This ebook will help you create an effective presentation: preparing for success, controlling the environment, and overcoming fear. I’ve been a professional speaker since 1992, and I give between eighty and one hundred presentations a year. I don’t claim to be the expert on presenting, but I have learned a thing or two as I’ve gone along in my career. I hope I can share those with you, and I want to start by simply offering some basic principles.

Three Effective Presentation Principles

The first effective presentation principle is to understand the difference between public speaking and powerful presenting: an audience-centered perspective, versus simply entertaining. Skillful presenting is not the same as public speaking. In a public speaking environment, your main goal is to entertain, but in powerful presenting, it is audience-oriented. Public speaking is speaker-oriented. Presenting focuses on value, while public speaking focuses on entertainment. Presenting is based upon the needs and the wants of the audience, but public speaking is based upon the speaker’s objectives.

Second, remember that people are overwhelmed and have very short attention spans. Only give them what they require to be persuaded. It’s estimated that the average American receives 2,500 messages per day, and desk professionals spend an average of forty-three percent of their time in meetings, on the phone, and in email. Because of this, you don’t have to tell your audiences everything you know. They can’t absorb that much information.