Chalk2Cheese a Personality Development and enhancing soft skills Academy is more like a Grooming School. It helps you to become the best version of yourself.
PRESENTATION SKILLS
If you can speak, you can influence, if you can influence, you can change lives!!!!!
Good Presentation Skills are key to delivering successful presentation. How to prepare for your talk, what the message should or should not include, how to deal with your audience, how to design the best slides and all in all how to nail your next presentation.
Preparing and practicing for the presentation is very important. There is no better recipe for a confidence book than to be prepared. PRACTISE your presentation until it becomes a part of you and until you do not have to make a big effort to do it. This is we call muscle memory which is acquired as a result of frequent repeating. While doing this you have to make sure you are in control of the way you speak not too fast and not too slow. You have to explain things clearly, you have to keep the eye contact with your audience and of course your message should make sense when you deliver it.
Arrive early before your presentation starts and settle yourself down. Have a look at your notes once more to make sure you have all the important information at your fingertips. If you are delivering a speech online, login a few minutes early to make sure it all goes well.
Once you reach early adjust to your environment, explore the room, check the lighting, noise and all the tools you might need like the microphone or the projector. You also need to feel comfortable in what you wear something that feels good and allows you to be yourself. Every element plays a role and the more you are aware of this, the more effective your talk will be as a whole.
Remember to smile – it shows confidence and calms your anxiety. Smiling will help you to feel more relaxed and prepared to speak in front of an audience. Make it look natural!!! Do not overdo it. Silence is gold. So work on your pauses. You tend to speed up when you are nervous which makes you look un-prepared and it’s more difficult for our listeners to understand and remember our message. Give them time to process your words. Take a deep breath, slow down and use pauses to take the control again, emphasize a point and create some tension for a dramatic effect. Have a glass of water around and take a sip every now and then. This is a less awkward way of making a pause during a presentation. Do not be boring, remember to include transition phrases to help your audience stay engaged and understand the flow of your presentation. You might be giving a lot of useful information, but if you deliver bombs, so will your presentation. You don’t have to become a standup comedian to give a good presentation, but keep your audience on the edge of their seats by adding a few jokes or using attractive images to your slides.
Always leverage your voice during your presentation. It might be the most amazing information ever, but if you deliver it with a monotonous voice, it is not going to sound interesting. Remember lower, deeper voices are associated with power and authority. Rich smooth and warm voice is preferred. Avoid monotony and vary your intonation. Do not finish your statements with the intonation of a question. Always control your pace. Speaking quickly can show excitement, while you can use slow speech to emphasize. People get bored easily for a number of reasons, mainly the cause of boredom is monotony, lack of flow and need for something new. So, if this persists then after ten minutes you start losing your audience. So to engage them reset your talk every ten minutes, tell a story, and ask questions, ask your audience to explain something or show them a new tool. Make them a part of your show and break the monotony every ten minutes.
When it comes to presentation skills, adapting he message to your audience is the most popular thing. Engage and make your audience your best ally. Speak from the heart, be honest and make them believe in you. Even if you know your presentation script by heart, it’s important you do not sound like you have learned it, but make it sound like you are telling an interesting story. Make the audience feel as if they know you. Sympathy goes a long way. Avoid lengthy and uninteresting introduction. Weave personal stories into your slides and make them feel like they know you. Building this connection is an art. Telling them a short story that arouses curiosity and interest you will feel the difference.
Public speaking is not about you. Find out what your audience knows and what they need to know, use this information to craft the perfect presentation giving them something new and keeping them interested. Boost your audience’s engagement by asking them what they think like a survey or with a poll. Answer the unexpected question from the audience and look at them as an opportunity to give your audience what they want. Some points to include in your presentation is to keep it short and sweet, by writing down what you need to present and filter out the un necessary information. Make your presentation simple and accessible. Keep your sentences clear and not too complicated. Always use pictures, explanations and comparisons to avoid losing their attention.
Remember the beginning of your presentation will set the tone for the rest of your speech. For an excellent effective opening try and spin a remarkable story. Ask questions and engage your audience. Show them statistics. Tell them a fun fact. Contradict expectations and make a bold claim by using a quote. How will your ideas help your audience? Don’t keep your audience trying to guess your conclusion until the end. Use the inverted pyramid and instead of making them wait tell them what they are there for. Make your audience write something to take away with them. Like new concepts, stats, shortcuts or facts. Make them understand how they can use their ideas to their advantage. Highlight the problems and provide clear instructions as how to fix them.
Design your presentation slides that would grab the attention and help you bring your message across. Cut down on bullet points instead use images with keywords. Add one point per slide. Replace your text with icons. Take advantage of flowcharts and tables. Make your text look like a quote with speech bubbles. Use more images than text. Get them to pay more attention by relying more on your voice and photos. Ask a friend to proofread your deck to make sure it does not contain any errors, it makes you look un-professional.
Remember that your presentation slides should include the kind of thing people would like to share and tweet. The audience will pull out their phones to add your twitter details to your slides.
“Oh, and one more thing” Ending your presentation with that will be remembered long after the presentation is over. It adds an unexpected aspect, a twist in the end – something all the people would talk for the rest of the conference. The last few minutes of your presentation are your best opportunity to make a long lasting impression on your audience. Always remember to thank your audience; after all, they have stayed until the end. Right?
Remember your smile is your logo your personality is your business card, how you leave others feel after an experience with you, becomes your trademark!!!!!!