By Katherine Rougeux, New York Power Authority
What makes women different from men in terms of presenting themselves? Suzie Sims-Fletcher, an expert in the communications field with over 20 years of teaching and consulting experience, covered this topic during her presentation at the WICE Fall Conference. Suzie clearly showed a passion for her work as she addressed the WICE audience, peppering her talk with humorous anecdotes and quotes.
Suzie recognized that women, more often than men, are trained to focus on other people, rather than themselves. Thus, women do not always successfully promote their accomplishments and take credit for their achievements. To assist women in branding themselves through presentations, Suzie highlighted the important points to remember when giving a presentation, such as a strong introduction and a limited number of main points.
As Suzie presented these important topics with humor, she successfully achieved one of her essential points – to keep the audience engaged and laughing. Suzie elaborated on the importance of the introduction to a presentation. She noted the central points of an introduction: provide a clear thesis of the presentation, establish your credibility, and get and keep the audience’s attention and interest. She emphasized the importance of a presentation being audience centered, and reminded us not to detract from the presentation by wearing distracting clothing or jewelry. She suggested wearing something that relates to the audience you will be presenting to. Distractions take away from the message of the presentation, and may affect the image you portray.
Presentations are usually either persuasive or informative – and it is important that you know which one yours is. Suzie emphasized the importance of figuring out the goal of the presentation ahead of time, emphasizing that if you don’t know what you’re talking about, the audience won’t either. One suggestion that Suzie had to keep your audience interested was to “tell a joke, if you can tell a joke – some of you can’t”. This emphasized the importance of sticking to your strengths and being genuine in your presentation. Suzie recognized essential points such as: be engaging and audience centered, don’t let your emotions take over your presentation, find ways to help your audience focus on your presentation, establish credibility, and present only 2-5 main points.
Suzie successfully practiced what she preached, and kept her audience engaged and interested in her presentation tips and humorous quotes illustrating her points. It was an informative and entertaining discussion of a key way for women to help brand themselves through their presentation skills.
Download Suzie’s handout.
