Our presentation training seminar is the most highly participatory and personalized seminar of its kind. Participants have two instructors to help them learn and practice fundamental and advanced presentation skills. There are 10 digitally recorded personal presentations and each of the 10 presentations is followed by personalized one-on-one feedback from a senior instructor to guarantee progress and eliminate any distracting behaviors.
For more information and pricing on our presentation training seminars, please contact us.
Seminar Objectives:
Present technical information clearly, concisely, and persuasively.
Enhance voice projection, articulation, pace and fluency, body language, eye contact, and gestures.
Determine audience attitudes and needs.
Overcome nervousness, anxiety, and any distracting mannerisms.
Use both common and high-tech media effectively.
Implement persuasive communication techniques.
Project control and confidence.
Plan and develop complete, formalized product presentations around the market forces that affect business.
Structure presentations to gain maximum effect.
Use audience involvement techniques to identify and handle questions.
Set up an on going action plan to improve future presentations.
The ability to present confidently and professionally is one of the most important skills you will need as you climb the corporate ladder. Today's corporate environment expects that workers, on any rung of the corporate ladder, are able to deliver presentations that provide valuable information to their audience. For most people, when they are asked by their boss to make a presentation they dive into PowerPoint, prepare too many slides, and then bore their audience. The end result is an audience that is bored, is no more informed than they were before the presentation, and is no mood to view the presenter in a favourable light. This situation is easily rectified if the presenter follows the six steps below.
1. The one sentence speech
Before you place your fingers on the keyboard to start typing your slides you need to know what you want to communicate with the audience. You need to be able to consolidate your speech into one simple sentence - your message! Once you have your message defined you'll be able to decide if a slide or the points that you are making on a slide align with your message. If they do; great - keep them in. If they don't - remove them as they'll only to confuse your audience.
2. Keep your points to the point
A common problem seen in presentations is the desire to effectively write the entire speech onto the PowerPoint slides. If you're going to do that and then get up and read the slide word for word why not just email the presentation to everyone so they can read it in their own time?
The slides should have clear simple bullet points that reinforce the words that you are saying. Generally I try to have no more than ten words per bullet point and a limit of five bullets per slide.
3. Animation in moderation
In an attempt to convey an image of preparation desperate presenters turn to the animations tools in PowerPoint. They have bullets sliding in from the left, then the right. The current slide dissolves to reveal the next slide where the text rises from the bottom of the screen. While this "entertainment" is happening the audience has stopped listening to what's being said and what the text that's moving around the screen is saying to them; instead they are all trying to determine where on the screen the next word will appear from and where it will land. While I recommend people to avoid using animation entirely - if you do decide to use, please do so in moderation.
4. Meet and greet
Get out and meet your audience and you'll find that they are a friendly bunch of people who want to hear what you have to say. The common thought process for a speaker or presenter is to believe that the audience is waiting to watch them fail. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let's face it, when was the last time you sat there wanted to see them fail? The reality of the situation is when you get and meet the people in your audience you'll find that you're in a room full of friendly people. This simple act will break down the barriers you have in your head and make the act of delivering a presentation become a chat amongst friends.
5. The most important key
A common error made by inexperienced presenters is to have a slide projecting onto the screen that has no relevance to what they are saying at that point in time. If you reach a point in your presentation where you either have no slide display that matches the word you are saying; or you want to take a short detour from your pre-prepared script then you need to remove a distraction from the audiences field of view. If you leave a slide projecting on the screen your audience will be distracted. It is far better to remove the distraction by either blackening the screen or whitening the screen. This can be done by simply pressing the "B" key or the "W" key. You can then detour from what is displayed on the screen without the audience being distracted, and when you are ready to return to your slide show you can press either the W or B key again and you will return back to your PowerPoint presentation.
6. Have a plan B
Inevitably something will go wrong at some point. Whether its your laptop that fails, a presentation that loses its formatting making it unreadable, or a data projector that won't project as the presenter it's your responsibility to deal with the situation. It's at this point where speakers who have prepared properly shine. They are able to deal with the setbacks confidently and professionally. And, more often than not, in the eyes of the audience, you move from being just another presenter to someone the audience can trusts and has confidence in simply because you were able to give a credible presentation in spite of the setbacks. Consider what could happen and have some simple plans to deal with the problems as they arise then you'll find yourself looking like a star when the world is collapsing around every other presenter.
These six simple steps will help you stand out in your workplace. Your ability to deliver presentations that won't bore your fellow workers will help put you at the forefront of your bosses mind when it comes time for promotion. The ability to communicate well in public is a skill that becomes more valuable the higher you are on the corporate ladder. The six steps discussed will help you demonstrate that you are ready for your next promotion.
Mark Kyte is a presentation skills expert. He coaches clients around Australia helping them improve their public speaking and presentation skills so they can advance in their careers. Mark can be contacted via his website http://www.markkyte.com.