1. Do know your audience and prioritize accordingly. Yes, you’re very knowledgeable but that doesn’t mean you need to share everything you know. Understand your audience’s interests and organize your thoughts accordingly to ensure you present your strongest points in your PowerPoint.

2. Don’t include too many details. Your slides don’t need to restate every word you’re saying. Keep your PowerPoint concise and let your speech fill in the details. Remember too that too much text may distract your audience from listening.

3. Do create interest in learning more. Don’t provide comprehensive answers in your written materials. You want to leave your audience wanting more. Encourage questions and give attendees reasons to follow up with you during and after the presentation.

4. Don’t clutter up your slides visually. Avoid too much text or images on a page. While you may think it’s better to put a lot of information on a page to make the PowerPoint fewer pages; it’s overwhelming and hard to read blocks of text. Make sure you have plenty of white space on the page. Be mindful of font type and size, color usage, and word count. Look online for examples of clean, simple PowerPoint designs.

5. Do use visuals.  Studies show that 90%of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. Take advantage of that by adding impact to your slides with charts, infographics, photos, videos and other visuals.

6. Don’t forget to proofread. Check for typos diligently but, if possible, also ask someone else to proofread it to catch things you may have missed.

7. Do infuse personality and humor. It’s okay to have some fun with your presentation materials. It can be hard when your topic is pretty dry but look for ways to make your written materials more memorable. For example, add lots of color, a cartoon, interesting graphics, or imbed a video.

8. Don’t treat it as a throwaway. Invest time and resources in creating a well-designed and compelling PowerPoint. It will not only help during the program but can be repurposed and promoted on your website, social media, and email to give you additional exposure after the event.

Your written materials are integral to your presentation’s success. They should complement and reinforce your speech ensuring a lasting impact during and after the event.

If you need assistance with developing a seminar and/or marketing it, contact us for a consultation.

For more help with your presentations, also read our related posts:

How To Promote Your Public Speaking On LinkedIn

Top Strategies For Marketing Your Speaking Event

How To Improve Your ROI On Public Speaking

1. Create an Event on LinkedIn. On your home page where you have the box to ‘Start a Post,’ there is an option that says Event. Click it and follow the instructions. You will also find Events on the left sidebar of your homepage. Just click on the + sign next to Events. Once you create an event, you can invite your connections, share your event as a post in your feed, send a message to people you think would be interested and easily share it on Facebook and Twitter. Importantly, you can create an event from your individual profile and/or your company page if you have admin access.

Note that not all LinkedIn users are eligible to broadcast live content on LinkedIn Live or LinkedIn Audio Events.

2. Share your event on your personal LinkedIn page and company page. As noted above, if you created the event on LinkedIn, on your event page there are options to share your event as a post. However, if you didn’t create a LinkedIn event, you can still create a post from your homepage.

3. Create multiple posts about your event beforehand. For example:

– Post related content that highlights why this topic is important to your audience and what they need to know. This information can be your original content or third-party content that would be of interest to your audience.

– Develop a survey that you can promote on LinkedIn and provide the results at the program. This can increase interest in your event and help inform your presentation with audience feedback. There are many simple and inexpensive survey tools like SurveyMonkey or you can just create a series of polls in your LinkedIn posts. To create a poll, click on the text box to Start a Post on your home page. You will see … at the bottom of the box. Click the dots to see the option to Create a poll and follow the instructions.

– Ask people to submit questions in advance. They can include them as comments to your post or send you a direct message.

– Feature the organization hosting the event, sponsors or your co-presenters. Create a post and mention them by name by typing “@theirname”. LinkedIn will give you a dropdown with possible matches to the name you typed. Pick the right one and LinkedIn will create a hyperlink to the page of the person/organization and notify them that you mentioned them in a post. Hopefully, they will like or comment on your post which means that their contacts now may see your post, thus expanding your reach.

– Share marketing materials and posts created by the event organizers, sponsors and co-presenters. Make sure you mention them when you share it so they are aware.

4. After the event, create multiple posts.

– Write a LinkedIn post with a recap of the event with the main takeaways.

– Provide the PowerPoint or selected slides from the program.

– Share photos from the program.

– Repurpose the program into related content (e.g., articles, eBooks, white papers, blog posts, infographics, etc.)

– If the program was recorded, provide instructions on how to access the recording or create short video clips with key points. Get it transcribed to make it easier to repurpose the content into written material.

