Learning the right way to give a presentation at work is vital to getting ahead in your profession. Unfortunately, not lots of us often enjoy standing up in front of a crowd and giving a presentation.
In actual fact, in accordance with the National Social Anxiety Centre, public speaking is essentially the most common phobia of all. More people fear presentations than heights, death and spiders.
Nevertheless, as we all know, work presentations should not a life-or-death situation. You may still feel the familiar symptoms of your fight-or-flight response to public speaking – think nervousness, fast speech and fidgeting – but preparation can make it easier to minimise this.
On this blog, we’ll offer you actionable advice on giving a elegant, confident and effective presentation at work. We’ll also explore some quick recommendations on controlling those nerves. Let’s start.
10 steps to giving an ideal presentation
Work presentations come all the way down to three key periods:
- The preparation phase
- On the day, before your presentation
- During your presentation.
Designing your work presentation
1. Settle on the narrative of your presentation
Consider your presentation as a story you’re telling the audience. When you’re pitching a brand new campaign or product, think concerning the taking people on a journey from the challenge to how this solves it. Concentrate on the important thing areas that your audience must know and be prepared to debate details in response to any follow up questions. There’s room for creativity here, so long as it’s appropriate and skilled.
When you’re presenting data or results, what do these tell us? Is there a narrative that explains the numbers and charts? Give context around this information. Above all, your story should make it easier for people to know what you’re showing them.
Lastly, consider ending your presentation with a transparent call to motion, so that everybody leaves with a way of purpose.
2. Discover your audience
Think twice about who your presentation is for. What do they need to know? What do it’s worthwhile to tell them? It will make it easier to incorporate relevant information and prepare for follow-up questions. Are they already well-informed on the topic, or will it’s worthwhile to simplify things so that they only must devour the important thing points?
3. Clarify and concise slides
In her appearance on our Careers Advice Podcast, presentation coach Jay Surti warns against “death by Powerpoint”. She explains: “There’s a temptation to rely loads on slides and put a number of text into the slide. And, very often, those are the important thing things to avoid.”
When you’re using a slide deck, avoid cramming all your information into it. It’s crucial to maintain things clean and concise in order that the eye stays on you, with the slides there for key takeaways. When you’re presenting data, it’s a superb idea to have easy charts as an outline, with more detailed ones ready if it’s worthwhile to go deeper into the numbers.
4. Prepare notes (but not a script)
Like your slides, you need to start preparing notes as soon as possible. These will act as a memory aid in the course of the presentation – you shouldn’t read from a script, because you won’t be as engaging to your audience. A very powerful thing at first is getting your ideas down in a smooth order, fairly than making it word perfect. There will probably be loads of time to tweak and edit later.
5. Practice your presentation beforehand
Once what you’re saying and have slides ready, start rehearsing. You’ll be able to have friends, family or colleagues watch and provides feedback. You may also feel most comfortable in front of a mirror.
When you’re using Microsoft Office PowerPoint on your slides, AI tools will help. The Speaker Coach extension can make it easier to to identify probabilities to enhance your public speaking and keep your audience’s attention. This support includes hints on presentation styles, pacing, pitch and emphasising essential points.
Preparing on the day of your presentation at work
6. Know your audience members
As you get able to present, it’s vital to trust in your preparation. Basically, you shouldn’t be making big changes that may disrupt what you’ve planned for.
Nevertheless, making some tweaks to suit the audience within the room can enhance your presentation. Adapt your delivery style to suit a much bigger or smaller group. Consider a selected point you may address to a stakeholder you didn’t know could be there. All of it will make it easier to to grab your listeners’ attention.
7. Distribute handouts covering the most important points
If useful, prepare handouts 4 your audience to spotlight specific points or statistics. Remember, you don’t want this to be too detailed – keep it to key points or charts only. You’ll be able to reference these during your presentation.
Presenting itself: what do you during your presentation
8. Avoid reading
This point is so vital it’s price covering again. There’s nothing less engaging than anyone reading from a script or the slides. It’s completely positive to examine your notes in the event you lose track, but deal with speaking, fairly than reading.
9. Make eye contact
Make temporary but confident eye contact with audience members. This can be a big body language win in lots of areas of business, including presentations. If you’re making some extent, scan the room and maintain eye contact with a guest.
Then, pick another person and move on to the following point. Combined with a robust posture and supporting hand gestures, you’ll come across as knowledgeable and assured.
10. Speak clearly
Speak loudly, clearly and confidently. Despite the fact that it’s tempting to talk quickly, especially in the event you’re nervous, it’s higher to decelerate. Concentrate to your audience’s responses – you could must decelerate in the event that they’re not engaged.
Suggestions for coping with nerves during your work presentation
Following the above steps will vastly increase your probabilities of delivering an efficient presentation, but there are occasions if you still might end up coping with anxiety. Listed below are some suggestions for overcoming these nerves:
- Take deep breaths before you start to assist chill out.
- Stop for a sip of water. This offers you time to gather your thoughts and slow things down in the event you’ve been rushing.
- Pause at the tip of some extent or slide and decelerate. When you’re nervous, you’ll have began to speak quickly.
- Make sure you’re holding eye contact for at the very least a number of seconds with each member of the audience. Don’t gaze away from them for too long or keep repeatedly shifting your attention.
- When you’re uncomfortable with maintaining eye contact, otherwise you lose your house, take a moment to have a look at your slides. Don’t just read what’s on the screen, though – turn back to the audience as you make each point and pick anyone to deliver the purpose to.
The best way to give a virtual presentation
A lot of the 10 suggestions above will still apply in the event you’re giving a presentation online. You’ll be able to still send out a handout before the decision, although you don’t want people to deal with this in the course of the presentation.
- Upfront, arrange your slide deck to share in your selected mode. Do you wish notes to look on one other screen, or would you like to see how your audience are reacting.
- Without you being physically present, the audience’s focus will probably be on the screen and due to this fact your slide deck. On this instance, it’s okay to add more information without overwhelming them.
- Obviously, it won’t be possible to make eye contact with others, but consider selecting relevant people on the decision to reference in order that they feel involved and engaged.
On the lookout for more insights on giving an ideal presentation? Read more:
