Hippo Events Blog - How To Give A Keynote Presentation

It pains me to say it, but there are many presentations with speakers who are unable to convey their message in an effective way.

We’re so used to seeing death by PowerPoint (PPT). Even if your presentation has great content, you can kill it stone dead with PPT. And yet this is how most presentations are given – with slides of texts, reading off the screen and heavy visual content.

Keep your slides simple, with minimal words.

Imagine, it’s Wednesday 28 August 1963, and we’re in the United States of America, specifically Washington. You are a black male/female who is both angry and excited. You’re angry because people still discriminate due to your race, but today, you’re excited. You’re excited because you’re about to watch Martin Luther King. Today is the day he gives arguably the greatest speech of all time; the “I have a dream” speech. Powerful. Inspirational. Captivating. Memorable. All delivered verbally.

Now, can you imagine Martin Luther King delivering such a speech by writing all the words up on a PPT presentation, practically reading each line off the slide? The impact of his message would have disappeared. This demonstrates how even if your speech has great content, you can destroy your message simply by the way you present it. And that is our problem.

It’s through no fault of our own, but the cause of such a problem is because we’ve never been educated on how to keep an audience’s attention. We’re rarely trained, both in vocal or physical presentation, nor do we ever discuss it necessarily either.

I remember so clearly when I watched the “I have a dream” speech online for the first time. In fact, it was on a Sunday morning, ‘A Place In The Sun’ was on the TV in the background and I was in one of my regular You Tube spirals – you know the kind. It came up as a suggested video, so I watched it. I had a cup of coffee in hand, laying in bed and feeling a little stagnant in life.

14 minutes later, I’ve never felt so inspired. Add in a couple of Winston Churchill (my idol) speeches that followed and I leapt out of bed and felt motivated to follow my dream of starting my own company. Long nights, hard work and pure determination followed, with a few hiccups along the way including quitting my job and taking a huge risk. Four years later, here I am, still running Hippo Events and going from strength to strength since 2017.

So, let’s look at possible solutions to solve this issue of stagnant keynote presentations:

1. PowerPoint is not your presentation. See above! Also, check out our “How to Avoid Death By PowerPoint” Blog.

2. Use Questions . When you stand in front of a group, you have to keep your audiences’ attention for a certain time. It is natural for people’s attention to drop, no matter how good your content. Asking questions draws the audience’s focus back onto you, the presenter. Questions are shaped like hooks – and they hook your attention back. Don’t they?

3. Use bridges between subjects.. Jesus was a fantastic storyteller. He used questions to keep people’s attention, questions like “What are people saying about me?”, “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you think I am?” By doing that, he was keeping people’s attention and getting them thinking. But what was Jesus most famous for?

4. Tell Stories.. He was most famous for telling stories. Did you like that bridge between points 2. and 4. there? Stories are powerful because they keep people’s attention and they’re memorable. And because they’re memorable, you can use them to help your audience remember things. I bet you can remember what programme I was watching in my story above, without looking up. Because I put it in story format you remember it, it stays in your mind and helps you remember details. The personal anecdote also endears you to an audience, who are otherwise indifferent towards you (at least initially).

5. Address the Problem. Why address the problem? Because the problem becomes clearer. It focuses the brain and becomes more memorable if you address it. Here is a great opportunity to tell your first story. When addressing a problem, always tell people why they should listen to you. Why? Clarity, focus, memorable.

6. What’s the Cause. How did the problem occur? What happened to bring about this problem?

7. What are the possible solutions?. Here’s a chance to try multiple stories. “We tried out Solution A, and that didn’t work because…and then we tried out Solution B and that seemed to work out better…” and so on.

8. What’s your chosen solution?. You can link it to Point 5 above, how it addresses your original problem and solves it. Have you noticed how Points 5 – 8 have also formed one overarching story now too? A story of how you found a problem, how you investigated it, tried out different solutions and how you came to the format you’re using.

This story format works for different types of presentations. It works for management presentations, technical presentations and even this blog. Remember how in the opening paragraphs I started by addressing the problem, then mentioning the potential causes, before then suggesting possible solutions?

No coincidence!

So why have I written this blog?

I wrote it because I also have a dream.

I have a dream based on the conviction that everyone can give a good presentation and effectively communicate their message. We just need to understand how.

I have a dream that one day every keynote speaker will be able to keep an audience’s attention from the first word to the last.

I have a dream that everyone wins: You – Your Audience – Your Company.

I have a dream that one day PowerPoints will not be the presentation, that questions will be asked, bridges will be created, and stories will be told.