5. Use relevant hashtags to expand your reach. Research hashtags that relate to your topic and/or audience and include them in all of your LinkedIn posts. Generally, you want to use 3-5 hashtags in your posts and look for ones with 2000 to 10,000 followers so you are hitting a sizeable audience but aren’t lost in a sea of other posts. Hashtags make your event more discoverable because those interested in a topic will follow the hashtags.

6. Encourage your employees to share the event and your posts on their LinkedIn pages. The more people promoting the program, the better.

7. Post information about the event to relevant LinkedIn groups. Check the group’s rules to determine if you are allowed to share a post about your webinar/seminar. In many cases, it will be allowed provided it is educational.

8. Consider using LinkedIn Ads to promote your event to a wider audience. LinkedIn Ads allow you to target people based on job title, industry, location, and other criteria, but it can be costly, so consider the ROI.

LinkedIn is an excellent platform to promote your public speaking but not the only tactic you should use. For the best results, market your program using multiple channels. For more tips, check out these related posts:

Top Strategies for Marketing Your Speaking Event

8 Ways to Promote Your Virtual Event

10 Do’s and Don’ts for Creating a Great Presentation

If you need help with your marketing, contact us for a consultation.

1. Email. Email is an easy way to let your contacts know about your event. However, make your emails as targeted as possible. As noted in the previous post, you should clearly identify the audience you want to attract and send your emails to those who best match that profile. Hopefully, your contact database is segmented – that is, your contacts have been put into categories which allow you to select the appropriate group that would be most interested in the program. For example, you could have segments for past and current clients, different types of referral sources, prospects, or groupings based on industry, profession, job title, age, or income.

Your marketing copy should also be targeted. You want your invite to appeal to those individuals. As a result, you may want to revise your email copy for different segments of your list. Highlight the key points that would resonate with the specific group.

2. Social media. All of your event marketing should be shared through your social media channels. In addition, you may want to consider paid ads to reach more people because you can narrowly target your audience on social media. Also, many social media channels provide additional tools for promoting events. For example, LinkedIn Events and Facebook allow you to create, manage, and promote an event. Note these tools are different from LinkedIn Live and Facebook Live which are used when you want to live stream your event using the social media platform. The Events functionality is a promotional tool that works for any event regardless of where it will be accessible.

3. Website. Create a landing page for your event where you can provide more information, such as the full description and agenda, speaker bios, sponsor material, and potentially links to related content or resources. You may also want to enable people to see those who have registered already so they can connect with each other. This is something often done for large conferences and has its advantages and disadvantages for smaller events.

4. Blog posts. Marketing copy describing your program is fine, but also give people something educational – information they can use even before your presentation. Provide content that highlights why this topic is important and what your audience needs to know about it so they can ask well-informed questions during the program. Blog posts like this can help generate interest in the event and in you. Ideally, people will want to register to learn more about the topic, but if not, the posts still highlight your expertise and credibility. You can share this content on your website, social media, and email. Remember blog posts can be in video as well as written format.

5. Surveys. Last year, a client decided to survey industry professionals regarding a new law that had passed. The client’s plan was to conduct a survey and then follow up with a conference with a panel of speakers where the survey results were revealed and discussed along with related issues. After the event, a full report was published with an analysis of the results as well as additional commentary from the live event. The survey served to build interest beforehand, provided discussion points during the conference, and offered important takeaways to attendees after the event. It also provided a wealth of marketing opportunities for the firm. This was a substantial project, but you can do something much simpler and gain some of these benefits. Ask your target audience a few questions about their top concerns or their thoughts on a particular issue. You can also survey their level of interest in certain topics and encourage them to submit questions in advance. You can promote the survey prior to or along with an email invite. By the way, Survey Monkey is a great tool for creating surveys and gathering responses online.

6. Employees. Leverage your employees by asking them to share information about your event with their own social media networks. This is a good way to expand your reach as well as encourage them to feel vested in the success of the firm, so they become more effective employees.

7. Third parties. Partnering with others enables you to take advantage of their marketing channels. This can take several forms. For example, if you are doing your own event, you can look to bring in a moderator, other speakers, or sponsors who can add value to the presentation as well as help to promote the event. You can share your marketing with them as well as pass along their materials to your own network. Remember to provide links back to their social media pages and websites so they get as much publicity as you do. That will encourage them to reciprocate. If an organization is hosting the program, it will be doing its own marketing, but you can give them materials to use in promoting the event as well as share their marketing with your own network. The more credibility the organization has the more you want to promote them because it reflects well on you. The organization will also be appreciative as it helps their visibility.

