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The Secret Of Successful Presentations

21 July 2013

What is a presentation? Is it a formal briefing to colleagues, or is it a sales pitch? tipDoe it have to use PowerPoint to qualify as a ‘proper’ presentation?

I ask these questions because if we fail to spot that we are about to deliver a presentation then we won’t be properly prepared. A presentation is any piece of work where we have to deliver a message with precision.

Job interviews, progress reports and customer review meetings are all forms or presentation. We may not have a projector with us to beam our words into space, but presentation skills apply here as much as they do elsewhere.

Of course it goes without saying that practice is vital. Whatever we are about to talk about we need to find 5 minutes to rehearse our words in a quiet space. Simply rolling in to our meeting and winging it is the best way to make a fool of ourselves.

So, as we want to be brilliant in the moment and get our message across, here are my five favourite tips for successful presentations:

1) Start at the end. Instead of putting your best facts and clinching argument at the end, put them at the start to grab interest and make sure your audience is listening.

2) Add numbers. Numbers make the case for us and are easy to remember. A long presentation with only words in it is quickly forgotten.

3) Feet face front. Out hips follow our feet and so we need to make sure our feet face the aaudience. That way our hips are in the right direction that means our torso, head and eyes are all facing the audience. If weglove feet our body twists to follo.

4) pause. If we want to establish our authority and demonstrate confidemce then taking a pause is a great way to do so. Practice pausing by taking a tiny sip I’d water or by taking a moment to check our notes.

5) less is more. Avoid come animation, multi fonts and crazy colours. Use 5 succinct slides instead of a lazy 10. And of course make sure you finish just ahead of the alloted time, instead of drivellong on and boring people.

Presentation skills are learned skills. We can all decide how good we want to be at delivering them.

Have fun practicing!

Next week: Simple coaching tip