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Practice, Practice, Practice!

We can’t emphasise this enough: To help your presentation run smoothly and to avoid any mishaps or freezing up on stage it is important to practice your speech beforehand as many times as possible. You may find it helpful to do this in front of a mirror or to film yourself so as to get a better idea of what the audience sees. Better still – find a willing audience – your wife, husband, kids, colleagues – anyone who’ll lend a critical ear. It’s easy to get so caught up in a presentation that you can’t see the wood for the trees.

As a guide to how much is enough – you should have practiced your speech enough times that you know it completely. If you find that you have to be constantly buried in your notes and have to read straight off of them then you’re not ready. Not only will being prepared help you keep track and get through your presentation more easily it will help you  engage with the audience and help them to follow what you are saying in your presentation.

This is especially important if, at the end of your presentation, you want to ask the audience for any questions as there is nothing worse than being stumped by a question that, if you had practiced your presentation, you would have been able to answer.

In short – to give a presentation you need confidence in your knowledge and abilities on the subject at hand, and this will only come from practice.

Address the Audience

Don’t just dive straight in! When first addressing the audience introduce yourself, give them your name and any relevant information about yourself that could reflect well on your presentation and help you to establish your authority on the matter. Although also bear in mind not to make this too long and make sure that it is only relevant information about yourself you are giving, one sentence should be enough.

Similar resources you may like

1. Preparing Your Presentation
2. What to Wear
3. Helping the Audience to Follow
4. If Something Should Go Wrong
5. Conclusion

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good presentations, learning, opening presentations, Presentation, Presentation Skills, presentation training, public speaking, speech, training

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This entry was posted by Faye Binfield on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Presentation Skills Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.