Presentation skills- Planning, Structure and Delivery

Presentation skills can be defined as a set of abilities that enable an individual to interact with
the audience; transmit the messages with clarity; engage the audience in the presentation; and
interpret and understand the mind sets of the listeners. These skills refine the way you put
forward your messages and enhance your persuasive powers.

Importance of Presentation Skills

Interaction with others is a routine job of businesses in today’s world. The importance of
good presentation skills is established on the basis of following points:

 They help an individual in enhancing his own growth opportunities. In addition, it

also grooms the personality of the presenter and elevates his levels of confidence.

 In case of striking deals and gaining clients, it is essential for the business
professionals to understand the audience. Good presentation skills enable an
individual to mould his message according to the traits of the audience. This increases
the probability of successful transmission of messages.

 Lastly, business professionals have to arrange seminars and give presentations almost
every day. Having good presentation skills not only increases an individual’s chances
of success, but also enable him to add greatly to the organization.

Types of Presentations

Informative Presentations - The purpose of informative presentations is to promote

understanding of an idea or to convey information. They are often used to provide people
with information about a concept or idea that is new.
Persuasive Presentations- The second type of presentation is a persuasive presentation. The
goal of a persuasive presentation is to influence a change in the belief, attitude, or behaviour
of another person when that person has some degree of free choice
 Planning Your Presentation 
Step 1: Analyse your audience

The first step in preparing a presentation is to learn more about the audience to whom you'll
be speaking. It's a good idea to obtain some information on the backgrounds, values, and
interests of your audience so that you understand what the audience members might expect
from your presentation.

Step 2: Select a topic

Next, if possible, select a topic that is of interest to the audience and to you. It will be much
easier to deliver a presentation that the audience finds relevant, and more enjoyable to
research a topic that is of interest to you.
 Step 3: Define the objective of the presentation

Once you have selected a topic, write the objective of the presentation in a single concise
statement. The objective needs to specify exactly what you want your audience to learn from
your presentation.

Step 4: Prepare the body of the presentation

After defining the objective of your presentation, determine how much information you can
present in the amount of time allowed. Also, use your knowledge about the audience to
prepare a presentation with the right level of detail. You don't want to plan a presentation that
is too basic or too advanced.

The body of the presentation is where you present your ideas. To present your ideas
convincingly, you will need to illustrate and support them. Strategies to help you do this
include the following:

 Present data and facts

 Read quotes from experts
 Relate personal experiences
 Provide vivid descriptions

And remember, as you plan the body of your presentation it's important to provide variety.

Step 5: Prepare the introduction and conclusion

Once you've prepared the body of the presentation, decide how you will begin and end the
talk. Make sure the introduction captures the attention of your audience and the conclusion
summarizes and reiterates your important points.

During the opening of your presentation, it's important to attract the audience's attention and
build their interest. If you don't, listeners will turn their attention elsewhere and you'll have a
difficult time getting it back. Strategies that you can use include the following:

 Make the introduction relevant to the listeners' goals, values, and needs
 Ask questions to stimulate thinking
 Make a stimulating or inspirational statement
 Give a unique demonstration

During the opening you want to clearly present your topic and the purpose of your
presentation. Clearly articulating the topic and purpose will help the listeners focus on and
easily follow your main ideas.

During the conclusion of your presentation, reinforce the main ideas you communicated.
Remember that listeners won't remember your entire presentation, only the main ideas. By
reinforcing and reviewing the main ideas, you help the audience remember them.
Step 6: Practice delivering the presentation

Most people spend hours preparing a presentation but very little time practicing it. When you
practice your presentation, you can reduce the number of times you utter words and phrases
like, "um," "well," and "you know." These habits can easily diminish a speaker's credibility.
You can also fine-tune your content to be sure you make your most important points in the
time allotted.

In addition to planning the content of your presentation, you need to give advanced thought to
how you want to deliver it. Do you want to commit your presentation to memory, use cards to
guide you, or read from a script? Or, you might want to use a combination of methods.

Advantage and disadvantage of delivery report 

Speaking from Memory

A distinct advantage of speaking from memory is your ability to speak to the audience
without relying on notes or a script. This allows you the flexibility to move away from the
podium and to maintain eye contact with the audience. However, speaking from memory has
disadvantages, too. Presentations from memory often sound rehearsed and the possibility
exists that you'll forget an important point, present information that's inaccurate, or
completely lose your train of thought.

