Tips for Great Presentations
To be successful, you need to keep some key points in mind for every presentation. It doesn't matter who the audience is or what the talk is about.
The principles are always the same. When you follow these simple principles, your results will improve massively.
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Here is a "cheat sheet" for you to use for every presentation so that you engage the audience and give great presentations every time:
- Stick to keywords on your mind maps, and let your speech flow from there.
- Think of your audience as friends: they all want you to do your best!
- Keep an eye on the state of the listeners in the room.
- Tell stories: start early in your presentation, but don't finish the stories until right at the end. This will keep people involved.
- Have your projects and visual aids to the left side from the audience perspective - they will remember it better there.
- Think about what emotional states you want people in at different stages of your presentation, and design your content and your audience.
- Remember that you will have people who learn differently in your audience - make sure you cater to:
- Visual learners - by showing them things, and allowing them to "see" the "clear" benefits which they can "pick" to "show" them the way things are so they can "watch" and "see" the results.
- Auditory learners - by telling them things that they can "tune In" to, "harmonize" with and "listen to". Check that it "sounds good" to them. Make your message "clear as a bell", and ask them to "hear you out".
- Kinesthetic learners - by allowing them to "grasp" ideas and really "come to grips" with your message, they can catch "the drift" of what you are saying.
Structure your presentation so that you cover the areas of:
- Why they need to know this information
- What the information is
- How it all works
- What if the situation changes, or certain things happen, etc.
Keep questions until you get to the "What if" section of the presentation to make sure the message is covered and then, so that people know that there is going to be an opportunity for them to get their questions answered.
If you can add humor through images and words, all the better-it will be even more memorable.
