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Career Corner

Romansky Preparing for the Live Presentation—Just Do it!

By Sally Rosenberg Romansky, HLS '86

Cramming for exams. Caffeine-fueled all-nighters. Some of us managed our academic careers this way. But the last-minute approach to preparing for a speech or presentation doesn't work nearly as well in the professional world.

Of course, many of us do it anyway. We're busy! Life gets in the way. Who has time to prepare? Whether giving a speech at a conference, pitching a client, or making an internal presentation at a firm or corporate retreat, lawyers often wait until the last minute to get ready. Besides, we're typically well-informed about the topic and we're born communicators, aren't we? Or we think we have prepared because the conference organizers asked for our slides in advance. So we write our speech out and load up the slides with the minutest of details, confident that we're ready with visuals that will work both in the "live" context and as take-aways.

Wrong. This approach ignores the singular opportunity that live presentation provides. Appearing live is all about impact and impression. It's about being memorable. Narrating word-heavy slides squanders the opportunity. In fact, if you essentially plan to read your slides to the audience, why devote the many hours it will take to travel to the event and deliver the address? Why not just email the slides and let people know they can contact you with questions?

Your instincts tell you—and they are correct—that a live presentation is your best opportunity to forge a powerful connection. Preparation is essential, and it must include content, structure, slides (if you really need them, and sometimes you don't), and delivery. The payoff will be grabbing the audience's attention, appreciation, and, frequently, new business.

Some of us are blessed with natural charisma and a sense of ease in front of an audience. But the very best presenters, even those for whom public speaking comes easily—former President Clinton comes to mind—frame information from a listener's perspective. They distill the complex and make it simple, without unnecessarily dumbing it down. They bring abstract concepts to life through compelling stories. They produce PowerPoint slides that are visually interesting and simple—that enhance, not overtake, the spoken word. (The word-heavy detailed slides they generated early on become handouts to be distributed after the talk.) If your audience is looking down at detailed handouts while you're talking, they're not paying attention to you. If conference organizers insist on upfront handouts, consider that all the more pressure to grab the audience's attention with your first words and to keep that attention all the way through.

Finally, the best presenters practice their speech many times so they can make strong eye contact and pace their remarks with well-chosen pauses and points of emphasis. These are the ingredients that result in a connection with the audience—which is why you showed up in the first place.

As a law firm partner turned presentation coach, I've seen many an attorney blossom when crafting a presentation reflecting the opportunity that live communication provides. These lawyers are quick converts because they have experienced their audience's receptivity to a presentation developed with them in mind. They've also felt the satisfaction of delivering a well-crafted and interesting presentation.

Case in point: instead of starting his remarks at an industry conference with a conventional, word-heavy slide that detailed the background of a federal policy, one lawyer-presenter I worked with recently chose a photo from "The Shining," in which an unhinged Jack Nicholson threatens his wife with an axe. He used this photo to build his entire speech around the idea that the constituency he was addressing should have anticipated the practical challenges posed by new federal policy, but instead—like every victim in a horror film—it had failed to act until the danger was in sight.

Another lawyer took addressing the diverse makeup of her audience to a new level. She made sure that, at some point in her remarks, she told a story that would resonate with each interest group to ensure a personal association with something she said.

Both of these lawyers saw measurable results from these presentations, having experienced firsthand the benefits of the right kind of preparation.

So don't be conventional or complacent. Brainstorm creative new ways of presenting information. Be bold. Challenge yourself to look anew at your live presentation opportunities. And enjoy the comfort, confidence, and audience response that come with thoughtful preparation.

Sally Rosenberg Romansky, HLS '86, is a presentation skills coach with Oratorio Media and Presentation Training in Washington, D.C. She works with attorneys and executives across all industries, honing their presentation skills and workshopping specific presentations for a broad spectrum of audiences. A former partner at a large corporate law firm, Sally also has served as Board President of a non-profit children's performing arts organization, and written a children's novel, Invincible, inspired by HLS classmate Lewis Kessler's identical twins.