Speaking from Notes

Many people like to speak from notes. Typically, these notes are either on cards or paper in
outline form and contain key ideas and information. The benefit of delivering a presentation
from notes is that you sound natural rather than rehearsed and you can still maintain
relatively good eye contact with the audience.

Speaking from Text

Speaking from text involves writing your speech out, word for word, then basically reading
from the text. As with speaking from memory, an advantage of this method is that you plan,
in advance, exactly what you're going to say and how you're going to say it. A disadvantage
is that you might appear to the audience to be stiff or rehearsed. You will need to make
frequent eye contact and speak with expression to maintain the audience's interest.

Using a Combination of Methods

You may find the best method to be a combination of all three. For instance, experts suggest
you memorize the first and last ten minutes of your talk so that you can speak flawlessly and
without notes. Finally, speaking from a text might be appropriate when you have quotes or
other important points that you want to make sure you communicate accurately and
completely

Delivering the Presentation

How you say things may often appear to be more important than what you say. Have you
listened to charismatic speakers who gain and maintain the attention of the audience? Have
you also encountered speakers who quickly put an audience to sleep? Experienced presenters
learn to communicate effectively by using voice, gestures, and visual aids while trying to
establishing a comfortable environment for the audience.

Voice

Using your voice effectively can have a great impact on your delivery. The best speaking
voice is conversational, natural, and enthusiastic. Use the following guidelines to develop an
effective speaking voice:

 Alter the pitch (high and low) of your voice to prevent yourself from sounding
monotone.
 Speak loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the room, but vary the volume of
your voice to maintain interest and emphasize key points.
 Stress certain words as another way to add emphasis. Typically, when you stress a
word, the pitch and the volume increase.
 Alter the rate at which you speak to maintain interest and add emphasis. Speak slower
to show the importance of an idea. Pause after important ideas to allow the audience
time to grasp them.

Gestures

Speakers often communicate with their audience either intentionally or unintentionally using
gestures and other physical behaviours.

 Maintain eye contact with members of the audience to keep their attention level high.
Eye contact signals that you care about the audience and you are attuned to their
needsUse positive facial expressions such as smiles, expressive eyes, and looks of
empathy and encouragement to communicate feelings and emotions.

 Minimize gestures like pacing back and forth, rocking back and forth, playing with
coins in your pocket, wringing your hands, and other types of fidgeting. These
gestures not only signal that you are nervous, but they are distracting to the listener as
well.

 Use quick and energetic movements of your hands and arms to add expression to your
talk. Maintain the attention of the audience by making your movements unpredictable.

Visual Aids in Presentation

Visual aids can help you emphasize main ideas, illustrate a concept, or stimulate the interest
of your listeners. Examples of visual aids include posters, overheads, flip charts, photographs,
computer-generated slides, and three-dimensional effects.

 Use visual aids to emphasize important points and add interest to your presentation —
don't put every word of your entire presentation on them.

 Select the appropriate visual aid for the environment.

 Give the visuals a consistent appearance including colour and spacing. Start the text at
the same place on each visual.
  Make sure the text is large enough for people in the back of the room to read.
 Don't show visuals that conflict with what you're saying — this includes displaying
them once you've moved beyond their content.

 Don't read the text that's on the visual, but do paraphrase and add to it.

Explanation-

Why is structuring a presentation so important?

If you’ve ever sat through a great presentation, you'll have left feeling either inspired or informed
on a given topic. This isn’t because the speaker was the most knowledgeable or motivating person
in the world. Instead, it’s because they know how to structure presentations - they have crafted
their message in a logical and simple way that has allowed the audience can keep up with them
and take away key messages.

Before choosing the presentation's structure answer these questions first:

1. What is your presentation's aim?

2. Who are the audience?
3. What are the main points your audience should remember afterwards?

Q What is the typical presentation structure?

Introduction

In the introduction you need to explain the subject and purpose of your presentation whilst gaining
the audience's interest and confidence. It's sometimes helpful to think of your introduction as
funnel-shaped to help filter down your topic:

1. Introduce your general topic

2. Explain your topic area
3. State the issues/challenges in this area you will be exploring
4. State your presentation's purpose - this is the basis of your presentation so ensure that you
provide a statement explaining how the topic will be treated, for example, "I will argue
that…" or maybe you will "compare", "analyse", "evaluate", "describe" etc.
5. Provide a statement of what you're hoping the outcome of the presentation will be, for
example, "I'm hoping this will be provide you with..."
6. Show a preview of the organisation of your presentation

In this section also explain:

 The length of the talk.