8. Publicity. If your program has broad appeal or involves a timely or newsworthy topic, it may be useful to do a press release or contact media outlets to promote the event. For example, many local publications or websites publish information on upcoming events. You could also reach out to relevant organizations or groups you belong to about sharing your event.

These ideas can help you maximize your event, so you are more successful in reaching your target audience. However, remember that your public speaking should not stand alone. It has to be integrated into all the other marketing tactics you use to get more clients.

If you need help with your marketing, contact us for a consultation.

1. Who do you want to reach? Identify your ideal client or referral source including their demographics (age, profession, income, location, etc.). That’s who you want to target with your public speaking. Then research where and how to get in front of them. In other words, don’t pursue every speaking opportunity that comes along; be selective so you focus your efforts on the people that matter most to you.

2. What topic(s) should you discuss? There are 2 parts to choosing a topic(s). The first is to determine your audience’s interest. Again, do research about their concerns and pain points so your presentation focuses on those issues. The second part is deciding what you want to be known for (i.e., your niche or specialty). Typically, this is the area that would be best for your business. You should analyze what types of matter and clients are most profitable to your business currently or have the most potential for the future. Your topic should hit the sweet spot between what people want to hear about and the expertise you want to promote.

3. How will you market your program? If you want people to show up and listen, you need to market your program using a variety of methods including social media, email, publicity and possibly advertising. Also leverage employees to help promote the program through their networks. In addition, try to partner with others who can use their own channels to promote the program. You may want to bring in co-speakers and sponsors or pitch your idea to an organization/association that will market the webinar. For ideas on how to market your event, see Top Strategies For Marketing Your Speaking Event. Also keep in mind that even if people don’t attend your program, your marketing is still going to increase your visibility and can bring in business.

4. How will you follow up afterwards? It is rare to get business from one speaking event. You need additional touchpoints with those contacts in order to build a relationship that will eventually turn into business. Ideally, you should try to get the names and contact information of the attendees so you can follow up using phone, email, and social media. If you cannot get their information because someone else is in charge of registrations and will not provide it, you still want to engage in post-event marketing. Use social media and email to offer attendees and non-attendees helpful material from the program (a recording, outline, summary of key points, etc.). You can also provide related content over the course of months as a way to continue to nurture these leads. If you partnered with others, look to leverage the relationship in your post-event marketing.

5. What are your goals and how will you measure progress? Consider what you want to accomplish through public speaking. Yes, you ultimately want more business, but break that down into smaller concrete goals. For example, maybe you want to increase referral business. Obviously, every aspect of your plan needs to be geared towards this goal as discussed above. So, you want to target a specifically defined group of referral sources (ex. accountants) with a relevant topic and appropriately market the program to them before and after the program. To gauge your success, you can track various metrics such as growth in the number of referral sources (the number of individuals who could refer you business), calls from referral sources (new or existing ones), calls from prospects who were referred to you, referred clients who actually signed with you, and/or revenue generated for the firm from referrals.

However, note that establishing a direct ROI in marketing is difficult because the path to new business isn’t a straight one. A prospect may have gotten your name from a referral source who regularly hears you speak, but also gets your emails, follows you on social media, and sees you at networking events. Regardless of whether the source first met you at a speaking event, your public speaking is helping your credibility and visibility with referral sources and is contributing to your ROI. Marketing has a cumulative impact, helping you stay top of mind with referral sources in a positive way, so you get the referral opportunity.

6. What resources do you have or need? Public speaking can be time-consuming. What resources can you devote to booking, preparing for, and marketing those engagements? Do you have enough resources internally? What work can you outsource? Remember you need time/money/expertise to effectively implement your plan. Put in writing who will be responsible for each task and establish deadlines to keep everyone accountable.

Figuring out these issues in advance will help ensure the success of individual speaking engagements and your marketing as a whole. Ultimately, your speaking engagements should support and complement your other marketing and vice versa so it is most effective and generates the best return on investment.

If you need assistance with obtaining or leveraging your speaking engagements, contact us for a consultation.

When presenting online, follow the 3 P’s to be an engaging speaker: Prepare – Practice – Passion

Here are seven specific steps to transform your screen presentation into a lively, engaging one.

1. Before presenting, do a few stretches and mild exercise for energy.

2. Be conversational and authentic no matter how many participants are watching your program. Instead of telling long stories, be brief with short anecdotes and examples. Less is more.

3. Vary your facial expressions to support what you’re saying and help participants keep their eyes on you. Viewers will focus on your face. Smile when appropriate.

