Are you constantly trying to improve your presentation but have failed to do so?
Are you fed up of losing your audience at the first moment?
Its okay, we have all been there. Not to worry, Inkppt to the rescue
Type image caption here (optional)
Just keep reading and we will illustrate some very easy ways to hone your presentation skills and make them mind blowing.
We generally have a massive fear of presenting in front of an audience, but with proper guidance and practice, this fear can be annihilated. So get ready for an awesome sauce “future you” with these handy tips:
Appearance
Appearance is extremely important when it comes to presentation. Visual aesthetics are vital to grab sustained attention. Think of it like: a Red Ferrari, a white Boeing Jet, a shiny silver Tissot watch, the appearance is the first thing that will grab eyeballs. Some tips for visual aesthetics:
• Always Choose fonts based on the industry domain, for example: curve inspired ones for women accessory and bold lines for technology etc.
• Always remember to use pastel and regular shades of colour that will not pinch the eyes on a bigger screen, for example: avoid bright yellow, fluorescent greens etc.
• Avoid content clutter at all costs
• Concise information with bullet points whenever possible
• Use pie charts, bar graphs, diagrams wherever possible to reduce content and grab attention
Delivering the speech
Okay, here comes the tough part. Don’t sweat; you’re going to ace this too! To keep the audience interested, the first thing you need to sharpen is your wit. The foremost quality that a good presenter possesses is, he/she knows how to imbibe this wit in the information being presented. Here are some tips for becoming the next Steve Jobs:
• Structure your speech into parts containing equal parts humour, sarcasm, information and serious confrontations with the audience to engage them
• Never cram the content, improvise
• Never read from your slides. Seriously a big No No!! You could alternatively point at a slide (say “as you can see….”) and continue
• Sprinkle your words with metaphors, stories & examples to make your presence lively
• Deliver everything with passion
• Stand in front of the mirror and talk to yourself, notice how you smile, frown, show disagreement, acceptance. Weed out the expressions you believe are too loud and bold for an audience
• Make crisp notes about the content in your slides, anticipate the questions that may come your way and write them down. That way you will never be caught off guard
• Study the videos of seasoned orators like Mr Modi, Neil Grasse Tyson, Barack Obama etc. from YouTube
Voice projection
Another important part in presentation delivery that is highly neglected. Just picture this:
You’re attending a seminar and the presenter is speaking in a very dull & flat mono tone about a very interesting topic. Interestingly, you’ll fall asleep even before realizing the topic is interesting; )
Do you want that to happen to yourself too? Noooooo way!!!!!
Some tips for getting that perfect voice throw to hypnotize the audience:
• Understand the basics of voice projection. It neither means yelling neither using a deep baritone always, it simply means using your voice to guide viewer’s attention to your words
• Avoid using flat monotone, modulate your voice to match the mood and environment
• Keep a check on your pitch consistency while speaking, it should never be too high, if need arises it should be taken low (People trust and admire deep voices more. Think Amitabh Bachchan)
• Watch videos at TED to access and analyse a library of celebrated speakers talking about everything under the Sun
• Consider joining Toast Master; a great speech club for getting ample of practice and training.
• Always remember, its not what you speak but how you speak that matters
• Take a sip of water and hum a song before going on stage to keep your voice fresh , smooth and to prevent it from cracking
Content
Content is king! If you want to be a great presenter you will have to sound like an expert in chosen particular field. It’s very essential to have a good content otherwise all the above steps will fail. Good speakers always try to keep a perfect balance between content and structure throughout the presentation. Always try to deliver a succinct & clear vision of your chosen topic and make it easy for audience to follow. Keep these tips in mind:
• To the point information
• Accurate data and graphs
• Less readable more visual appeal
• Just introduce the topics through written content, talk about them in detail
• Keep the content flow systematic and structure consistent so that the audience get comfortable with the template and know what to expect in the next slide
Q & A
Lastly, here comes the Question Answer round, so if there’s a Q&A at the end of the presentation, and you are bombarded with questions, just relax. You have won the war already if people are interested enough to ask you questions. Follow these tips to ace this final frontier:
• Repeat the question after hearing it in full or possibly rephrase the question in full as your opening statement in the reply
• Take a moment in examining the question even if you have understood it already before answering, to allow the atmosphere to build up and to avoid incorrect interpretation
• Politely apologize if you do not know the answer to the question ( people appreciate honesty on stage )
• Always start answering by looking the concerned person in the eye and then looking at the whole audience to bring them all into the answer
Follow the tips presented above and you will successively improve in your presentation skills with each new presentation. These tips will train you to become a charismatic presenter and a killer orator. The words carried by the slides will impress the intellect the words carried by your voice will impress the heart.
Conceptualized and Written by: Srijaa Datta
Edited by: Arnab Chakraborty
.jpeg)