 Signal whether you want audience interaction - some presenters prefer the audience to ask
questions throughout whereas others allocate a specific section for this.
 If it applies, inform the audience whether to take notes or whether you will be providing
handouts.

The way you structure your introduction can depend on the amount of time you have been given
to present:
The main body of your talk
The main body of your talk needs to meet the promises you made in the introduction. Depending
on the nature of your presentation, clearly segment the different topics you will be discussing, and
then work your way through them one at a time - it's important for everything to be organised
logically for the audience to fully understand. There are many different ways to organise your
main points, such as, by priority, theme, chronologically etc.

 Main points should be addressed one by one with supporting evidence and examples.
 Before moving on to the next point you should provide a mini-summary.
 Links should be clearly stated between ideas and you must make it clear when you're
moving onto the next point.
 Allow time for people to take relevant notes and stick to the topics you have prepared
beforehand rather than straying too far off topic.

When planning your presentation write a list of main points you want to make and ask yourself
"What I am telling the audience? What should they understand from this?" refining your answers
this way will help you produce clear messages.

4. Conclusion
In presentations the conclusion is frequently underdeveloped and lacks purpose which is a shame
as it's the best place to reinforce your messages. Typically, your presentation has a specific goal -
that could be to convert a number of the audience members into customers, lead to a certain
number of enquiries to make people knowledgeable on specific key points, or to motivate them
towards a shared goal.

Regardless of what that goal is, be sure to summarise your main points and their implications. This
clarifies the overall purpose of your talk and reinforces your reason for being there.

Follow these steps:

 Signal that it's nearly the end of your presentation, for example, "As we wrap up/as we
wind down the talk…"
 Restate the topic and purpose of your presentation - "In this speech I wanted to
compare…"
 Summarise the main points, including their implications and conclusions

5. Thank the audience and invite questions

Conclude your talk by thanking the audience for their time and invite them to ask any
questions they may have.

Delivery of a presentation skill-

Presentations, in many different formats, are a big part of being a small business owner. You
may be delivering your elevator pitch at a networking event, pitching your services during a
sales call, or speaking at a small business conference. Although they are all very different
types of presentations, they are all important for small business owners.
Make Eye Contact with your Audience
This sounds very easy, but a surprisingly large number of presenters fail to do it. If you make
eye contact, you are building rapport, which helps the audience to connect with you and
your subject. It also helps you to feel less nervous, because you are talking to individuals, not
to a great mass of unknown people. The beginning of your presentation is crucial. You need
to grab your audience’s attention and hold it.

Identify Your Goals

What are your goals? Why are you presenting? Are you trying to win business? Are you
sharing your expertise? Take time to identify your goals and keep them in mind as you
develop your presentation.

Know Your Time Limit

Make sure you know how long you will have to present. It's vital to know if you're delivering
a 60-second elevator pitch, a half hour tutorial or a two-hour presentation before you start
preparing your content.

Write It Down

Even if your presentation is short and simple, avoid the temptation to keep your content only
in your head. Your presentation should be written down so you can revise, practice and fine-
tune before the big day.

Memorize It

Don't worry, I'm not going to suggest that you need to memorize every word of your
presentation. But...start by memorizing the key points anyway. Knowing the content inside
and out will make you more comfortable and confident during the delivery.

Leave Something Behind

Handouts are a great way to drive home your message and give attendees something to refer
to after they leave. Be sure to include your contact information and invite the audience to
contact you with questions. And always attend events with a handful of business cards.

How to Improve Presentation Skills

Development of good presentation skills requires efforts and hard work. To improve your
presentation skills, you must:

 Research the Audience before Presenting: This will enable you to better understand
the traits of the audience. You can then develop messages that can be better
understood by your target audience.

 Structure your Presentation Effectively: The best way to do this is to start with

telling the audience, in the introduction, what you are going to present. Follow this by
presenting the idea, and finish off the presentation by repeating the main points.
  Do a lot of Practice: Rehearse but do not go for memorizing the presentation.
Rehearsals reduce your anxiety and enable you to look confident on the presentation
day. Make sure you practice out loud, as it enables you to identify and eliminate
errors more efficiently.
Rule for slideshow

 Contain no more than 10 slides;

 Last no more than 20 minutes; and
 Use a font size of no less than 30 point.