Giving a good presentation is never easy. It’s not like chatting with friends, you cannot say whatever comes to your mind during a presentation, or it will get pointless. You should also avoid preaching during your presentation, or your audience will get annoyed or fall asleep. No matter if it’s a class presentation, a sales meeting or a webinar, you have to attract your audience.
Though you may be afraid of public speaking, trust us that even a person who works more than 10 years, he could still feel uneasy about delivering a presentation. What you can do is practice and present more. We will teach you some tips on how to prepare your presentation. During the preparation, you also have the opportunity to digest and think about what you want to convey. When you have a clear structure about your presentation, you will have less pressure and more confidence.
How to Prepare A Memorable Presentation
1.Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience is the most important thing when preparing a presentation. For example, will you use the same way to tell the history of the French Revolution to kids and adults? Kids may not know many background stories of France and French history, so you will need to add more information when telling it. However, most adults know the French Revolution, all they need is more details and anecdotes.
Sometimes you talk to a crowd of people, but actually you only need to convince one person. Your presentation can just focus on how to persuade that person. When you want to get more budgets for your project, even if your team members are in your meeting, all you need is to convince your manager to approve your budgets.
2.Create A Solid Structure
Delivering a presentation is like telling a story. If you want to be persuasive, your presentation must have a solid structure. You can first create your outline and see if it can smoothly convey your ideas or if there’s any redundant part. You can also discuss your outline with your colleagues or friends if it makes sense.
3.Don’t Put Too Many Words
Your slides are there to help your presentation, it’s assistive. Don’t put all what you are going to say on slides. It not only makes your presentation unattractive, but also fails to attract people’s attention to your point. Just putting 2 to 5 phrases on each slide is enough.
4.Show Important Numbers, Not Raw Data
We believe you have seen people put raw data on their slides. However not every number matters. You can just choose some important numbers and put them in your slides. Sometimes, you may want to make your result look better then you exaggerate the performance. DON’T DO THAT. Put real numbers and be honest for your presentation. Your slides are there to help you solve problems or share ideas. Lies don’t help but make things worse.
5.Keep It Simple
A human’s maximum period of concentration is about 45 minutes. Therefore if you want to engage people, make your presentation short and simple. There’s the 10-20-30 rule for slideshows.
- Contain no more than 10 slides
- Last no more than 20 minutes
- Use a font size of no less than 30 point
How to Deliver A Perfect Presentation
1.Practice
Practice makes perfect! Take a timer and go through your presentation a couple of times. Check if your presentation takes too much time and if you are familiar with the content. Practice can also help you less panicked during the presentation.
2.Make Eye Contact with The Audience
Imagine a person talking to you but not looking at you, that will definitely make you feel awkward. So when you talk, make sure you make eye contact with the audience. That will make them pay attention to what you are saying.
3.Pause 2 to 3 Seconds When Moving on to Next Part
When we get nervous or excited, we will talk too fast. It leaves no time for the audience to digest what we try to express. Presenting is about connecting with the audience and getting our ideas heard. When you practice, you can check your speed. During the presentation, you can pause 2 to 3 seconds when moving on to a new part. That helps people think and relate to your presentation.
4.Make Your Voice Interesting
A presentation usually lasts for 10 to 20 minutes, so it’s better to make your voice interesting or the audience may get distracted. You can do it by controlling your volume, changing in pitch and tone and varying the speed.
5.Interact with The Audience
Not every presentation leaves time for you to interact with the audience. But if you have Q&A time for the audience, it lets people have opportunities to better understand your ideas. It may also show you the blind spot of your presentation.
Make Your Presentation More Collaborative
If you can keep those tips for preparing and delivering a presentation, your performance should be quite perfect. But if you want more people to brainstorm with you during your session, you may need the help of wireless presentation. ASTROS wireless presentation solutions support Windows, macOS, iOS and Android devices to wirelessly share the screen and do more than screen mirroring. When you present, your team members can share the content at the same time to make your presentation collaborative. If you are interested in wireless presentation solutions, CLICK HERE contact our team to know more details!