4. For good eye contact, look straight ahead at the camera and not at the screen. Avoid shaking your head or looking up and down or side to side as it’s distracting. Standing is beneficial if you tilt the screen so your head can be seen.

5. Reduce the number of filler words like uhm and uh by pausing and slowing the pace. Emphasize specific words to help eliminate these types of empty words.

6. Wear appropriate business attire. Too many patterns and colors are distracting. Pastel colors are best and should contrast with the background – i.e., blue shirt against a beige background.

7. Use vocal variety to maintain viewer attention:

Pitch: Change your pitch (high, medium, low) to avoid a monotone voice.

Tone: Alter your tone. Use varied emotions for greater expression and interest.

Volume: Alternate between louder and softer depending on what you’re saying. If you use a microphone, practice volume changes before the presentation.

Rate: Speed up and slow down as it reflects what you’re saying. For example, if you want to show excitement, you can speak a little faster. If you’re discussing a serious issue, slow down.

Marla Seiden is president of Seiden Communications Inc., a presentation skills training and public relations firm for over 25 years.

Seiden Communications Inc.

PO Box 358, New Hyde Park, NY 10040

Tel: 516-437-6199

marla@seidencommunications.com

www.seidencommunications.com

Do you have a personal brand? Many people don’t know what a personal brand is and can’t identify their own brand. As a result, they can’t maximize their brand to improve their career and business prospects. Your brand describes what you’re known for and what people expect from you.

It is not your logo or tagline, although those can help you promote your brand. Instead your personal brand encompasses your reputation, including many personal and professional attributes. In a recent program at the Suffolk County Bar Association, we shared our tips to help attorneys develop a strong brand and market it effectively to build their practice. However, no matter what type of professional you are, you can take advantage of these key points:

1. Focus on your differentiators. Your personal brand should give you a distinctive and positive identity that attracts people and helps you stand out from the competition. In developing a brand, think about why someone should hire you over your competitors and what unique value or benefits your audience can expect from working with you. Many professionals have a hard time identifying what makes them different. Instead, they rely on the standard answers, like they are different because they really care about their clients or have a proven track record. But those are the same things that everyone says and by itself does nothing to differentiate them. You need to dig deeper and examine your background, experience, interests, etc. to identify how you stand apart and bring real value to your clients. For example, one of the best ways to differentiate and add value to your audience is to have a niche practice. A niche gives you the opportunity to develop expertise and become a go-to resource and that attracts people to you.

2. Write regularly on topics of interest to your audience. Writing is a great tool for demonstrating your expertise and building your credibility. It also helps promote you as a trusted resource when you frequently share helpful information. Your writing doesn’t just include articles for third party publications. For example, blogging is a very useful and flexible format for sharing content. A blog post can consist of anything from a simple checklist or chart, to an in-depth piece that’s akin to something a publication would publish. Other forms of writing include newsletters, white papers, eBooks or printed books. If you’re doing public speaking, your handouts, notes, outlines, PowerPoints and other materials are also written content that can be shared with your audience. Whatever form your writing takes, just make sure that it provides useful information to your audience and highlights your personal brand.

3. Leverage public speaking. When you speak before a group of prospective clients or referral sources, they have an opportunity to see you and recognize your expertise and how you can help them. Having a strategic plan in place is critical to your speaking success. First, you must know and understand your target market. Determine their existing knowledge about your topic and what new information you can offer them based on their needs and interests. Then research the types of organizations where you can speak and prepare to pitch yourself and your topic. Organizations may include: business and legal organizations, chambers of commerce, civic groups, conferences, etc. Once you get an engagement, focus on sharpening your speaking skills and creating and delivering a great presentation. If you want to maximize the engagement even further, consider getting the word out through publicity (media coverage) before and after the event.

4. Take advantage of digital marketing. Social media and email are great tools for sharing and marketing your brand. All of your professional activities (especially writing and speaking) should be promoted using social media and email. It will help you stay top of mind with your existing contacts. It also gives you an inexpensive way to reach new audiences. Remember too that your activities will typically show up online in some way. Consumers or other professionals searching for help with a problem are more likely to find you if you are writing and speaking about substantive issues relevant to the people you want to attract. Just as importantly, if someone gets your name from a referral, they are likely to check you out online. When someone Googles your name, having lots of positive information about you online will help reinforce your credibility with them.

Thanks to my co-presenter, Marla Seiden, Seiden Communications. For more tips, see also Power Up Your Personal Branding With Public Speaking authored by Marla Seiden.

