Presentation Skills Training: Skills to Save Your Presentation
Presentation skills training relies on the knowledge that public speaking isn’t about sharing information. If someone wanted information, they could write, email or text you for it. These days, they could probably look it up on the Internet faster than get a hold of you in person. With methods of contact faster and easier than setting up a business meeting, there has to be something your audience is looking for that can’t be found elsewhere.
Presentations are personal.
Butterflies aren’t a sign you’ll be terrible, but you may want to brush up on the following points before heading off to your next meeting:
1. Research & Organize
Too many people wait until the last minute to gather their facts, some charts and scribble out a rough outline in their heads of what’s going to happen. Again, they’re focused on sharing information. It takes time to pinpoint motivation – both for yourself and the audience – and plan out the best way of implementing it.
Are you trying to get a job? A contract? Do you want better pricing or a bulk rate discount? Presentation skills training can help you figure out exactly what it is.
Once you’ve decided what you want out of a situation, it’s much easier to focus on your audience. Success depends on being able to see things from their point of view. What do they want from you? What do they need? How will you deliver? Every point of your presentation should serve to motivate them.
Determining these things will make it easier for you to find the facts they need, and put them in the order that speaks the loudest to your audience. Writing these things down can also help commit them to your memory, speak with an easier manner, and feel more confident. These three things help build trust in you as a speaker by connecting with your audience.
2. Connect with the audience.
It can be one person or 1200 people wide. Your success still depends on connecting with your audience. If you’re shy or especially nervous, this can be difficult, but that doesn’t mean you’ll do badly. These are skills that most people don’t use, but can be learned and mastered like anything else.
The world’s worst presenters have one thing in common. They’re too quiet or hard to understand. The irony is that an audience straining to listen pays more attention. They’re also more critical because they’re exerting effort to hear someone who doesn’t sound confident, which makes them wonder why they are wasting their time with a “non-expert.”
It’s better to be too loud than not loud enough. It’s also better to hold eye contact too intensely than not at all. Looking someone in the eye denotes confidence. It tells them you know what they need and are willing – and able – to provide it.
If you have a chance beforehand, you can connect with your audience by smiling, introducing yourself and asking people their names. Personable people feel free to elaborate, but that is something the shyest of the shy can work to master in time.
3. Develop visual aids.
Some people rely heavily on visual aids to complete the trifecta of influence – written, seen, and heard. Getting the same information multiple ways increases an audience’s trust in the message. The problem is that information has to come across the same all three ways. If PowerPoint focuses solely on facts and statistics instead of motivation, you’ll lose your audience.
4. Ask for what you want.
At the beginning of the process, you first decided what you wanted from this meeting. At the end is when you have to go for it. Don’t leave things up to hints and innuendo. People aren’t mind readers, and while they can’t say “no” unless you ask directly, they can’t say “yes” to you either.
Presentation skills training helps professionals in all walks of life make their efforts more effective. Pinpointing what you want, what your audience needs, and finding a way to convince them you’re the right person for the job can be as easy as asking the right questions before the meeting begins.
