Good Presentation skills are within everyone's reach. For many people presentation is an unpleasant experience. Hence it doesn't have to be a bad experience if you utilize the following skills.  The following is a summary of presentation skills hints and tips for everyone.

Planning

The key part of planning is to research your presentation audience, because the more you know your audience, the more you can understand them and what their presumptions might be.

You also need to get to a clear the purpose of the presentation so that you are very clear about what you are trying to achieve from it.

Then you can brainstorm what you're actually going to say and then structure this into readable format.

Visuals

Once you've done your planning, you need to consider what visual aids you're going to be using e.g. PowerPoint slides or Posters.

Think about what you want to do here- why you actually need the visual aids in your presentation and what are they going to be used for.  Visual aids are used to give a big picture quickly. You can use visuals to show graphics, pictures, cartoons bar charts etc; but you must use words to elaborate. Slides with words on are of limited value. If you seem to have a lot you may find you are showing your audience your speaker notes!

Practice

Practice on a colleague or friend. Think about who your audience is and what you want them to get out of the presentation. Think about content and style. If you video yourself get someone else to evaluate your performance; you will find it very difficult to be objective about yourself. Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse.

Go into the presentation room before the event; practice 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.

Overcoming presentation nerves

There are lots of things you can do to control your nerves and build your confidence even before you actually start your presentation as well as while you're speaking and delivering it. When you are nervous you probably also speed up your speech.  So controlling the speed that you speak at is a good way to help control your nerves. There are also some key psychological techniques that you can apply to help you to kick out those negative thoughts that can creep into your mind and reduce your confidence.

Try not to over prepare. Don't rehearse everything right through too often. Your time is better spent going over your opening and closing paragraphs. Rehearse your beginning 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 and Projector often seem as though they're out to get you, so make sure you're in charge not them.

Answering questions competently

Finally after presentation it's important that you have the confidence to interact with your audience and deal with any questions that your audience might throw at you.  Often we go into panic mode when we hear the question rather than staying calm and taking time to listen to the question to make sure that we fully understand it

It's good to write down some of the most difficult questions you may be asked. Then take the time to decide how best to answer these.  Write down your answers. Then practice answering them out aloud.  If you're unhappy about your response, rework it. For more tips on dealing with audience questions, click here.

 Sources:

http://www.presentation-skills.org/

http://www.presentation-skills.biz/

 

Page Updated: 12 March 2012

by Zanele Matshotyana