If you’ve got a big presentation coming up at work or school, you might be looking for ways to make it more effective. If that’s the case – then you’re already in the right place. We’re going to look at a number of tips so that you can give the best presentation you can and wow your audience.
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Giving a talk can be nerve-wracking, but it needn’t be. If you prepare well enough, you should have your audience eating out of your hands in no time.
That’s one important point to remember with giving a presentation – the more you prepare, the less nervous you should be. So let’s have a look at the guide…
1] Find out what your audience wants
One important thing to remember with presentations is that there’s no right or wrong way to address every audience. What works for one won’t necessarily work for another.
So to be successful you need to find out what your audience wants and then work on (over)delivering it. If you’ve got a young, impatient crowd, you might want to involve them more or use more digital media.
If you’re already speaking to a team of experts on a subject, you might be able to drop some of the explanation and assume they already know a certain amount about the subject.
That’s the thing with a great presentation, it needs to be developed specifically for the audience at hand. Find out what they want, and give it to them. You could try coming up with a few profiles or specific personas of members of your audience to really drill down on the sort of information they want, and how they might want it delivered.
2] Use the right tools
With presentations these days, you’ve got a whole host of tools at your disposal. You don’t have to rely on that old projector and hand-slides any more. Try coming into the 21st century by using a mix of different media solutions. PowerPoint should be the start, but add in videos, games and other ways for people to get involved.
You could even let your audience members Tweet questions to you in real time. These can be displayed on the screen and add an extra level of interactivity to your presentation. You can find some presentation software with tons of cool features, and some of them could take your talk to the next level.
3] Plan your presentation
To make things go smoother when you present your final presentation, you need to plan and plan again. This will help you get rid of any issues and make sure you’ve got all the answers you need.
4] Practice it
To make you less nervous, and to make the presentation seem more professional – practice, practice, and practice. Instead of simply practicing alone, try your presentation out in front of colleagues or friends.
This will help you get an idea of what people think and perhaps make a few adaptations to your final presentation plan.
5] Create a script but don’t be too rigid
You need an outline of what you’re going to talk about – but don’t stick to it too rigidly. Be able to go off and talk about other subjects, or answer questions on the fly. Don’t simply stand and read off a script, use it as a guide on different areas to cover.
To size a script to your slot, see how many words a 5-minute speech needs.
