Effective Presentation Skills

ByAllah Dad Khan

Confidence is the Key

1. Before anything, develop a certain degree of confidence about your own abilities. Don’t go out there with the feeling that everyone is your enemy and is just waiting to rip you apart.

2. You can also build a certain degree of confidence by being well prepared for the presentation. Don’t leave any facet out, and make it a point to have a script that is tightly edited. Even if you don’t make all the information at your disposal, a part of the presentation, make sure that you have an in-depth understanding of the topic.

Be Engaging and Do Not Lecture

1. Develop an interesting presentation. This is a significant aspect of developing presentation skills. Learn to interact with your audience while giving a presentation. Don’t just stand and dump your data on them.

2. Be compelling enough, so that the people hear your presentation, without giving you a bored look or without showing disinterest in the presentation. It’s important to understand that, you don’t know more than the audience, and even if you think you do, you are giving the presentation for their benefit and not yours.

Knowing Your Audience

1. Make it a point to know your audience. Meaning, you must know the

basic characteristics of the audience. You must also know the number of senior people that would be a part of the audience, or what would be the initial attitude of the people vis-à-vis the topic.

2. If the people in front of you are intelligent and well-informed, you must be prepared accordingly and try to mold your presentation skills accordingly. Each presentation is different, and needs a few common skill sets in conjunction with skill sets that have been developed for a particular audience.

Keep it Short and Simple

1. Don’t go in for a lengthy presentation. A simple and short presentation does not mean a presentation that falls short of expectations or does not provide important information.

2. If you try and integrate simplicity, you will develop an orderliness, and will also know what to select and in what amount. You will also become better organized, and not meander away from the topic

Anticipation

1. You can develop presentation skills by learning to anticipate any eventuality, especially with respect to the questions asked. If you do not learn to expect the unexpected, you might just lose your credibility in the process.

2. Always identify the questions or problems that your might face, and form an adequate response for the same.

How Presentation Skills Influence Your Audience?

Presentation Skills

Presentation skills are highly essential to communicate your message to your listener. These skills refer to the way you express your thoughts. To gain the attraction of your listeners, the way your present should be pleasing and convincing. You many have a well-written material in your hands but the usefulness of the information can be understood only if you deliver it well. Many people fail to communicate well because of the lack of presentation skills.

Presentation Skills

1. The basic aspect of good presentation is talking in a clear voice. 2. A person is said to have good presentation skills if his voice is audible

and sounds confident. 3. The verbal communication is an essential part of good presentation. 4. The non verbal communication is also equally important. 5. This type of communication refers to the gestures and the body

language used by the speaker. 6. Your body language actually shows your attitude. When you tremble and

if you are afraid to speak in the public, it will be evident from your trembling legs and sweating palms.

7. Essential presentation skills also include the way you walk and behave. Your dressing should also be appropriate depending on the occasion you speak. Wearing unmatched clothing is referred to as bad appearance.

• The presentation skills do not end with your appearance and your behavior on stage. The visual aids you chose to use add beauty and professionalism to your presentation. Choosing the right type of visual aids that are suitable for the speech as well as the audience is also dependent on the speaker’s presentation skills. PowerPoint is the common visual aid that is used in most of the presentations. You can even use videos and photos when they match the topic you are actually presenting. Practice makes a presentation perfect. Before making the presentation, it is better to rehearse with all the visual aids. This will add on to your presentation skill and you can make corrections if there are any errors in them.

Presentation Skills

When the audience leaves the hall after listening to your presentation, they must remember the key points, which you focused. You have to show all your presentation skills so that your audience will not forget the key points. There are many speakers who speak well and present well but finally the audience will not remember what they had spoken. This means that the speaker lacks the presentation skill or he has overlooked the concept of preparation

Presentation Skills

Though preparation and practice can boost your presentation skills, your performance on the stage will determine your success. You must be optimistic but you must be able to handle situations that go out of your hands. When you use visual aids for enhancing your presentation, you must be ready to handle the last minute worries on stage. Your software may not work or the equipment on the stage may be faulty. In any circumstance, you should not lose your confidence. Even under stressful conditions like the above examples, if you have presentation skills, you can

shine as a great speaker and be adored by your listeners.

How to develop effective

presentation skills

Basic principles of presentation skills

• Plan your presentation well• If you are giving a business presentation in front of a large audience, it

makes good sense to plan your topic well before hand. • Make sure you have a nice beginning to the discussion. Think how you will

approach the subject and decide the central theme of your discussion. • Apart from that, you need to have a good conclusion to the topic at the

end.

Interact with your audience

It is important for you to understand the kind of audience that you are addressing in the first place. You need to attract the attention of the audience at all times to keep them interested throughout the entire discussion. If the discussion is on a serious issue, you could narrate some personal incidents or share experiences by involving the audience.

Use powerful visual aids

Visual aids are one of the most important elements of any presentation. They should be well designed to achieve a perfect balance of visual appeal. PowerPoint slides, transparencies, white board, handouts are some of the visual aids that can be used while giving presentations to make it more interesting.

Make proper use of body language

Body language conveys a lot of meaning to the audience. You need to maintain a good eye contact with proper gestures and hand movements while speaking to the audience. A positive body language helps you to connect with the audience almost instantly. At the same time, you need to maintain a good posture while you are delivering a presentation. The proper use of the right facial expressions including hand and body movements matter a lot during a presentation.

Advantages of Presentation Skills Training Programs

1. They help overcome the initial fear of facing people confidently and allow them to perform to their potential

2. Improves body language and eye contact with people and teaches the use of right postures to captivate the listeners

3. Makes them realize and understand the audience better with control that enables to reach out to the audience better.

4. Listeners are made to participate more in the discussion and thereby increase the interaction and success rate exponentially

5. Enables use of modern communication tools like slides, power point presentation and visual aids which have more lasting impression on the viewers than mere talk. Studies have clearly pointed out the merits of using visual aids in addition to general talk.

6. Bargaining and persuasive skills will be improved leaps and bounds that help in getting out of tricky situations well.

7. Increases Ability to face people either in person or in groups well and mentally prepares in advance to face the volley of questions posed by the group

8. Enhances the personal touch and the actual posturing at first sight makes the audience feel awe and enthralls them to listen to the presentation in rapt attention.