Transform Your Presentation Skills

Presenting seems to be an area that worries many people.  It has been claimed that people fear presenting more than death.  Presentations can be challenging but incredibly motivating when done successfully.  So what can you do to transform your presentation skills?

Plan and prepare

You would not set out to cook a meal, take a vacation or trip or build something without planning and preparing.  Presenting is no different. You need to plan and prepare thoroughly.  Many people launch straight into writing.  Start first by getting clear on the outcome you want for you and your audience.  Start to sketch out some outlines.  I have found mind maps to be extremely powerful during the design phase.  Do some research about the presentation topic.  You can do a search on Google, read a books or magazines, ask those that you are presenting for their input and research your audience.

Practice

You might be comfortable that you understand the topic on which you are presenting but you need to practice your presentation.  By practice I mean presenting out loud.  Start doing it alone, then get some colleagues or friends together who will give you honest and constructive feedback and if you can, try and do a run through in the specific venue where you will present.

Use Your Nervous Energy Positively

Just about everyone is nervous before they give a presentation and nerves are perfectly normal.  You have two choices at this time.  You can choose to allow the nerves to get in the way of you delivering a great presentation.  Alternatively, you can use this nervous energy positively to deliver a great presentation.  Doing some deep breathing just before a presentation can go a long way to transforming how you deliver your presentation.

Ask for Feedback

If you want to continually improve your presentation skills, ask for feedback.  The feedback that you receive will help pinpoint areas where you are performing strongly and areas where you can be even more effective.  When receiving feedback, remember not to fall into the common trap of giving all the focus to those areas where you need to be more effective.  You want to make sure that you are exploiting your strengths to the maximum so that you get better and better.