Business Presentation Skills Hints and Tips

Presentation Skills Hints and Tips

Good presentation skills are within everyone's reach.

For many people, if not most, presenting can be a daunting and unpleasant experience.

It needn't be so, and here we'll give you some simple tips to help you hone more effective presentation skills.

Presentations are an effective way to communicate to large numbers of people at the same time.

Improving presentation skills is not just about communicating information better.

You also need to be able to create interest and excitement in your subject and trust and enthusiasm in you.

Let's Have a Look at Some Presentation Skills Essentials

Preparing to Present

Practise with a colleague or friend.

Think about who your audience is and what you want them to get out of a good presentation.

Think about content and style. If you video yourself get someone else to evaluate your performance and highlight your best skills; you will find it very difficult to be objective about those skills yourself.

Prepare, prepare, prepare.

Reconnoitre

Go into the presentation room before the event; practise any moves you may have to make, e.g. getting up from your chair to the podium. Errors in the first 20 seconds can be very disorientating.

Rehearsal

Try not to over-rehearse Trust those skills you know you have. Don't rehearse the whole thing right through too often.

Your time is better spent going over your opening and your finish.

Pick a few choice bits to learn by heart.

Technical Support

Test the equipment before the presentation. Get familiar with it before you start. PowerPoint can often seem as though it's out to get you, so make sure you have enough technical skills or backup

If you look like you're in charge, people will take you more seriously.

Visual Presentation Aids

The skill with visual aids is to use them to give a big picture quickly. Graphics, pictures, cartoons bar charts etc; you can then use words to elaborate.

Slides with words on them are of limited value. If you seem to have a lot you may find you are showing your audience your speaker notes!

Developing a Presentation Style

Be Yourself

Your most useful presentation skills are the skills you already have. Use any personal gestures or vocal inflexions to your advantage.

It's very hard to change the way you express yourself. More powerful presentations are ones where you actually put the energy into the presentation (this is a message you will hear again).

Similarly, do not try to be anyone else or copy another presenter's style.

Wave

Be more expressive rather than less. These days 'good communicators' are more and more frequently seen on TV and held up as models.

When you are giving a presentation it is not TV. This is you communicating live. Gestures help people to understand and they convey enthusiasm for your topic.

Dealing with Presentation Nerves

Be Nervous

A certain amount of nervousness is vital for a good presentation. You need the extra energy to communicate: What you feel when you stand up in front of people is the urge to either run away or fight.

If you endeavour to stifle those feelings you will be inhibited, restricted, artificial and wooden. The added adrenaline will keep your faculties sharp and your presentation skills ready to engage with your audience.

Breathe

Extra adrenaline, however, can result in shallow upper chest breathing and tension. Taking a slow, deep breath, breathing fully out and then in again, will relax you.

Strangely having something to pick up and put down tends to release your breathing.

Get Something Else to Do

It may seem an odd idea, but our bodies seem to feel better when they have some sort of displacement activity to occupy them. It's the reason people hold pens and fiddle with things.

A limited amount of this sort of activity will not be too obtrusive and can make you feel a whole lot more secure.

Hold on to Something

When you start your presentation you are at your most insecure. Avoid all the well-meant advice about what you are and are not allowed to do.

Until you feel settled do anything you can find to make yourself feel secure. This includes holding on to a lectern.

Even just standing next to something solid will make you feel less wobbly.

Go Slow

The breathing tip above will help you to slow down your presentation. Go more slowly than you think necessary to avoid gabbling.

Your audience needs time to assimilate and interpret what you are saying. It's a fact that when adrenaline is flowing your sense of time is distorted and what seems OK to you may look like fast forward to your audience.

Working your Audience

Presentation as Conversation

Make your presentation a conversation with your audience. They may not actually say anything, but make them feel consulted, questioned, challenged, and argued with; then they will stay awake and attentive.

One of your best presentation skills is the ability to stimulate your audience into wanting to get more of the information you have. Be provocative with your material, don't just present that information to them.

Interact

Engage with the audience in front of you, not the one you have prepared for. Look for reactions to your ideas and respond to their signals.

If the light bulbs are not going on find another way to say it. Monitor their reactions; it's the only way you'll know how you're doing and what you should do next.

If you're not going to interact you might as well send a recording of your presentation. Be there. It's why you came.

Show conviction

Give an expressive presentation, an emotive presentation, an enthusiastic presentation and your audience will respond, which is what you want. At the very bottom line, disagreement is preferable to being ignored.

Use your excitement, pace yourself to give an exciting presentation, use something you know you feel strongly about to build up to an important point or as a springboard to another idea.

Get some perspective

The odds are that someone in the audience will not like your presentation, or may disagree with you. There will probably be someone else out there for whom you can do no wrong.

As a rule of thumb, the majority of most audiences want to like you and what you have to say.

They want you to be good

They didn't come hoping to be bored or irritated by your presentation.

Structuring Effective Presentations

Use Metaphors

Metaphors and analogies are vital presentation skills to develop. 'It's like climbing a greasy pole', for example, conveys far more than just literal meaning.

It creates images and feelings and enables others to empathise through similar experiences of their own. And remember the light bulbs - if they're not lighting up try a different metaphor.

Examples

Compelling presentations are full of examples. Giving an example always helps your listeners to see more clearly what you mean. It's quicker and more colourful.

The Point

Stick to the point using three or four basic ideas. For any detail that you cannot present in 20 minutes, try another medium such as handouts or brochures.

Your Presentation Finale

End as if your presentation has gone well. Do this even if you feel like you've presented badly.

First, you're probably the worst judge of your presentation, and second, if you finish well you'll certainly fool some of the people into thinking it was all pretty good.

And anyway a good finish to a presentation will get you some applause - and you deserve it!

Developing as a Presenter

Trust Yourself and Your Skills

If you do not think you are up to a particular presentation either get help (do presentation training courses and rehearsals with a presentation trainer).

Or if it's too daunting, get someone else to do it (there's no shame in recognising your limits).

However, most people have better presentation skills than they think they do. Recognise what skills you have.

If you doubt your ability to think on your feet, for example, then defer questions till after the presentation. Similarly, do not use a joke as an icebreaker if you are not good at telling them.

Success is the Best Presentation Training

Don't overreach yourself. Several short presentations that you feel went well will do you far more good than one big one that makes you sick with nerves and leaves you feeling inadequate.

Feedback

Encourage those around you to tell you the things you did well. Very few of us make progress by being told what was wrong with our presentation. When we're up in front of an audience we all have very fragile egos.

Follow these essential tips and your presentation skills development will blossom.

Check out New Survey Reveals 70% Say Presentation Skills Are Critical For Career Success