Deciding what format your presentation will take will largely depend on what you feel your audience will most warm to. Again, consider the message you are trying to convey when you think about format. A more technical approach has its advantages if you are delivering to technically minded people, but don’t feel pressured into using equipment that you don’t understand. Often the simplest presentations can be the most effective. If you have a lot of technical information that is very dry, consider providing this in a handout that you can leave with the audience to read if they are interested. Don’t let it make your presentation boring, or interfere with your message.

Visual aids can be useful – studies have shown that the human brain is able to learn faster when aided with a visual stimulus. But don’t over-do it. We’ve all seen presentations that have been ruined through “death by PowerPoint” – people can become obsessed with fancy graphics and slide transitions. If you have put together a pretty PowerPoint show, you haven’t necessarily got a good presentation.

Structure:

The structure of your presentation will also depend on your message and your audience – however an age old adage is:

“Tell them what you are going to tell them – tell them – then tell them what you have told them”

A clear introduction which summarises the content of your presentation will let your audience know what to expect – they’re less likely to get bored if they know what’s coming. Make sure your key message is included in your introduction.

Then cover the main bulk of your presentation, which will include the information which supports your message.

Finally, provide a clear summary at the end – recap on what you have covered, and re-iterate how it supports your message.

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Once you have planned your presentation, collected all the data that supports your message, and organised it in to digestible chunks, the next step is to actually bring this material together and write your presentation.

The notes you write for yourself can be more detailed than the material you provide your audience, but try to avoid giving yourself a word-perfect script and forcing yourself to follow it, as this will come across as forced and unnatural. The presentation you eventually deliver will be honed by repeated practice and adjustment.

Once you’ve ordered the material sensibly and written the content, re-read it and make sure the transitions between sections are logical, as these are often when you presentation can become bogged down or confused.

Tip: Write content on cards or post-it notes that you can re-order and experiment with.

After you are satisfied with the order and structure the only thing that remains is to practice it until you feel ready and confident enough to give the presentation. Remember that not all presentations have to be complicated and that it is the flow and organisation which counts.

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Building a PowerPoint Presentation:

PowerPoint presentations can be one of the best ways to get your message across to your audience – however don’t concentrate too much on trying to be clever with special effects.

One of the first things your must do in order to start any presentation (whether you use PowerPoint or not) is to collect the data you need to support your message and divide it in to easily digestible chunks – if you’re using a PowerPoint Presentation these chunks can make up the sections of your presentation.

PowerPoint presentations can also help you to plan a good structure:

Early in your presentation you should a slide giving a general overview of the content you will be covering (use bullet points). After this should be your chunked data  in a logical order – related information should be kept together to help it flow well and not confuse your audience. To conclude your powerpoint presentation you should show a summary slide, reviewing all your points and showing the concluding statement of your presentation.

General rules to follow when setting out your PowerPoint presentation:

Avoid garish colours or over-complicated backgrounds. You’re not going to win any design awards for a PowerPoint presentation and your slides should be easy to read. Use a simple colour scheme that will make your text and images easy to see – there’s a lot to be said for black and white!

Don’t put too much information on each slide. 3-6 bullet points should be your maximum for each slide. The slides should support what you are saying, rather than relying on your audience reading everything for themselves. Use charts and pictures to help you only if they help to make a point – don’t include them just because you can. The same can be said of audio and video content – any video longer than 5 minutes will start to bore your audience.

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Posted by Faye Binfield in Presentation Skills Training on March 5th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

OK – so you’ve planned your presentation, decided on the format, collected data, written the content and maybe put together a PowerPoint Presentation. What’s next?

One of the most common areas people fall down on is preparation and practice! It is vital that you know your presentation inside and out before you give it. If not then you are going to find it very hard to be convincing especially if members of your audience ask you a question you can’t answer afterwards. If you can, make sure that you run through your presentation in front of an audience and ask for feedback – it can make a world of difference. If you don’t have any willing guinea pigs, try recording yourself on camera as this will help to re-create the pressure of a live audience. Remember – you won’t be able to stop and go back because you messed up on the day!

On the day – arrive early, and make sure that your presentation is set up correctly before you start, as the audience will not be impressed if they have to wait too long for you to set up your equipment.

Presentation Inspiration:

Inspiration for a presentation is not always an easy thing to achieve. Many people have a spot or quiet place were they sit and think until inspiration comes to them. However some like a more pro-active approach and prefer to bounce ideas off others and actively seek inspiration. You will learn what works best for you. Watch others presenting for inspiration, however the trick is not to try to carbon-copy other people but to develop a style that suits you – be yourself, not a caricature of someone else.

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A presentation can be used for an almost limitless range of purposes – business, sales, academic, entertainment…

There’s no room to cover all of the different types of presentations here, however here are some tips on a couple of the main types:

Internal Business Presentations

Business presentations are often summaries of recent business activity, or of a business plan moving forward. Either way, they tend to be delivered to colleagues or peers (rather than to external clients like sales presentations) and often include stats or reports

Tips:

• Don’t under prepare just because you’re delivering to people you know – you’ll be wasting a lot of man-hours if you don’t have the information you need to hand.
• Use stats where they are needed to support a point, don’t just reel off a lot of graphs of the last quarter’s figures just because you’ve got them on your PC!

Sales Presentations

When you’re trying to sell to one of your clients it’s important to remember that you are representing your organisation. The client’s opinion of the whole company will be based on you as an individual. It’s therefore much more important to build rapport and trust than when presenting to your colleagues. You also need to think as much about the messages about your organisation that you are trying to put across as the facts.

Tips:

• Have a clear message about your company and your USP’s (Unique Selling Points). Make sure that these are emphasised througout your presentation
• Build rapport with the audience – make eye contact, engage them with questions and build trust. Remember people buy from people.
• Make sure your presentation stands out from the competition’s – you’ll often be one of many presentations they’re seeing that day. Think about what your competitors might be doing and make sure you do something different.

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When it comes to the day to present, don’t forget about the practicalities. There’s nothing worse than preparing a brilliant presentation, only to have it ruined by simple problems you could have forseen.

For instance, consider:

• Where exactly is the training taking place?
• Where is the nearest parking or train station?
  
• Where will you stand?
  
• Do they have the correct equipment or will you have to bring your own?
• What length of presentation is the audience expecting?
• Will you be able to have access to the room before people arrive?
• Will my laptop be compatible with the projector?
  
• Could I still give the presentation if the projector failed?
  

It’s best to assume that if it can go wrong it will go wrong, and to prepare accordingly!

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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.

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Body Language

Statistics have shown that people will be more predisposed to an idea if it is accompanied by positive body language. Negative body language will often mean that you get negative results. Being too aggressive can also work against you, too much energetic movement will become baffling and irritating to an audience. However a little positive body language in your presentation will go a long way, generally it is best to abide by the rule that if it feels unnatural don’t do it.

Tone

Tone plays a huge role in how we communicate to others. Tone is as, or even more important, than your word choice when it comes to how an audience will interpret your presentation. An inappropriate tone can lead to confusion and can undermine an audience’s understanding . You must differentiate from how you would speak casually and how you speak in your presentation. Choose your words carefully but choose how you say them even more so.

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