It is a common understanding that in order to get ahead in your career you must know how to present effectively. I hope you all agree to that statement because it's true. Unfortunately for many that is bad news. Many are afraid of presenting or have not taken the time to learn how to present effectively. Anyone can learn to present, it just takes work. There are many businesses out there that make a living on teaching you how to present. For example, the Toastmasters organization exists solely to teach people how to develop their speaking skills. Their tagline is; "Where Leaders are Made". Dale Carnegie Institute has many great classes on how to present as do many other organizations. But is it really that hard? In my opinion it is not but again it does take work. Let me give you an easy system to help you make significant progress in your presenting effectiveness.
Here is a simple presentation system that works.
1. What type of presentation will you be giving?
How you create and prepare for the presentation depends on what type of presentation you are giving. There are many types of presentations including one on one's, informal, formal, public, training, status, elevator speech presentations, and presenting to executives. Pick the type of presentation you will be preparing for; it will determine your strategy. Each type of presentation has a strategy associated with it.
2. Get clear on your presentation strategy.
This is where you figure out what your goals are and how you will achieve them. Let's take a few examples. If you are creating a presentation for updating the team on a project's status. The presentation should follow the project's timeline, its phases and progress on the business problem it is trying to solve. Make sure the presentation is accurate and does not throw anyone "under the bus". If you are presenting to a senior executive your strategy needs to be around getting the information they have requested in the least amount of pages as you can. This is a topic that we'll cover fully in a later article but for now let me summarize. Short, concise, well prepared presentation. You should be spending a considerable amount of time rehearsing the presentation and related topics. Executives can tend to bounce around asking questions about a variety of topics that you may or may not know.
3. Create the presentation using your system. Here's some basics.
Presentation software that you know how to use, usually PowerPoint but there are many others, learn how to use it.Professional presentation template; ask marketing or someone in your company for the standard presentation templateNo or little animationClear, concise, presentation that is short as possiblePerfect grammar, no typos, consistent font, headings, bulletsEasy to read and understand slides
4. Selecting the audience
You may or may not have a choice here but either way you need to understand your audience and the role they play in the presentation. It is critically important that you know who the advocates are and who are the detractors. That is, who is for and against the topic. Do some digging, ask around and don't be afraid to run the presentation by some of the participants before the meeting.
5. Giving the presentation
I always practice a presentation until I don't need any notes or other assistance. I will initially write notes in the notes section of the slides but practice until I don't need them. Remember you are not going to hit every single point you want to make. Nobody knows all the points you would like to make so if you miss a few no problem. Be clear, make sure everyone can hear you and never read the slides! Practice until your are comfortable, practice until you know the slides in detail, practice until the presentation is as short as possible.
In summary, it's always good for your career to have a system. This is an example of a presentation system I have used for years. It's an abbreviated look but I hope you get the idea. Presenting is important and done right can be rewarding and fun.
John M. Greene Jr. is President of CSB Training LLC and Chief Operating Officer of Collaborative Consulting LLC. He is the creator of the Career Skills Builder program ( http://www.careerskillsbuilder.com ), author, management and leadership coach. He can be contacted at john
View the Original article
0 comments:
Post a Comment