There really is no such thing as a formal presentation or an informal presentation—from the perspective of our audience. There are really only two kinds of presentations in the entire world:
Good ones.
And bad ones.
Really. That’s it.

Think about when you are in listening to someone speak or present in front of you. Are you thinking, “Wow, I sure am glad this presenter is being formal and grabbing a lectern and standing in front of the room?”
Of course not.

There are typically only two things going through your head when you are listening to someone else present to you. It’s either
1.    “Wow, this person is saying something interesting and useful. I’m going to pay attention and tell other people about this.”
Or
2.    “Uh oh, this presenter is really boring. I think I will pretend to pay attention and take notes on my Blackberry which will give me an excuse to check our stock price. Oh, let’s see how the Jet’s did last night. That reminds me, I’ve got to add skim milk to my grocery list, and then there’s…”

Those are the two reactions you as a presenter are likely to get from your audience. Your job is to figure out how to get the first reaction and to stay away from the second reaction.

The challenge for most presenters is they get caught up in these notions of the “formal presentation.” You must realize that the audience doesn’t ever think in these terms, so you should not either. You focus must always be on how you can present your ideas in as interesting and memorable and as conversational manner as possible.

I get very nervous when one of my clients tells me he or she has to give a formal presentation. Typically, what that means is the person takes all of the interesting stories, anecdotes, case studies, humor, pauses, and conversational style that work so well for them when they present one on one and throw it out the window. Then, they replace it by listing or worse, reading, a whole bunch of bullet points from a slide or a piece of paper. To make matters worse, the person projects his or her voice louder to sound more official and monotone—ugh! This is not a “formal” presentation; it is simply a “bad” presentation.

Most presenters confuse setting, length of presentation and audience size for formality. For you the presenter it may feel scarier and therefore, more formal, to speak to a much larger group of people than you are used to. But from any one audience member’s perspective, it’s still the same—they are listening to one person trying to figure out if you are worth listening to or not.

Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are or were very different speakers with different philosophies, but they all belong in the category of great speaker. Why? One reason is that they never let their formal surroundings make themselves sound “formal.” All three are masters of speaking in an informal, conversational manner. They didn’t change their styles just because the venue changed. Whether they were talking to 2 people or 2 million, they still had an informal tone of voice that sounded real, fresh, conversational and interesting—the opposite of the typical business speaker giving a formal speech listing bullet points off of a slide.

So please remember that it doesn’t matter if you are given a strict time limitation, or if you are using PowerPoint or you are speaking to a much larger group of people than normal. Don’t tell yourself you are giving a “formal” presentation. Instead, just focus on how you can speak in a conversational tone of voice and convey your ideas in an interesting and memorable manner. Then, from your audiences perspective, you will be delivering a “good” presentation.