When you are giving a presentation, you want to be sure that your audience is interested and engaged in what you have to say. If your audience is not engaged and not interested in what you are saying, then you will find you be facing an uphill struggle – to get the results and outcomes that you need. So, to give powerful, meaningful, and thought-provoking presentations, what should you be focusing your efforts on, and what areas should you look at improving and enhancing?
Structure Your Presentation
Just simply talking for 30 minutes to your audience and expecting them to follow (and remember) what you are saying will prove fruitless. Your audience will have limited memory, and this is why structured presentations are so important. When a presentation is structured, you know where it is going, and you can be sure that the audience can follow with ease too. If a structure is not applied and followed, you could well find that your presentation is meaningless and non-impactful, ad, of course, this is not what you want.
Focus on How You Communicate
What you say during a presentation and how you say it is crucially important. Communication is key in any presentation. You need to know what to say, when, and why. Language and structure techniques should be used in your presentation, and you should also know and focus on how your audience sees you. If you are not communicating clearly, you will find that your audience will be disengaged. Turning around a disengaged and uninterested audience can be challenging and it can be consuming. This is why it is better to focus on engaging them through great communication from the outset.
Adding Visual Elements
If you are simply talking for 1 hour, you need to know how to keep your audience engaged and interested in what you are saying. Utilizing visual aids and elements within your presentation can help them stay both focused and attentive. When you are adding visual elements, it is important to focus on using necessary and relevant visuals. If you go overboard with visuals, you could impact their attention and interest span. You must be conservative with visuals and use them sparingly to retain interest.
Take Time to Practice
Having time to practice a technique and a presentation is important. When you have time to practice, you have space to grow and develop your offering. If you are simply presenting or pitching without any practice beforehand, you may find that you make silly and small avoidable mistakes. Giving yourself time and space to practice will also help to bolster your confidence.
Seek Support and Guidance
Trying to be great at giving presentations from the outset isn’t always going to happen. Sometimes, you may also find you keep repeating your mistakes over and over again. To break this cycle and to improve what you are doing and offering, you need to see support and guidance. Having a trusted professional there by yourself to aid and assist your efforts is important. Guidance and support will help you to see areas for improvement which you may not have seen by yourself.
