Business Communication

Presentation skills
To really succeed at presenting and build up effective presentation skills, there are several key areas that you need to become skilled in. And once you have mastered these skills; you will be able to create a presentation with a clear message and deliver it with confidence.
Key skills areas
• Planning and writing the presentation
• Using visual aids effectively
• Overcoming presentation nerves
• Delivering the presentation confidently
• Answering questions competently
Skills for planning and writing the presentation
Planning the presentation involves much of the work that you are going to do before you actually deliver the presentation. This is a very important area and it’s also one that many people should consider improving their skills in.
A key part of this planning is to research your presentation audience, since the more you know your audience, the more you can understand them and what their preconceptions might be.
You also need to get to grips with the purpose of the presentation – so that you are very clear about what you are trying to achieve from it.
Then, it is down brainstorming what you are actually going to say and then structuring this into “digestible” chunks within the beginning, middle and end.


Using visual aids effectively
Once you have done your planning, you need to consider what visual aids you’re going to use. Think about what you want to do here – why you actually need the visual aids in your presentation and what are they going to be used for.
Often they are fairly redundant – people put them in for the sake of it. So some key presentation skills we will be looking at are associated with reducing your slides to the minimum you need to support your message.
So we are going to look at how to make visual aids effective and what types of visual aids are going to help you with your presentation.
Skills for overcoming presentation nerves
We are then going to look at you yourself to start considering your personal presentation skills.
When most people hear the word presentation – previously built “presentation skills” are often forgotten and nerves kick in. So we are going to help you overcome your nerves and become more confident in your personal presentation skills.
There are lots of techniques and things you can do to help you control your nerves and build your confidence even before you actually start your presentation as well as while you are speaking and delivering it.
Skills for delivering the presentation confidently
It is important to think about how you are actually going to deliver your presentation.
We will look at some of the key techniques and skills you can call on to help you speak confidently, keep the audience’s interest, really engage with them and create the presence that wants to have in front of your audience.
So your personal resources are very important when you come to deliver your presentation.
Answering questions competently
Finally, it is important that you have the confidence to interact with your audience and deal with any questions that your audience might throw at you.
So we will give you techniques to help you deal with the difficult questions – the different scenarios that you might face when you actually have to interact with the audience.
Summary
These are the five key elements (or presentation skills areas) for building and delivering a successful presentation.
Get to grips with each of them, build your skills and then apply them to you next presentation – and you will be surprised just how much you have progressed.
Sources
www.presentation-skills.biz/ - United Kingdom




Other aspects making presentation more effective

1. Audibility
2. Clarity
3. Relevance
4. Accuracy
5. Eye contact
6. Competence in using computer and multimedia projector
7. Handouts should be given after presentation
8. Handouts should be comprehensive
9. Treat audience equally
10. Show audience that you are competent in subject
11. Be ethical
12. Rapport
13. Do not leave weak points which audience may laugh at
14. Steadiness
15. Physical appearance
16. Punctuality
17. Confidence
18. Well prepared
19. Physical environment of classroom or lecture hall
20. Get attention of all participants
21. Tolerance
22. Listen to audience patiently
23. Give them opportunities to discuss
24. Control time limit
25. Do not embarrass audience
26. Be humble
27. Feedback
28. Inform audience that they will get handouts
29. Maintain silence
30. Cleanliness
31. Ventilation
32. Create congenial environment for presentation
33. Make audience comfortable
34. Seating arrangements
35. Audience can easily see presenter
36. Look at monitor/not at screen
37. Avoid reading /explain
38. Make presentation lively and interesting
39. Fun and humour
40. Avoid tension



D.N. Aloysius
dnaloysius.blogspot.com