Presentations: Winning or Losing an Unique Opportunity (1st Part)

As incredible as it may seem, the presentation skills are just some skills, that, exactly like all the other skills, may be enhanced with some (hard) work.

Nowadays, the presentations skills become more and more important; almost as important as the technical ones, because there’s no use of having great innovative ideas if not being able to explain and “sell” them to the others. And within this “others” are important and decision making people, that are not necessarily having the required technical background in order to understand everything only by watching a scheme and listening to a couple of words.

There are lots of types of presentations, playing different roles and having different goals, from getting a door open to communicating with managers, colleagues or friends, but they all have something in common: they have a goal. In order to achieve this goal, whatever it may be, some fundamentals must be kept in mind, before, during and after the presentation:

Þ Go in prepared—very few openings are worst than “ I didn’t have time to prepare”

Þ Believe in yourself and your idea—if you don’t, how can you expect the others to “buy” it?

Þ Know your purpose and communicate it—not having a clear objective makes it difficult to: shape the presentation, know what to ask for, know that you’ve achieved your goal

Þ Have a focused central theme and core points—the most important slide in a presentation is the one with the summary

Þ Know your audience and tailor your presentation to them—people are there listening to you because they have some needs; if you don’t address their needs, the presentation is 90% failed

Þ For time pressed audiences, summarize early—or you may learn that you haven’t had the time for the most important of your ideas

Þ Help them get it with powerful reinforcement—use stories, examples, statistics

Þ Make sure visuals add and do not impede communication—don’t add charts or schemes that will make you say: “I know you cannot read this” (then why is it here? Isn’t this presentation intended for the audience?)

Þ Stage with care, ‘cause Murphy’s there—everything that might go wrong, will go wrong, so, prepare for these situations too

Þ Practice and get good feedback—rehearse and you’ll not have surprises like not knowing what comes after or your time is gone and you haven’t finished yet.

Þ Make your delivery personal and passionate—the data does not speak for itself, you speak for data

Þ Keep alert and flexible—stay tuned to the audience and situation, then adjust your presentation rather go in the wrong direction only because that’s the way you started

Þ Anticipate and manage questions well—not answering half of the questions you are asked takes your presentation to failure; people remember (and talk) more about the bad moments

Þ Keep your perspective, enjoy—fun is contagious, a stressed presenter will scare the audience

Þ Remember you’re selling—you’re selling yourself and your credibility, then your organization, your information and your proposition.

Reference: “How to prepare, stage and deliver winning presentations”, by Thomas Leech