What’s More Important in Your Presentation? Content or Delivery?

Frankie Kemp
7 January 2014
Presentation day looming?
That presentation’s getting closer. You’ve slaved over your slides, ensuring that you’ve remembered your key points and a few vital statistics.
But something’s not quite in flow. Everyone says your presentation skills are fine but you know you could do better.
Unless your aim is to induce a coma on your poor audience, your presentation needs to be more than just words.
The Power of Delivery: Lessons from Academia
You know that you’ll lose impact if you don’t improve your vocal skills, pay attention to your gestures, and move around the space with confidence.
You need to change something. The problem is what? Is it the content or the delivery?
Research has been carried out on the biggest differentiator in presenting, and I think you may be quite surprised with the answer…
In the world of academia, Stephen Ceci, a university professor at Cornell improved his evaluations over two terms simply by changing the way in which he delivered the content.
What’s noteworthy is that the content did not change, only the delivery.
In the second term of teaching, with a new group of students, he made the following tweaks:
- added more gestures,
- used his tone of voice tactically and
- generally demonstrated more enthusiasm when lecturing.
After he introduced new delivery techniques, the following happened:
- The professor was perceived as being a more effective lecturer.
- He was considered to be more open, to others’ ideas.
- He was viewed as being more organised.
- Even Ceci’s textbooks were perceived to be 20% better than with previous classes.
- The students’ believed they had learned more.
But the content didn’t change, just the delivery. Are you getting the point? Body language and vocal skills enhance your content.
How Your Circumstances Compromise Your Delivery
For those planning to now only focus on delivery, be aware that the way you speak is still influenced by what you say.
When people ask me to help them be less vanilla and more THRILLER with their presentation delivery skills, they tend to be very specific that it’s only the delivery that they want me to address.
However, it soon becomes obvious that the content is so skewed against natural expression that their personality seems to have dissipated.
And they wonder why they sound monotonous…
Factors Impacting Your Delivery
These considerations will definitely impact the way you feel and, in turn, your non-verbals such as body language and voice:
⚠️ Uncertainty: you can’t be certain when talking about the success of a project when it’s not yet completed.
⚠️ Politics: there are certain cards you need to play very carefully or hold close.
⚠️ Belief: someone’s instructed you to deliver a message for which you don’t have the same conviction.
⚠️ Unfamiliarity: with the content itself or the 59-slide bullet point assault that James emailed to you at 1 am. Thanks, James.
The Effect of These Factors on Your Delivery
Overlooking these factors can impact vocal skills and body language in numerous ways, including:
🔴 Speaking too fast: “Get this thing over with.”
🔴 Anxiety: “I’m going to get caught out”
🔴 Physically ‘shrinking’: “I don’t want to be seen”
You can’t deal with your presentation delivery by ignoring the words you say – ask any decent actor given an awful script.
The Delicate Dance: Balancing Content and Delivery
If you’re all delivery with nothing inside, you may captivate but there could be a risk of losing credibility. Conversely, dry or compromising content will impair that delivery.
Presentation skills training will help you balance the message with your delivery of it. Have a look at my pitching and presenting skills courses here for teams and individuals.
Contact me, Frankie Kemp to discuss all my communication skills courses.