The facility to present effectively, in both formal and informal situations, is a key business and life skill. Mastering the ability to convey information and ideas, to persuade and influence, to energise and to inspire, and to do all this with presence, assurance and confidence, will have a hugely beneficial impact on both your career prospects and self esteem.
Interestingly, these benefits are not just restricted to the realm of presenting and public speaking. Most of the skills described below are simply those of an excellent communicator who has mastered the art controlling their mental state in potentially challenging and stressful situations. As such, most of the skills are also relevant to almost all situations where we are called upon to communicate effectively, such as meetings, negotiation and networking. The main difference is simply that our approach when we stand up in front of a group of people needs to be that bit more theatrical, a bit larger than life. A presentation is a performance, an act. As such, you need to turn up the volume, the colour and the contrast. You need to be yourself, but more so.
Reading through the tips below will help you understand how to present much more effectively. It will not, however, make you into a better presenter. The only way to do that is to obsessively compulsively practice these skills as often as you possibly can. Seek out opportunities to present and review these tips before you do. Even better, give this list of points to a friend or colleague in the audience and ask them to observe you and give you feedback against these criteria as to what you did well, what you did less well and what you could do differently next time to give an even better performance.
As an effective presenter, you should remember to:
o Pause before you start speaking many effective presenters do not start speaking the moment they face their audience. They first stand silently and calmly facing their audience. This creates a sense of expectancy and focuses the audiences attention on the speaker.
o Look around before starting to speak, do as many effective speakers do, first look around your audience, making eye contact with as many as you are able.
o Project you need to project your message, your energy and your personality to the back of the room. A good way to do this is to see your awareness and energy as a huge transparent bubble that surrounds you. Once you have got a clear sense of this, push the outer surface of the sphere out as far as you can, so that it contains your entire audience within it.
o Establish eye contact eye contact is a key communication skill. Look at members of your audience and present parts of your message to each of them.
o Establish a connection with your audience establishing eye contact, and projecting energy and enthusiasm, will help you establish a connection with members of your audience. As you make eye contact and speak to them directly, you will see a look of recognition and feel a connection between you. This can be quite a physical feeling and it causes some inexperienced presenters to recoil and to pull back their metaphorical bubble. If you are able to really connect with your audience and hold their attention, you will feel this and need to stay connected. In recoiling, your presentation will lose some of its magic.
o Take a deep breath if you remember nothing else about presentation skills, remember to take a few deep breaths before you start and to keep breathing as your presentation progresses. This may seem like simplistic advice, but when we are stressed we tend to hold our breath or breathe more shallowly.
o Speak slowly at the beginning start slowly and softly to draw your audience in and to help you get used to the sound of your voice. Then slowly increase the volume tempo and energy.
o Maintain eye contact throughout the presentation this can not be stressed to often.
o Talk to people make it personal. Talk to real people, not at them. Engage and entertain your audience, do not lecture them. Give real life examples and illustrations that they can relate to.
o Enjoy yourself presenting can be great fun when you do it well, honest. The best way to deal with nerves is to throw yourself in and have fun. Your audience will also find this attractive and compelling.
In later articles I will talk more about the skills of effective presentations and will also focus on both effective preparation and voice projection. In the meantime, find every opportunity hat you canto practice.
