Being awesome at public speaking can be one of the most fear-inducing parts of modern life. However, it also can be one of the most rewarding tasks you can do. Talking in front of an audience is nothing to fear, so long as you are prepared. This article will discuss effective presentation skills. It includes everything you need to plan, prepare, and deliver an awesome presentation.
Related post: 8 Presenter Mistakes That Are Rarely Made Twice
Develop your big idea
This is your central argument and the main reason you are presenting. Every presentation should have only one main idea to keep focused. A great big idea is one that can be stated in simple terms as the purpose of your presentation. Do not create any presentation without a singular big idea as you can risk overloading your audience with information.
Start with your end objective
Before you even open up PowerPoint, sit down and think about the day of your presentation. What is the real purpose of your talk? Why is it that you were asked to speak? What does the audience expect? In your opinion, what are the most important parts of your topic for the audience to take away from your, say, 50-minute presentation?
Know what counts: Tips for Public Speaking: How You Can Become Awesome at Presentations
Remember, even if you’ve been asked to share information, rarely is the mere transfer of information a satisfactory objective from the audience. After all, the audience could always just read your book (or article, handout, etc.) if information transfer were the only purpose of the meeting, seminar, or formal presentation.
Jot down what you know about the audience
Before you begin to formulate the content of your presentation, you need to ask yourself many basic questions with an eye to becoming the best possible presenter for that particular audience. At the very least, you need to answer the basic “W questions.”
Who is the audience?
What are their backgrounds? How much background information about your topic can you assume they bring to the presentation?
Is it to inspire? Are they looking for concrete practical information? Do they want more concepts and theory rather than advice?
Why were you asked to speak?
What are their expectations of you?
Where is it?
Find out everything you can about the location and logistics of the venue.
When is it?
Do you have enough time to prepare? What time of the day? If there are other presenters, what is the order (always volunteer to go first or last, by the way)? What day of the week? All of this matters.
Lots of questions. Do you have lots of answers?
Build your call to action
Every presentation should have a call to action to influence the audience even after the presentation is over. Without a call to action, you risk the purpose of your big idea being lost to your audience and they will not know what you would like them to do next.
Develop your opener … effective presentation skills
We recommend developing your opener last, as you need the context of the presentation first before you can know how to begin. The opener of a presentation should intrigue the audience members to listen. There are many different ways to open your presentation such as through a story, joke, quote, video, or statistic.
We recommend starting off with a small pause then telling either a story or shocking statistic based on audience member and context of the meeting.
Build your main points
As people tend to have short attention spans, breaking up your key points into three main points is the best way to support your call to action and a big idea. These main points should be memorable and delivered in a Twitter-like format.
By simplifying main points, it is easier to 1) recap your presentation on what key takeaways your audience should remember and 2) help create supporting content around each main point.
Effective presentation skills … content is all there is
Effective presentation skills.
No matter how great your delivery, or how professional and beautiful your supporting visuals, if your presentation is not based on solid content, you can not succeed.
Don’t get me wrong; I am not saying that great content alone will carry the day. It almost never does. Great content is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. But your presentation preparation starts with solid content which you then build into a winning story that you’ll use to connect with your audience.
Do not fall into the trap of thinking that for your audience to understand anything, you must tell them everything.
Factors to consider when preparing a presentation, simplicity is essential
Simple does not mean stupid.Frankly, thinking that the notion of simplifying is stupid is just plain, well, “stupid.” Simple can be hard for the presenter, but the audience will appreciate it.
Simplicity takes more forethought and planning on your part because you have to think very hard about what to include and what can be left out. What is the essence of your message?
Effective-presentation-skills … build your outline
I suggest you start your planning in “analog mode.” That is, rather than diving right into PowerPoint; the best presenters often scratch out their ideas and objectives with a pen and paper.
Personally, I use a large whiteboard in my office to sketch out my ideas (when I was at Apple, I had one entire wall turned into a whiteboard!). The whiteboard works for me as I feel uninhibited and freer to be creative. I can also step back (literally) from what I have sketched out and imagine how it might flow logically when
The analog approach (paper or whiteboard) to sketch out my ideas and create a rough storyboard helps solidify and simplify my message in my head. I then have a far easier time laying out those ideas in PowerPoint.
