Guest Post: Nikita Patel

Nakita is one of Chris' Summer 2010 Professional Speaking students. This is her second guest post on the blog. Here she writes about real-world presentations.

The point of making a presentation is to communicate ideas and concepts to other people. Presentations are a fact of life in business. While most people loathe presentations, I will try to give you few tips about how to make them likable and get your audience to enjoy them.

Let’s start with PowerPoint slides. Strong visual images should be added to the presentation so that the audience is able to relate to the analogy between what you present and what is given in the slides. The slides should be able to communicate effectively with no loose writing in the analogy. When you understand how presenting works, you discover that all these things only look wrong if they are repeated and things should not be repeated in your presentation. To avoid this create a road map for yourself by making an agenda. Also, one should be careful not to overload each slide with too much content. Too much content in the slides will cause the audience to start reading ahead and not listen to the presenter. The presentation is the means, not the end in itself.

Before the presentation one should practice saying the lines in the presentation. While presenting in front of the audience, key points should be kept handy in the form of bullet points on a piece of paper. The bottom line is that the audience should be convinced that the presenter knows what he/she is talking about. One always wants their audience to pay attention to their presentation; the keys are to know the audience, engage with them, and handle questions they throw. If the audience is not paying attention then the presenter is obviously not being very stimulating. Presentations should always have a message and key take away since a strong message is conveyed by words, vocal force, and demeanor.

The most important presentation skill that needs to be addressed is how one feels about oneself when one is presenting. It’s all about image and confidence. I remember one incident when I was presenting in front of a group of my peers and was talking about an idea I have had. It was when someone interrupted me with a question about an important aspect I had not thought about. I had lost my train of thought and I was struggling to gain my composure. Such things do happen in real world presentations and one has to be spontaneous and on the feet to answer such unexpected queries with confidence.

A better outcome was possible had I kept my cool during the presentation. I also feel that it is important to smile at the audience during the presentation which will help you slow down a little bit and relax.