15 Tips to Presentation Excellence!

Drive your pre­sen­ta­tion skills higher with these 15 tips!  You know it’s mis­er­able to attend a bor­ing pre­sen­ta­tion.  On the other end, it’s absolutely mis­er­able to present with audi­ences that are doz­ing off all the time.  Gone will be the days where you see your audi­ences try­ing their very best to keep them­selves awake through­out the pre­sen­ta­tion.  Here we are giv­ing you 15 tips for mak­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion excel­lent!  You have your stake­hold­ers under­stand the objec­tive and goals, and are happy, sat­is­fied walk­ing out of the pre­sen­ta­tion room.  Here’s how to do it!

1. Total com­mit­ment to the problem/project/outcome – Do not present for the sake of pre­sent­ing.  If you are, you might as well call it off or get some­body else to do it.
2. Cre­ate a com­pelling “Story line”/“Plot” – Make a strong and believ­able story in their con­text.  Remem­ber, it’s in their con­text.
3. Suf­fi­cient data to drive mes­sage across – Do not bom­bard the stake­hold­ers or audi­ence with too much data.  They will not be able to absorb so much within the short time frame.  How­ever, give them the key infor­ma­tion they need and pre­pare a big list of answers to any ques­tions they may have.
4. Mem­o­rize or famil­iar­ize the data – In this way, you can manip­u­late the data and present it in a dif­fer­ent con­text on the spot.
5. Tell great sto­ries or illus­tra­tions – This will bring vivid life to your pre­sen­ta­tion and the audi­ence will be keen to hear more.
6. Be sen­si­tive to the audi­ences – Look out for body lan­guages and sense the response of the audi­ences.  Know when they are bored or atten­tive.  Switch your pre­sen­ta­tion style to grab their atten­tion back!
7. Con­nect with audi­ence – This will pre­vent them from falling asleep and being bored in your pre­sen­ta­tion.  Talk to them.  Ask questions!
8. Walk around the pre­sen­ta­tion – Espe­cially to the audi­ence area.  They will be made to stay alert through­out your pre­sen­ta­tion when they know you may walk to their “safe” area anytime.
9. Give a punch line or sur­prise at the begin­ning of the pre­sen­ta­tion – Sur­prise them and grab their attention!
10. Don’t be pushy once you “won” – No mat­ter how good you are, once you’ve “won” it stay at there.  Let’s not hurt anyone’s dig­nity.
11. Be “in com­mand” but not a “show-off” – The audi­ence will decide if you are really good.
12. Be nice to every­one, even your detrac­tors – That’s where the audi­ence decides who the real jerks in the pre­sen­ta­tion are.
13. Pay atten­tion to the senior stake­holder. How­ever, you need not act like a suck-up to him – You do not want to be seen as a social suck up in front of every­one right.  Fur­ther­more, the entire audi­ence deserves your atten­tion as well!
14. Let the audi­ence arrive at the con­clu­sion – They will find the con­clu­sion more mean­ing­ful than you telling them you are right.
15. Just THREE key points! – Too many key points will not be under­stood by the gen­eral audience.

Related Posts

• 15 (More and More) Tips to Pre­sen­ta­tion Excellence!
• 15 MORE Tips to Pre­sen­ta­tion Excellence!
• Get Peo­ple to Absorb Infor­ma­tion the Way You Want It!
• Get­ting Things Done!
• 4 Sure Ways to Influ­ence Your Colleagues!
• 6 Tips to be an Effec­tive Home-Worker!
• Max­i­mize Your Meet­ing with 10 Prac­ti­cal Tips!