Review your structure
Take a page out-out the McKinsey presentation handbook: presentation structure is paramount. Without it, your wonderful style, delivery, and great supporting visuals will fall flat. If you took the time to the first step to outline your ideas and set them up in a logical fashion, then your thinking should be very clear.
Your audience needs to see where you are going. And it is not enough to simply have an “agenda” or “road map” slide in the beginning that illustrates the organization of your talk. If you do not have a solid road of logic and structure, then an outline slide will be of no use.
What is your elevator speech?
Check the clarity of your message with the elevator speech test. This exercise forces you to “sell” your message in 30-45 seconds. Imagine this is the situation:
Could you sell your idea in an elevator ride and a walk to the parking lot?
Make your presentation interactive
“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” (James Thurber)
Avoid simply lecturing to your audience. Engage your audience in an active discussion.
Here are some ideas to stimulate your thinking.
Listen attentively before responding to questions.
Encourage interactions between audience members.
Present an accommodation challenge and ask audience members how they would address the issue.
Respectfully reflect back to people what you observe to be their attitudes, rationalizations, and habitual ways of thinking and acting.
Allow plenty of time for questions. Address all questions within your presentation or direct participants to appropriate resources.
Demonstrate or provide hands-on experiences with assistive technology.
Give useful or entertaining prizes for responses from the audience or have a drawing for a larger prize at the end of the presentation.
If your audience is small, ask members to identify themselves and their
experiences and interests related to the topic.
Involve the audience in a learning activity. People remember more of what you teach them if they can learn it via an activity.
Ask audience members how they have used specific accommodations or worked with students with specific disabilities. Ask questions like, “Has anyone done this? How did it work for you?”
Stimulate group interaction and problem-solving.
Conclude with a strong ending
The most important and remembered words you speak are the last ones.
Summarize key points.
Consider concluding with examples that show the importance of providing educational opportunities for students with disabilities. One idea is to have an alumnus with a disability discuss how he or she navigated your campus, worked with the disability services office, received the accommodations he or she needed, graduated with a degree and went on to succeed in employment.
Empower your audience to use the information you presented to improve access for and education of all students with disabilities.
Manage your anxiety
There are two types of speakers. Those who get nervous and those who are liars.
-Mark Twain
Nervousness before a talk or workshop is healthy. It shows that your presentation is important to you and that you care about doing well. The best performers are nervous before stepping on stage. Below are suggestions for assuring that anxiety does not have a negative impact on your presentation.
Use nervousness to your advantage—channel it into dynamic energy about the topic.
Remind yourself that you and the audience have the same goal, and, therefore, they want you to succeed as much as you do.
Speak about what you know. Keeping your presentation within the realm of your knowledge and experience will build confidence and minimize nervousness.
Focus on delivering your message, not on how you feel.
Be relaxed, poised, and at ease on the outside, regardless of how you feel internally. Acting relaxed can help make you relaxed.
Keep presenting! Your anxieties decrease the more presentations you give.
Work on building confidence
The more you are on top of your material the less nervous you will be. If you have taken the time to build the logical flow of your presentation, and designed supporting materials that are professional and appropriate, there is much less to be nervous about. And, if you have then actually rehearsed with an actual computer and projector several times, your nervousness will all but melt away.
We fear what we do not know. If we know our material well and have rehearsed the flow, know what slide is next on the deck, and have anticipated questions, then we have eliminated much (but not all) of the unknown.
When you remove the unknown and reduce anxiety and nervousness, then confidence is something that will naturally take the place of your anxiety.
The bottom line
To give effective presentations where participants gain valuable information in a dynamic way, make sure to:
prepare well in advance
incorporate universal design principles
facilitate interaction, sharing of experiences, and creative problem?solving within the session
promote a welcoming and non?judgmental learning environment
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More reading on learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
9 Things to Know About Creative Visual Design Content
8 Presenter Mistakes That Are Rarely Made Twice
Know These Great Secrets of Collaboration and Co-Creation
How Good Is Your Learning from Failure?
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
