Presentation Guide- Ideas, Tips and Skills You Need

“All the great speakers were bad speakers at first” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

A presentation is a very technical display but it’s also an emotional display. Not only do you display your work but your effort and your personality. We all want to make good presentations that are memorable, understandable and emotional. The audience is King and you present to them and for them. A presentation has 2 key parts- talking and presenting. Presentation skills training allow one to develop effective presentations and public speaking skills. These skills are important in business, sales and selling, training, teaching, lecturing, and generally feeling comfortable speaking to a group of people.

Developing the confidence and capability to give good presentations, and speak well in front of a crowd, are also extremely helpful to increase one’s proficiency for self-development and in social situations.

Presentation skills and public speaking abilities are not limited to certain special people - anyone can give a good presentation, or perform public speaking with some preparation, practice and presentation skills training

Presentations can be of different types- oral (spoken), multimedia (using various media - visuals, audio, etc), PowerPoint presentations, short impromptu presentations, long planned presentations, educational or training sessions, lectures, and simply giving a talk on a subject to a group on a voluntary basis for pleasure. Even speeches at weddings and eulogies at funerals are types of presentations.

The main idea behind getting presentation skills training is to build up one’s confidence not only in making professional presentations, but also being able to communicate that content in simple terms to the public.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Frame Your Story

Have your content ready. If you don’t have or don’t know what to talk about you won’t be able to effectively communicate it to the audience. Conceptualize and frame the content so that it is delivered in short sentences, it should drive home the point without beating about the bush, and it should be simple for a layman to comprehend.  Make sure the slides you present are aligned and offer contrast. Avoid crowding the slides with too many words; otherwise it will just be difficult to read.

Plan Your Delivery

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough” –Albert Einstein

Presentation skills training also focus on the three main ways to deliver a talk. You can read it directly off a script or your slide. You can memorize your talk, which entails rehearsing it to the point where you internalize every word—verbatim. Make sure that you don’t refer to your slide too often. The slides just offer a visual aspect for the audience, just something to glance at. Their main focus is on you and what you are saying. Nobody has the time or the will to read slides. Use graphs or representations instead of writing. Keep eye contact with the audience; do not fixate on your slides. You lose eye contact you lose their interest.

Develop Stage Presence

 Presentation skills training helps inexperienced speakers overcome the stage fright when it comes to giving a presentation. Getting your substance right can reveal the success or failure than your body language as such. Once you feel confident about your content and believe in it, your body language will automatically relax. Concentrate on your voice, listen to what you say, and when it comes to stage presence, a little coaching can go a long way. A confident voice lasts in the memory more than a confident poise.

Plan the Multimedia

The main advice about PowerPoint: Keep it simple; don’t use a slide deck as a substitute for notes (by listing the bullet points you’ll discuss—those are best put on note cards); and don’t repeat out loud words that are on the slide. Information is interesting only once, and hearing and seeing the same words is just repetitive and frankly boring! That advice may seem universal by now, but go into any company and you’ll see presenters violating it every day. Pictures and graphs are your friends; let them communicate the something extra in your slides.

Putting It Together

Think about what you will say and what you will show. There must be some congruence between the two. Be unique by adding references for people, either a famous quote or a witty line. Time your presentations, do not talk for more than 2 to 3 minutes on one topic, and keep your voice loud and clear. Breathe and know when to pause because speeding trains are just noisy.

Presentation skills training highlights that there is no one good way to do a presentation. The most memorable talks offer something fresh that keeps the audience on their toes. The worst ones are those that feel formulaic. You know what defines you and your idea. Play to your strengths and give a presentation that is leaves your personality on the table. Present the way you would want to see and listen to one.