If you need help with your personal branding, contact us.

Do you speak at seminars? It’s a great way to market yourself, but too many professionals just focus on the event itself and forget about how it can be leveraged both before and afterwards to gain more visibility and attract clients. Whether you are presenting at your own event or one given by a third-party, use these tactics to get the most attention for yourself and the event:

Pre-event:

1. Publish teasers. Use your email newsletter, blogs and social media to talk about the issues that will be discussed in your presentation. You want to do more than send out marketing copy describing the event. Give people something educational – information they can use, like quick tips, questions to think about, etc. Your goal is to generate interest in the event and in you. Ideally people will want to register, but if not, it still highlights your expertise and credibility in a memorable way.

2. Conduct a survey. Ask your contacts their opinion about issues relevant to the presentation. Surveys are a great way to promote the event and also will make your presentation that much better because your audience told you some of the things they are interested in hearing about. But keep it simple – only a few questions. You can promote the survey to your contacts and social media network, but also ask the organizer of the event if they can also send out or promote the survey link. By the way, Survey Monkey is a great tool for creating surveys and gathering responses online.

3. Partner with others. If it’s your own event, look to bring in other speakers or sponsors who can add value to the presentation as well as help to promote the event.

4. Leverage the marketing done by the organizer and other participants. If you are working with a third party, it’s great to pass along or “like” the marketing pieces they are putting out.

During the event:

5. Record the event (audio or video). There is so much you can do with this post-event (see below). First check with organizers to make sure you can record it, or if they are recording the event, find out whether you will be able to get a copy and how you can use it. Hire a good videographer who can create a high-quality video and edit afterwards.

6. Take pictures. Post photos to your website and social media.

7. Tweet. Have someone tweet during the event.

8. Take notes. Designate someone to take notes during the event about what questions were asked or interesting points made. This is less important if you are getting the presentation recorded.

9. Interview panelists and attendees. Ask others about their challenges, their highlights from the event, etc. It will make good fodder for follow up content about the event (see below). Remember to get their contact information so you send them your draft if you’re quoting them and links to the final version. Panelists in particular may be very happy to promote your article/post if you’ve mentioned them.

10. Ask people to sign up to get your presentation or other information. You can collect business cards or have people sign up via text message (Constant Contact and other email providers have a way to do this).

Post-event:

11. Repurpose the recording. The event can be made available on your website as an on-demand webinar. It can also be edited into shorter clips for your site, YouTube or other social media.

12. Post and distribute the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint can be edited and posted on your site as well as on SlideShare, LinkedIn profiles and other social media channels. If you are concerned about giving too much away, just post an abridged version. Also send your PowerPoint to attendees.

13. Create related articles, white papers and blog posts. Provide takeaways and recaps, talk about the questions that came up, comments from panelists and attendees, etc. Promote these via email and social media. Remember each piece of content provides another marketing opportunity.

Make the most of your presentation with these marketing tips.

Need help marketing your speaking engagements? Contact us for a free consultation.

Now I agree you don’t want to give away proprietary information. However, before you produce another mediocre piece of content (or don’t produce any content at all), ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. Is it really your secret sauce?

Everything you know is not proprietary. Just because you provide some helpful advice, tips, or other information doesn’t mean you’ve given it all away. For years I recruited attorneys and accountants to author 500+ page tomes, yet I never heard anyone complain they lost potential clients because they wrote a book and clients didn’t need them anymore. There are plenty of ways to provide meaningful insights without solving every potential problem your audience might have.

Your real secret sauce is being able to understand and analyze your client’s specific issues as well as the big picture. It’s putting together and implementing a plan of action to help them. Those skills are harder than you think to translate into articles or presentations. Don’t worry about giving it away for free. Focus on showcasing the underlying knowledge and unique value you bring to your clients.

2. What are prospects really going to do with your content?

Professionals fear people will take their advice, do it themselves and they will lose business. But if it was that easy for others to do it themselves, then why did you need all that extra education, training and years of experience? Okay you know they can’t handle it, but they think they can do it themselves and so now you lost the client. But did you really want that client? The one who thinks they can figure out what you do by googling their problem. Do you think they were genuine prospects for you? Most likely they wouldn’t have hired you to do the work anyway. However, when it becomes too much to handle or if they have a future problem, they may remember the useful information you provided them for free.

