Presentation skills ..

Society Business and Career
1

Its hard enough to prepare a flawless and concise presentation , but confidently presenting it to an audience can be extremely daunting for some.

How do you overcome that fear and confidently carry yourself to do the presentations? What are some of the tips that can help make clear and strong presentations?

2

Re: Presentation skills ..

some of the tips to overcome the stage fright / fear

  • rehearse a few times beforehand
  • have your notes/cues ready
  • do mock presentations to someone you are comfortable with
  • ask them to play devils advocate and cross question you

Content wise to make your presentations effective some of the things I do..

-wherever possible use graphics/images/animations/transitions to brighten up the presentation
-avoid too much content on the slides - just highlights/salient points
-usual things like carrying out spell checks, avoid inconsistency in Fonts/color schemes etc

3

Re: Presentation skills ..

I have given more than a few presentations with audience asking questions at the end of it (which was the part I hated the most). For starters, I never look into the eyes of the audience ...I look at the wall behind them which makes them feel like I am looking at them and all of them. I try to swing my hand from side to side to engage all the people sitting across the room. Second, I always take a sip of water before presentation because I know my sympathetics are kicked in and my mouth will be dry as hell. Finally, I try to think whats the worst that could happen? I might forget the word? So what? Its not like I am going to die? Whenever I get stuck, I take a look back at the paper or just carry on in my own words until I get back on track.

The more presentation you give, the better you will become.

4

Re: Presentation skills ..

oh dear , infact I enjoy the last part where the questions are asked and I find it so much more easier to respond to them . But get jitters doing the presentation itself ! I guess its more coz I am the only one speaking and its usually hard to gauge the expression of the audience during the presentation itself ..

5

Re: Presentation skills ..

be positive and confident about what you are presenting

you must be well aware of all the points and must know the details

a positive approach will be the best strategy

6

Re: Presentation skills ..

Yeah , one of the best strategies is to always know your presentation by heart as well , so you can deal with questions in a better way , sometimes it can get really confusing if you cant find certain info quickly enough in a presentation during its run time ..

7

I have a story to tell and my slides add to the experience of the story and are not the story. I don't use aur cards or promoters or notes pages, I have then there to refer to for detailed questions.
I walk, am interactive, mix humour and try to connect with audience, whether it's an industry talk at a conference or project presentation to my team.

Know your stuff, minimize words on slides, simplify, ... The builds and transitions have to be clean and elegant. Same for graphics, sounds etc. Use embedded videos in a smart manner.

8

Re: Presentation skills ..

Pisiform, could you please make eye contact so I can ask you a question?

Why are you looking at the wall behind me?