Voicing over a presentation

How the words would flow \ With passion and precision

There are entire workshops, books, and probably podcasts about how to deliver an effective presentation. In case you don’t have time for those, I have some small suggestions for when you have shared a pre-read (slides or something else) and are now speaking to your audience about it.

Focus your voiceover on your main takeaway; don’t read through everything. Either (1) your audience already read through the document and this is a time for emphasizing your main points and having a discussion about details or next steps — or (2) your audience hasn’t read it yet, and the best thing you can do is emphasize your main point and have a discussion about details and, hopefully, next steps.

After making your main points, pause. Pausing lets the audience digest what you’ve shared, and share back to you what they need next — clarity, more information about your finding or recommendation, what they think this could be useful for in their world, or something else important to them. Whichever way they take the conversation, listening to their reaction is more helpful to you (and them!) than anything you have to say at this point.

Be prepared with the details. None of this is to say you shouldn’t have the methodology, footnotes, and supporting materials ready. Those should be ready to share if the conversation requires them. Let the audience guide you to which supporting materials will be useful for a conversation about your main point and next steps.