Within any business, there will be times when you will have to give a presentation or pitch an idea to your management and group of coworkers. The key to a successful presentation is, well, your presentation! Next time you’re up for one, try following these guidelines to help you project your message and attitude appropriately.
Own Your Audience
When you step out in front of everybody, you’ll want to make strong eye contact with them. This will secure their attention and tell them you are ready to start with confidence. To do this, you’ll want to get rid of your stomach butterflies before you walk into the spotlight and address them. Try holding your hands above your head for 15 second intervals and taking really deep breaths. This exercise should make you feel big and powerful, giving you that boost to own your presentation. Get up there and project your voice to everybody in the audience and engage them.
Engage Your Audience
Encourage questions. Try playing out a scenario with your audience, getting their brain gears cranking. With a more engaged audience, you will feel better about your topic and encouraged to continue forth with your ideas and demonstration. Ask your audience questions and to see if they will participate and keep them thinking about your topic. Keep your eyes bouncing from person to person, letting them know that you have their attention too.
Use Visuals
A presentation is always better with something the audience can set their eyes on and get a visual understanding of your project and/or ideas. Software like Microsoft PowerPoint and Prezi could help you with this. Both programs have a lot of options to keep your audience interested and convey your message using images, videos, lists, examples, et cetera. If a computer program is not going to be available, try using poster board, large papers, or making your own signs for your viewers. Using visuals is almost necessary in order to keep the boredom levels down and attention spans up.
Presentations can be very difficult. However, using these guidelines could help you feel better about them. Don’t be afraid to project your voice and value the opinions of others. Audience participation can pay off, too. Having a structured Q&A system at the end of your presentation could stir debate and develop an idea further, maybe even help untie the knots in your plan that were holding it back from being perfect and executable.