Presentations are a part of life. We are first exposed to them during our school years, and then in university, and then at work. You can even give presentations to your family members on special occasions like a wedding. Giving an effective presentation says a lot about you, and it gets your message across in the way you want it to. Effective presentations can get people motivated, make them cry, or whatever else your goal is, but the presentation’s success begins and ends with you:
- Tips on Creating Your Slideshow
Having a slideshow is perfect to help you stay on track and to give your audience visual reinforcement. It is also what you should work on first when you are preparing a presentation. Make your presentation visually appealing, and follow Apple’s Guy Kawasaki’s advice on slideshows; that they should contain ten slides, be twenty minutes long, and should use size 30pt font or larger. Of course, if you are creating a slideshow of photos of your friends and family, it could be as long as you want it to be.
- Know Your Audience
You wouldn’t use technical jargon if you were giving your presentation to a layman audience. You wouldn’t use complex words if you were presenting to an audience of children, either. Knowing your audience is how you’ll know how to convey the ideas and information correctly.
- Start with a Bang
They key to a giving a great presentation is to capture your audience’s attention, right from the start. You can use a call to action, or, more effectively, you could tell a story. People connect to stories and to narratives better than any other method. If you have a point to make, use narrative to ensure your audience is invested in what you are trying to say.
- Remember to Reinforce Your Message
At the end of your presentation, you should always reinforce your message. This could be on another slide, or it could just be you summing up the key points that you have made. Either way, you need to repeat your key points if you want your audience to take away the right information.
- Practice
Don’t let having information in the slideshow fool you – you need to practice. Great presentations engage with the audience, they provide more information than just what is on the screen, and they are presented by confident speakers. Practice your presentation so you know the correct pace, tone, and even the volume that you need to hit for your presentation to be successful.
- Be Engaging
When it comes to presenting your piece, you need to be engaging. This means smiling. It means being confident in your tone and in your body language. It means making eye contact with members throughout your audience. You need your audience to connect with you, and doing these simple tricks is an easy way to build rapport.
A great presentation can completely change someone’s opinion. It can inform people in a way that they remember and connect with. Presentations are important for so many different areas in your life, and knowing how to give a great presentation will take you far.