Presentation? Are you scared???

Ever been asked to make a presentation? Were your palms wet? Did your knees tremble? Did your stomach start doing somersaults?

Is this how the prospect of making an important presentation affects you? Well, join the club because, for most people, their biggest fear is public speaking or presenting.

If you are shortly going to make an all important presentation and are gripped by FEAR at the very thought of it, reach out and grasp these 7 lifelines to help you overcome your terror and make it a huge success.

Lifeline no. 1
Know your audience! Who are they, why are they listening to you, what do they already know, what do they want from you?

Finding out about your audience means that you can tailor your message to their needs and in a way that appeals to them.

Lifeline no. 2
What is the purpose of your presentation? What outcome do you want? Is it to sell, persuade, influence, inform, educate or inspire?

Create clarity about the reason for the presentation and work back from that. Once you know exactly what result you want you can begin to structure the content so that your goal is achieved.

Lifeline no. 3
Write your script. Just write down anything and everything that is important and relevant to the message you want to get across. Empty your mind on paper.

Now edit your script, highlight key words and phrases, select the right order for the points you want to make. Remember that you have written your script but you will deliver it verbally. Re-write your message so that it comes across well when spoken.

Lifeline no. 4
Create a good structure with a beginning, middle and end that flow logically and easily. Open with impact, grab their attention and build rapport. Ask a thought provoking question, make a bold statement, stir their interest.

Signpost each point towards the next so that you take your audience on a journey. Support each main point with sub points that are easy to follow.

At the end, summarise your key message, wind it down naturally, end on a note of importance that the audience will remember and thank them for their attention.

Lifeline no. 5
Perfect your delivery. Use tone of voice to maintain interest, and bring life into your message. Use short silences to add intrigue and arouse curiosity. Avoid monotone and use your voice harmoniously.

Build rapport and maintain eye contact with your audience, working slowly and subtly around the room, looking at small groups of 3 or 4 people at a time. Be careful of your body language and gestures, avoid fidgeting and pacing. It’s okay to move but don’t become a pacing tiger or a windmill!

Lifeline no. 6
Being nervous before a presentation is perfectly normal. Nerves help you to perform well and get adrenaline running around your body. Overcome excessive nervousness by taking deep breaths.

Stand tall and be proud of who you are and what you are about to do. Create a vision of making the perfect presentation and turn your fear into stimulation.

Lifeline no. 7
Remember the 5 Ps – Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance! Prepare well and practice, Deliver your presentation over and over again to your family, your friends, to yourself (in the mirror). Time it, perfect it, tweak it, know it well and feel confident about your ability to deliver it.

Now visualise yourself making the perfect presentation, with an engaged audience who hang onto your every word.

Picture yourself in the situation, calm, capable, convincing and presenting like you were born to do it!

Play this scene again and again in your mind and notice how your fear subsides and your confidence soars.
Go out there and make a wonderful presentation!

Preparing for a presentation

Author: Terry Gault

Take the first step in preparing your presentation. Force yourself onto the chair and get ready. Preparation may not be the most exciting aspect of your project, but it can be the single most important ingredient in your presentation. You may be able to charm anyone on the spot or possess the charisma of the most dynamic person in the world, but without preparation for a speech or meeting, you can still stumble and fall. How to prepare then?

First, imagine your audience. Who they are. What their expectations are. How you will connect with them. What you want to tell them. What you hope to accomplish. The specifics: Where you will be when you give your presentation — the facilities, the lighting. You need to know specifically what type of presentation you’re going to give. Are you motivating an audience? Giving valuable and/or timely information? Trying to sell something? How are you going to do it? What are you going to say?

Ideas, ideas, ideas. You have so many. Random or specific, write all these ideas down. Even if they don’t seem to relate to each other. Take three minutes and scribble ideas for your presentation on a sheet of paper. Don’t over-think this process. Ideas that may sound ridiculous at first can spur other more sensible and/or practical ideas; they can create unusual associations that lead to unique insights. Don’t stop writing. Don’t edit or go back and cross out any words. Let your thoughts flow like a river. As in visual art, make thumbnail sketches but with words rather than pictures.

All right. Now what? Take another three minutes to review what you’ve written. With pen or pencil or felt markers, make circles and arrows to connect logical relationships between the ideas. Which ones relate to each other. Identify ideas that might surprise you and turn out to be sub-points of other ideas. Rearrange ideas that fall logically before others. Pinpoint your main ideas.

