that’s probably the reason why you clicked on this article in the first place.

You want people to easily understand you each time you deliver a presentation. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be understood.

The only problem with that is when you come from a place of “Understand Me Please!”, it can make you blind to the needs and desires of others. 

You plan your presentation based on what looks good to you instead of what is actually good for your audience.

You listen selectively, paying attention only to things that concern you.

You find it hard to be present during your presentations because you’re so concerned about getting it perfect.

This is why miscommunication is so prevalent. When we plan what we want to say, we naturally filter out information through our own biases and assumptions, without properly thinking from the point of view of the receiver.

This is why it’s absolutely critical to know your audience before any presentation.

So here’s a twist to one of Covey’s habits: ‘begin with the AUDIENCE in mind’.

It’s called having ‘audience empathy’.

In planning your presentation, run a self-audit and ask yourself the following audience-centric questions:

– Who will be listening to this presentation?

– What are the needs of this audience? How can I address them?

– Which content in my presentation would be most relevant to this audience?

– How can I make my presentation more relatable to this audience?

– Which specific parts of my presentation may be perceived as ‘heavy’ or ‘hard to digest’ to this audience? How can I make it simpler for them?

By answering these questions, you’ll be able to anticipate what your audience wants and prep for that.

There’s a cognitive bias called ‘the curse of knowledge’.

The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that causes us to mistakenly assume that other people know the same things we do.

Terms or jargons that we regularly use in our professional lives may seem normal to us but they can be completely alien to most people who are not trained in the same field!

If you give technical presentations, you want to be particularly aware of this.

If you’re used to presenting to other highly-qualified technical people in your field, don’t make the mistake of assuming that everyone will know what you’re talking about each time you speak.

Also, here’s a useful tip I practice as a trainer.

At the start of every training, before going into the main content, I like to ask my audience ‘what are you here to learn?’

Don’t assume that your audience is going to latch on immediately with what you have prepared for them.

Out of five people that come to learn about ‘how to be an effective presenter’, one may be interested in how to be confident on stage, one may be interested in how to develop good vocal range, one may be interested in how to use the right language.

If you’re giving an informative presentation, take some time to ‘poll’ the audience on what they’re here for before you go into your main content.

This gives you the ability to go in-depth into the specific parts that your audience is most interested in, displaying great audience empathy.

Tip #2: Be selective and deliberate about the information you present

The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal.

When it comes to your presentation, not all information should be treated equally.

Just because you have a piece of data doesn’t mean it must be displayed or given to the audience.

Clarity is not about having more, it is about having less.

To ace your presentation, you need to subject every piece of information with scrutiny.

You must act like a football coach selecting which players to play and which ones to keep on the bench.

Be selective and deliberate in choosing which information makes it to your presentation and which ones to leave out.

When you have your audience in mind, you should be able to do this effectively because you know them like the back of your hand.

However, as with typical corporate presentations, you may be in a position where you might be required to present large quantities of information at a time.

Not an issue.

If you’re presenting information on your slides, ask yourself: which information is critical, relevant and deserves the audience’s full attention? 

Design your presentation to highlight only the most important data that support the message you are trying to convey. 

You can do this through simple formatting: bold, highlighting or circling the sections you want your audience to pay attention to.

As a skilled presenter, you want to be able to direct and control your audience’s attention like a magician waving your magic wand.

Don’t underestimate how easy it is for your audience to lose you in a sea of information.

Your audience can feign attention with their eyes glazed over just to get through your presentation. It won’t win you any points with them.

Respect your audience’s time and attention.

Be laser-like and precise when you present information.

For the information that is important but not relevant at the moment, keep them with you off-slide, possibly in a separate file or handouts so that you can access them upon request.

Tip #3: Use the Rule of Three to keep your presentation concise

If you’ve been reading my articles, you’ll notice that many of my posts feature 3 strategies at a time.

This one is no different.

The Rule of Three is a principle that suggests that information, when presented in threes, tend to be satisfying and memorable to the audience. 

Information is much easier to grasp and remember when they are grouped in threes.

Just think of the children’s stories you grew up with.

The Three Little Pigs. Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The Three Musketeers.

If you could split your presentation into three segments, how would you do it? 

When presenting data, professionals are frequently told to ‘tell a story’ with the data.

While this may not necessarily mean to begin your presentation with ‘once upon a time’, it means to present your data in a manner that makes sense.

To achieve this smooth, logical flow, the narratives in films and plays are commonly composed using the ‘three-act structure’.

Act 1 – Setup, Act 2 – Confrontation and Act 3 – Resolution.

This is a simple technique that you can use regardless of what kind of presentation you’re giving.

If you’re giving a product presentation, you could do three parts: need, benefits and features.

If you’re analysing whether to take a particular course of action, you could do: pros, cons and final assessment.

If you’re demonstrating a solution, you could do: why this solution is best, what is the solution, how to implement it.

Implementing the Rule of Three on your presentation also helps in being selective and deliberate about what you intend to present.

Each time you have a main point on your slide, use no more than three supporting points.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of carefully constructing your presentation in a way that makes sense, you’ll find that the audience will have an easier time following your points.