Presentations can be overwhelming – there is a lot to consider including the training room rental, illustrations, and audience. But beyond flipping through a fancy PowerPoint inserted with facts and figures should be a marvelous overall presentation.
Effective presenters are engaging and exciting, building a deep connection to the listeners.
To know more about that, let us go through each stage for a successful presentation.
Planning
Planning is one of the important factors in presentation. Be sure to cover the schedule, the number of participants, objectives, topics, amount of time required per topic, time of practice and delivery, materials needed, where to rent seminar room, etc. Without any plans, you have nowhere to go.
Preparation
In order to have a successful presentation, you have to prepare. Preparation includes knowing your audience and how to effectively interact with them. Answering questions like “Who are my audiences?”, “What interests them?” and “What do they want to learn in the presentation?” will guide you to an exciting and engaging conversation.
Find a strategy that will help them retain the matters of discussion. Use visual aids, striking statements, and group activities.
Practice
Regardless of how colorful the graphics in your slideshows are and how complete the data are, if you don’t practice, everything may fall flat. Practicing is more than reading out the script a number of times. It should be focused and structured.
So, before facing your audience, make sure you rehearse your voice, hand gestures, posture, facial expression, body movement, and timing. Practice in front of a mirror or a camera, at home, in the office, alone, or with friends. Get feedback from your peers, officemates, or mentors, then work on the areas that need improvement.
Performance
Presentation is not just about clicking for the next slide and recitation. It’s about establishing and maintaining a connection with the audience and responding to issues and ideas. All you have practiced will be actualized – eye contact, face and body projection, etc. Aside from mastery of the topic, voice plays a major role at this point.
- Power – This is about the volume of your voice. You don’t have to shout to be heard. Low volume may distract your audience and get bored.
- Pace and Pitch – Proper pacing in enunciating words can help emphasize key points, build drama, and create excitement. Pitch and tone define the emotional mood of the presentation. Controlling it would prevent you from sounding dull and monotonous. Faster pace and higher pitch express excitement and slower pace and lower pitch express seriousness.
- Pause – Pause gives your audience the time to process, understand, and absorb your message.
- Pronunciation – Be careful with your pronunciation if you’d like to convey your message clearly. One mispronounced word could mean a different word.
Passion
Genuine passion propels you to become effective in what you do; in this case, your presentation. It drives you to exert the best effort from planning up to the presentation.
The 5Ps of presentation – planning, preparation, practice, performance, and passion – are a guide for a successful presentation. Try to apply this to your next presentation and see how things have improved from the previous.
If you like this article, you might want to read this article about Getting Started As A Tutor in SG.
