Practice alone can make your presentations look better
Many of us dread having to give a presentation. And we owe the reason to a past experience where we failed to impress our audience or even worse made a joke of ourselves. We evade looking into the actual reasons behind the failure and develop a disinterest for presentation. But how long can we escape giving presentations?
So what does it take to make a presentation successful?
Mark Twain once said that he needs more than three weeks to make a ‘good impromptu speech’. Now that explains what a successful presentation needs.
We pour much time and efforts into making a report or documentation in the form of research into the subject, collecting illustrations and graphics, structuring the document, phrasing and rephrasing the content.
But when it comes to presentation we are lost for direction. And this is exactly where we fail- the preparation.
Colleen Kettenhofen, the co-author of The Masters of Success says, “With presentation skills, the work is in the preparation, the fun is in the presentation.” So where to being the preparation and how to go about it?
Colleen suggests that we first gather adequate information about our audience.
She says that this will keep us informed about their expectations and objection, based on which we can begin to rehearse.
Then is the content. Appropriate content is the result of defining the purpose of our presentation while keeping the target audience in mind. Once this material is ready, the groundwork for preparing for a presentation is completed.
Next step is planning and rehearsing the presentation. As presenters we often experience peculiar feeling like tongue sticking to the roof of our mouth, going weak on knees, legs turning into jelly, not being able to think straight and going blank when asked to give a presentation. This is all because of anxiety. One way to overcome this is visualisation.
This helps us to cut ourselves from the reality and recharge our self-esteem. We can develop a message while envisaging ourselves enjoying giving the presentation and then note down the strengths (or positive aspects) of the instance.
This can be used to create a template of what to talk and how to behave when we face the real audience. The strengths can be ease of delivery, awareness of our subject knowledge, structuring of the speech or handling queries.
We can gain more control over our fear by assuming worst cases and imagining ourselves handling them smartly.
Presentation is all about influencing our audience. And our audience can be comfortable with us only when we show that we are comfortable in their presence. This can be achieved by controlling the different elements of a presentation. So, after the template is prepared, we have to work on finer details. These include the words we would be using, our accent, pronunciation, pace, voice modulation, body language, facial expression and visual aids.
We can practise by talking in front of a mirror or our friends and seeking their feedback. Here the point is to practise the rules of good presentation. Speaking the script aloud helps us to modulate volume without the hint of shouting. A pace, lower than the average helps even foreigners understand our message.
Elongating vowels and emphasising consonants makes meaning clearer. Upright posture reflects confidence. Voice can be used to develop desired emotions.
Occasional humour and questions to audience can make the session interactive and lively.
Going through the script over and over helps us to anticipate queries and accustoms us to delivering the speech in any kind of environment.
When making a presentation the tongue has to work harder for we speak for a long time, jaws and lips open wider to produce resonant sound and chest muscles expand far more to allow higher volume of sound. We can train ourselves for this by imitating different accents, speaking out scripts in foreign languages and observing how our body responds to these. This exercise will acquaint our muscles to the toil called presentation.
Sometimes even after much preparation, we may go blank when the turn arrives. Here are a few rescue tips for such situations:
• Breathe in and breathe out
• Keep limbs flexible, free to move
• Do not hold elbows tight against the chest, rib cage should be allowed to expand to breathe freely
• To get saliva flowing in a dry mouth, close the lips and run the tip of the tongue between the front teeth
One successful presentation is all most of us need to drive away our presentation phobia forever.
A little time and effort dedicated to the practice can accelerate our professional success.
And the more often we give presentations the time we require for preparation actually reduces.
NITYA SAI SOUMYA
faqs@cnkonline.com
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