One of the most intimidating things that you can do in the office is give a presentation. Not only do you have to think about putting together the presentation on a computer, but you have to get up in front of people and speak - which isn't easy at all! You have to look out into a sea of faces and speak to those faces about a specific topic. It doesn't matter if you’re talking to a small group of four people or you have an entire auditorium to talk to: it’s nerve-wracking to be in front of other people.
You need to make your message a successful one, but if you want to be able to do that, you have to understand how to give the perfect presentation. The first thing to learn is how to put it together for other people to understand, and that means making sure that long before your presentation date, you know how to use https://setapp.com/how-to/convert-png-to-jpg-on-a-macto get your images right on your slides. You want to be able to ensure that you are fully prepared before you stand up and start talking. So, with this in mind, we’ve got some of the golden rules you need to ensure that you get this right and you dispel the nerves!
- Remember Your Audience Is Giving You Their Time
While you are freaking out about your time spent talking to an audience, you have to remember that your audience is giving up their time for you. If you have a presentation where you are going to be on stage and speaking for an hour, you have to make it worth your audience’s while. Make sure that you invest your time in your presentation wisely so that you are offering something of value.
- Be Entertaining
You are giving information to an audience - an audience who are there to learn from you. You can only do this if you make it entertaining. No one wants to listen to someone drone on for hours on end and sound boring and make it dull. You want to add some humor, something fun to talk about and a story to make it compelling. Make it personal with your story telling, too, as you want to keep people engaged and entertained while they listen to you. This should not make people want to go to sleep!
- Don't Stay In One Place
While you are talking, don't just stand in one place on the spot. It’s boring, it can make you feel nervous and it doesn't work for your presentation. Work the room - move around and move across the stage. Walk around the audience, too, if you want to add something fun to the presentation.
- Give It Some Energy
It takes a lot of grit to talk through a presentation that you’ve put together to a large audience. You want to project your voice into the crowd and be excited about what you’re talking about. You want people to feel engaged while they are listening to you, but they won’t get that from you if you are monotonous and drone on. You want to be lively and keep the audience engaged and listening well.
- Allow Time To React
Between stories, give your audience a moment to react to the things that you’re saying. If you’re telling jokes, take a breather and wait for applause! You deserve to hear it when you’re working hard on your presentation, so give things a moment to sink in before you move onto the next point and the next.
- Add Some Interaction
If you are planning to get involved with the audience, plan some interaction. This is so successful with smaller audiences, and you should think about how you want people to engage. You can hold a question and answer session, you can think about using images to ask what people think of the image and what words pop into their heads when they see it. Plan ahead for your whole interactive side of your presentation so that everyone feels like they are a part of something.
- Remember: They Want You To Succeed
Your audience wants your presentation to go well - after all, they’re giving up their time to you to make sure that they will have a good time! If your presentation goes well, they are going to be glad that they gave you the time of day to listen to the wisdom you have to impart. Your audience has no idea what’s coming, so anything is going to be great!
- Add More Than Speech
Presentations have to be up and down. If you want people to be interested in your presentation, mix it up! Talk for a few minutes, add some interactive questions and answers, offer debates - you need to add more than speech to your presentation to make it look good. If you are addressing a problem in your presentation, talk about the lows of the problem and then add the ups of your solution to the problem.
- Be Witty
You should plan for laughs and applause, but you can only have those things if you are smart and witty while you talk to people. Your presentation is a performance, and if you prepare properly, you’re going to be able to practice your presentation and know your confidence is going to carry it off. You don't have to be nervous about this. As long as you know your surroundings and you can plan for some laughs, you’re going to have an excellent presentation the entire time!
These golden rules for the perfect presentation are going to serve you well. You have practice in front of a mirror and enjoy it - you want this to go off without a hitch and all of these tips will help you to do it. When you have a goal for your presentation, you will be able to offer the information that you want to give your audience without worry. Deep breath and off you go!