Guide to improve Your Presentation Skills

This blog serves as a Guide to Improve Your Presentation Skills With This Guide in your professional as well as personal life.

Convince them of your credibility, gather testimonials and statistics, and finally, if you can, appeal to their emotion.
Organization is key to this. Ask yourself, “What can I do to make my presentation smooth and successful?”

WHAT the presentation is about.
WHY the subject is important.
HOW you will develop the argument.
You can make a natural transition into the body of the presentation by concluding the beginning with guidelines for how you will proceed.
These are called signposts.
They make your thoughts an easy trail to follow.
An effective ending repeats the recommendation or the strategies that were presented, and reinforces the need for action.
Then, you want to end on a strong point, something that will keep them thinking and propel them to act.

Restrict your agenda to one specific situation or problem.
Cognitive psychologists tell us that people can remember between three and seven items.
Business people are likely to remember only three.
If you have a lot of points to cover, group them.
Your audience will remember your points better when they are supported with appropriate pictures and stories.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
The easier it is to do, the harder it is to change.
Teamwork gives you twice the results for half the effort.
Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can.
Humor is always the shortest distance between two people.
Anyone can make a mistake, but to really mess things up requires a computer.
People always have two reasons for doing things: a good reason and the real reason.
People who think they know it all are a pain in the neck to those of us who really do.
An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.
The human brain starts working the moment you are born and doesn’t stop until you stand up to speak in public.

We’re doing well in Europe, but not in the Middle East.
Turnover is down, but productivity is up, and for the second year running.
In Mexico we’re number one, in Argentina we’re number one, in Chile we’re number one, but in Brazil we’re nowhere.

Rehearsals allow you to feel comfortable with your presentation material.
If you’re rehearsing by yourself, play the devil’s advocate and ask yourself hard questions.
If you can find a guinea pig, ask them to role play what the decision maker might ask.
Your choice of words also reveals your mastery of the material.
Your delivery will have much more meaning and power if you use precise, strong language.

Help you give a lot of information in a very short space of time.
Good visuals speak for themselves and require little or no description, but you often need to draw your audience’s attention to one or two key points.
The effect of good visuals can be ruined by reading them word for word.
Be generous with white space.
Use clear headings and sub-headings.
Highlight, but don’t overdo it.
Types of highlighting:
- – Bullets
- – Italic print
- – Underlining
- – Color
Use graphics with caution.
Don’t ask technology to do your job.
Always have a backup plan.

Choose a solid, plain typeface that is easy to read.
Don’t combine a lot of typefaces on one page. If you do use different typefaces, use them consistently.
Make sure the type size is big enough for your audience to read.
Don’t use all capital letters, except in headings or brief statements.
Headings should be noticeably larger than text.
Serif typefaces, with hooks on each letter, make text easier to read.

Introduction
- – Attention grabber
- – Purpose
- – Agenda
- – Benefit for target audience
Body
- – Three Points (with statistics or examples)
Conclusion
- – Summary
- – Specific action
- – Strong final statement