Construct a linear sequence of your ideas. Create an opening, a body and a conclusion. A natural balance of three, the main parts of your presentation, so that it will flow easily yet effectively. Make an outline of how all the ideas work together.

Once you have your presentation organized and written down, how will you open? First, you’ll need an icebreaker to warm up your audience. Choose one, depending on your style. Tell a joke or a story. Ask a question. Try an unusual move; body language speaks volumes. Change your tone of voice. Give the audience a startling fact, theory or controversial statement. Use props or audience participation. Or choose a unique way of your own to open your presentation. The main thing is to create a way to get the audience’s attention, then introduce your objective — the purpose or goal of your presentation.

Then, the next trick is to keep the audience’s attention with the body of your presentation. Add rhetorical technique. The various ways to make and support each of your points. To do this, plan to use examples, analogies or questions. Weave a personal story throughout your presentation. Use metaphors, ones which clearly illustrate your points. If it works for your particular presentation, plan a demonstration or a physical example to drive your ideas forward. To round out your presentation, create a fabulous conclusion.

There are more than just words to a presentation. You need to craft the gestures you will use. You don’t want to stand like a stick on the stage. Use gestures to activate your body’s kinesthetic awareness, how it feels to move expansively while presenting. Trying out new gestures might be uncomfortable for you, but they will increase the awareness of what your body is doing while your mind is processing the content. Create three gestures and include them in your presentation. In the beginning, forcing yourself to try some new gestures will help you see what works. After you expand your range of gestures, they will become more natural and original. Try these gestures with parts of your text while observing yourself in a mirror. Make sure your elbows extend well out from your torso.

Practice and time your presentation. If your notes are too extensive, it won’t be easy or convenient to read them while presenting. If you need notes, use word fragments (one to four words) limited to your most important points (A half dozen for most presentations.). Write these word fragments on index cards.

Finally, practice, practice, practice. Use your mirror, your friends, your dog. Record yourself, audio and visual. Study it. Time it. Cut it, edit it, smooth it out so that when you give your presentation, you will know it so well you won’t need those dog-eared index cards after all.

5 Essential Steps Before Making a Presentation

The main objective of any presentation is to communicate effectively and efficiently the information, the ideas or plans with the audience. Speaking before an audience and making an effective presentation is an art, which has to be learnt with serious effort.

While working in an organization or in business, there may be many occasions for public speaking, where you have to make a presentation such as launching of a new product or service, presenting new business plans or making a marketing or sales proposal. Whatever be the purpose of your presentation, it always requires careful preparation to make it a successful presentation.

Following 5 steps can help you to make your presentation an effective presentation.

Be clear about the occasion and the subject:
Speaker should be aware of the purpose he wants to fulfill through his presentation. Whether it is a seminar or launching of a new product or conference or annual meeting. Whether there is sufficient time for presentation and discussion thereafter. You can put your best foot forward for presentation for inaugural occasion or launching of a new service. However, if organization is facing financial problems then presentation should focus on vital statistics and inferences from data available and positive suggestion.

Make audience analysis and know your audience:
Whatever be the topic of your presentation, you should understand your audience for whom it is meant. Their age, sex, experience, education background have great relevance to the presentation and it can influence the choice of words, tone, need for explanation in depth and details etc. Analysis of audience should be continued even during the presentation. Their body language and reaction on their faces can give you immediate feedback about your presentation.

Get the idea about the location or visit the location:
You should visit the location before making your presentation to get an idea about the size of the room, seating arrangement, lighting controls and audiovisual equipments.

Plan your presentation:
Plan out your presentation in writing with outline showing what you will say in the beginning, the middle and at the end. Also decide upon the method you will use for your presentation such as reading or extemporaneous. Visual aids with illustration and graphs can be used to make your presentation more interesting and interactive.

Rehearse your presentation:
Rehearsal is very important to gain the confidence before your presentation. Rehearse as a part of team to get the suggestions for improvement.

For writing the topic or content of your presentation or visual aid, business writing software can be used to make it more effective. Text enrichment feature of business writing software can enrich your text with adjectives & adverbs, which enhances the simple sentence into more professional and sophisticated sentence and also suggest context related synonym for repeated words. It also helps for proofreading and to check and correct grammar errors and spellings in your visual aid.
For more information on business writing software, please visit http://www.truevalue4money.com/businesswriting.html

Author: Stephen Thomson

Presentation Skills

Collection of useful videos from around the virtual world of internet.

Publisher: YouTube