Educating your audience is a good thing even if it doesn’t result in immediate business. This is the essence of content marketing. Consistently producing and delivering practical and informative content is an excellent way to gain visibility and engage and retain your prospect’s attention. In the professional services world the sales cycle can be very long or very short. Either way you want to become a trusted resource so that when prospects are looking for help, you are top of mind.

3. Can your content help you bring in or solidify new business?

Publishing useful and targeted content is an excellent way to get found by search engines. In fact, content creation is the most effective tactic for search engine optimization (SEO) and B2B marketers rank SEO as one of the top lead generation tactics. (Source: MarketingSherpa) Websites with lots of real content show up higher in organic search rankings so it make sense to put out information that will help bring prospects to you.

What about where someone already knows about you? Maybe they were referred to you or met you at an event or even worked with you on another matter. Word of mouth, referrals, and networking are top lead sources. However, it’s very likely those prospects will also google you and look at your website and LinkedIn profile. Showcasing high-quality valuable information helps give you credibility, enhances your reputation and establishes you as uniquely knowledgeable, trustworthy and client-centric. The reverse is also true. In a recent Hinge survey, 52% of respondents ruled out referrals to professional service firms before even speaking with them. Many of their top reasons focused on the fact that the firm didn’t demonstrate online how they could help clients. Unclear marketing materials that were too sales-oriented and poor quality content all contributed to keeping a referral from following up with a firm.

When you’re thinking about preparing that next article or speech, ask yourself these 3 questions. Hopefully your answers will lead you towards producing the kind of content that will get you noticed and grow your business.

1. Don’t bury your best points. Often I see great information lost within a lot of content that is of less interest. Not everything you say is created equally, at least so far as your audience is concerned. Therefore, you shouldn’t put equal emphasis on all your ideas in your written (or spoken) materials either. The real problem here is not being sure what you want to say and how to say it. Make sure you understand your audience’s interests and your message. Organize your thoughts and focus on delivering and highlighting your strongest points in your presentation.

2. Don’t go into too much detail in writing. Your slides don’t need to restate everything you want to discuss. You want this to be an outline and your speech will fill in the blanks. Remember too that if you have a lot of text, your audience may be reading it instead of listening to you. Or else they may feel they don’t need to listen to you because they’re getting all the pertinent information in the written presentation and they can read it later.

3. Do leave them wanting more. In many ways, this is the flip side of writing too much, but also brings in the point that you want to engage your audience. You don’t want to answer every question in your presentation. You want to start a conversation. Give attendees reasons to ask questions or make comments during or after the program. You also want to let the audience know how to follow up with you and about where they can look for additional resources, including your own site. This is a great way to bring people to you and drive traffic to your website.

4. Don’t clutter up your slides visually with too much text or images on a page. I know if you are doing a lengthy program, the tendency is to want to put a lot on a page to make the PowerPoint fewer pages, but it’s better to add pages. There is plenty of advice online about fonts, line spacing, number of words per page, etc. Feel free to google it and find what looks best for your presentation. You can also go to SlideShare and look at what other people/companies are doing in your field.

5. Do incorporate charts, infographics, photos and other visuals. Not only will your presentation look more appealing, but it will have more impact. Studies show that 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual.

6. Do use handouts when necessary. One of the events I just attended had dozens of charts and graphs. The speakers showed them onscreen where they were hard to read with lots of detail and explanatory text in small print. Giving everyone a print copy during the program would have helped.

7. Don’t make everything a handout. No one wants to carry all that paper so they’ll just throw it out. Also when you provide handouts, people may focus on reading them instead of paying attention to you. Your materials can always be emailed to attendees afterward.

8. Do check for typos. You should always have someone else proofread it. Few people can actually check their own work well.

9. Do have some fun with it. I know some of these topics can be pretty dry, but try to inject your personality and humor into both the spoken and written materials. It makes it more engaging and memorable for your audience.

10. Do invest time and resources in creating good presentation materials. Too often I think slides are done in a rush. I don’t know if it’s because the importance is underestimated or if the speaker just doesn’t know better. You want it to reflect well on you at the time of the presentation. Just as importantly though, those slides can be repurposed and promoted via different channels to give you additional exposure after the event. The PowerPoint can be posted on your website, on SlideShare, on your LinkedIn profile, emailed to clients and prospects, broken into smaller chunks of content and otherwise reused and distributed. Therefore, if possible, get the help of writers/editors and designers. Ask others for their opinion on your slides.

Remember your written materials are an important part of your whole presentation. They should complement and reinforce your speech. Spend the time to do it right and make the most of it both during and after your presentation.