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I was on my way to a national conference when I met a fellow speaker in the airport. “My carry-on suitcase is filled with handouts and few clothes,” I commented. He shook his head and said he didn’t distribute handouts any more. If an attendee needed a handout, he or she could go to his website and download it.

As an experienced speaker, I can tell you I still distribute printed handouts. Why do I use them?

First of all, attendees like and benefit from written materials. However, the idea of giving attendees your Power Point presentation is fading. Attendees want and expect more. Olivia Mitchell describes the benefits in her Speaking About Presenting website article, “13 Best Practice Tips for Effective Presentation Handouts.” She says handouts allow the speaker to cut down on the material that is presented. Handouts guide the speaker and you don’t have to worry about forgetting what you planned to say because you’re referring to your handout(s).

Handouts help attendees to remember your talk and you. If you include contact information, as I do, attendees can easily contact you later. I think handouts help attendees to relax. They don’t have to follow every word or take copious notes because your handouts contain essential information.

Handouts may also include new information, things you don’t cover in your talk. For example, at the bottom of a handout you may list some additional resources. After the attendees have returned home, they can read your handouts and recall your presentation.

The handouts you create fall into three general categories, uncompleted handouts, outlines (also called skeletal handouts), and worksheets. Simple handouts work best for me and I often give attendees an outline of my talk, with space beneath the points for notes. This is an example of an uncompleted handout.

I’ve also developed a worksheet, with bulleted headings for workshop attendees to complete. For the conference bookstore, I’ve created a list of the grief resources I’ve written — a publicity handout. Over the years I’ve come up with my “how to” points for creating handouts, and these points may help you.

1. Use simple words and avoid jargon.

2. Add a visual, a photo, clip art, or symbol, to every handout.

3. Make every handout as attractive as you can; nobody wants an ugly handout.

4. Copyright the handout in your name.

5. Include your phone number, email address, and website address if you have one.

6. Color-code handouts so attendees may find them easily.

You’re probably wondering about when you should distribute your handouts. I give attendees the skeletal handout at the beginning of my talk or workshop, and pass out additional handouts during the talk as needed. This keeps attendees from shuffling papers and losing track of the points you are making at the moment.

No doubt about it, providing handouts costs money, and you are the only person who can decide whether the investment is worth it. Personally, I think handouts speak well for you and your expertise. You provide handouts because you care about the attendees and they will figure this out. Good handouts “speak” for you long after your presentation is over.

Copyright 2013 by Harriet Hodgson

In the business world, so many of us are required to give presentations and engage our audiences. There is usually a lot of information to present, and we are left wondering how we can connect with our audience and leave a lasting impression. How do we make our presentations memorable? After all, there is nothing more boring than someone showing us charts and spitting out numbers and percentages.

While there are obviously important facts that are mandatory, remember that a presentation is really a way to “talk” to your audience and let them become a part of your message. What better way to do that than to tell a story?

So, how do you do create a story that makes your audience truly interested in what you have to say and want to hear more?

Your story must be relevant and fit your audience.
Telling just any story won’t make a great presentation. You need to make sure that your story is relevant to your topic and fits your audience. You want to the audience to respond with an “oh!” or “ahhh”, or be surprised in a way that really gets their attention.

Your story must have a point.
You want to build the story right into our presentation framework so that it is something they can relate to and makes practical sense. The point of the story must be clear. Rather than just spitting out numbers and charts, make it realistic and fun. The story puts everything together so that all of those numbers and all of the information make sense.

Make your audience laugh.
If your story is funny, that’s even better. Sometimes, you might want to relate something that actually happened to you that was funny and relevant to your project. Let them see the human side of you. This keeps the audience engaged and interested.

Always tell a story about a person and an experience they had.
Your story can be a success story, a failure, a humorous story, or something personal. You may even want your story to have a lesson for others to learn. If your story doesn’t have a personal message, then it won’t hit home with your audience. They should reflect on how the story affected someone and how it relates to the topic.

It’s not enough just to present information in a presentation, as it tends to make it dry and dull. Spicing it up with a story or two that are relevant to your topic, teaching a lesson and saying something funny all help to engage your audience and keep them asking for more. Your presentation is a way to deliver a message in the most interesting way possible so that your audience walks away with a smile on their face, actually remembering what you said and the important information and practical ways to apply it.

The average attention span of a literate adult is 20 minutes.

Good, you think to yourself. 20 minutes is plenty of time.

But how many speeches have you sat through where you fell asleep within the first two minutes?

And how afraid are you that people are going to do the same for yours?

It seems terribly obvious: unless you’re interesting, no one is going to pay attention. When you watch an episode of the O.C. or Gray’s Anatomy, you’re there to be entertained. You watch because the plot twists and the developing relationships on-screen are interesting. Not interesting? You switch the channel.

People may not have the luxury of turning off a speaker. But they can certainly turn off their own brains, and if you’re not careful, you’ll find most people snoozing in their chairs.

Find out your audience’s expectations, and do your best to break them. Does your audience expect you to be very formal? Take off your jacket and walk out from behind your podium. Does your audience expect you to be very serious? Be irreverent. Be self-deprecating.

One simple way to do this is to ask unexpected questions. It makes people think and also keeps them awake because it’s embarrassing to be singled out for sleeping.

5) Laugh! Never underestimate the power of humour. It’s been said to the death, but somehow people still don’t seem to get it. And they end up with dead audiences.

And I don’t mean just a humorous beginning or ending. Make sure you keep it up! It’s a pity if your audience doesn’t pay attention to the body of your speech.

6) Be visual. Okay, the above blog post advises that you ‘show a (half) naked woman’. But take that with a pinch of salt. It might not be appropriate, and you never know when you might have a dedicated, stone-throwing feminist in your audience.

Instead, you can be visual. It’s pretty much an undisputed fact that we remember images better than words. If you have a powerpoint presentation, make it visually striking. At the most basic level, it’s as simple as bolding words to make them stand out. At higher levels, you can add images or even videos.

7) If you’re stuck with words only, then use what fiction writers and poets have been using throughout the ages: metaphor, simile, and analogy. All these techniques are meant to call up images in the mind of the reader – or in your case, the listener – and help them retain your message better.

Tell stories [http://blog.ericfeng.com/getting-your-audience-engaged-excited-at-the-edge-of-their-seats-at-all-times]. It may sound difficult but it’s not, because we do it all the time.

When you tell your friends about the time you were stuck in a traffic jam or about dealing with your horrible boss or about the time you tried so hard to get tickets to a concert, you’re essentially portraying the essence of life: conflict.

Tell your audience about a particular conflict you resolved. It endears you to them and also helps them empathize with you. Besides that, stories are simply far more memorable and interesting than a series of unconnected facts.

9) Start writing your speech early. A lot of people wait till the very last minute to start working on their presentation, which results in them being unconfident and boring. If you don’t craft your jokes and stories carefully first, you’ll end up telling them badly or not telling them at all.

10) Keep your role as a public speaker in mind, all the time. You can start keeping a folder of notes or materials to use in any speech.

If something interesting happens to you, write it down. If a friend tells you a good joke or if you happen to read a nice anecdote from a book or the Internet, write it down. You never know when it’ll come in handy.