Basic Presentation Skills

Presented By:Akhilesh Kumar Dwivedi

Program Objective• Understand how to structure a presentation

and deliver the content,• Design presentations which are visually

appealing.• Fine tune verbal and non- verbal behavior for

impact.• Overcome the fear of Public speaking.• Under stand common pitfalls of ineffective

presentation and avoid them.

“I always think a great speaker convinces us not by force of reasoning but because he is visibly enjoying the beliefs he wants us to accept.”

-W.B. Yeats

What is a good presenter?

“A presenter should be like a mini skirt:Long enough to cover the vital parts,and short enough to attract attention.”

IntroductionPresentations skills are important in general: quite often

during your study, and also later in your career, you will need to use this skill.

Presentations can have different objectives: • To inform, • To sell something, • To persuade someone, or • To train people.

• the speaker was nervous• the speaker was disorganised• the speaker never looked at me• the speaker had bad accent• the speaker did not sound enthusiastic• the speaker was monotonous• the visuals were bad• I was irritated by his/her clothing• the speaker was speaking too softly• the speech was confused; I didn’t know what he/she was trying to tell me

This is what irritates people during presentations

Research by Harvard University suggest that:

“ For many people the thought of giving a public presentation is more disturbing than the thought of dying.”

Push yourself out of your comfort zone

• The way we communicate has been learned over our entire life. We do what we do because we are comfortable that way . Often, however our comfort zone limits us.

• In fact , any change or skill building requires that we step out of comfort zone and try some new behavior.

• The first time we try something new, it may seem difficult, but with the time and practice, we become comfortable doing it.

4P’s of PresentationPresentation and public speaking skill is an art and anyone can master

this art with a preparation and practice.

To avoid any negative outcome the following aspects are important in making a presentation:

• Plan• Prepare• Practice• Present / Deliver

Plan

Some people think that they can deliver effective presentations without planning.

But experienced presenter know that they need to plan the presentation and anticipate situations that may occur.

Benefits of planning your presentation include:

• Polished delivery.• The ability to give a presentation within time

limit.• Anticipation of the audiences comfort.• The ability to alter a presentation to meet

various needs.• Reduction of technical problems.

To plan an effective presentation, you need to determine its purpose and to determine the purpose of your presentation , you should ask yourself the following:

• Why this specific presentation?• What should the participants be able to do or

understand after going through the presentation?• How should the participants react at the end of the

presentation?

This is the basic structure of a talk:

1. Introduction

2. Main part (body)

3. Conclusion

4. Question & Answer session

Prepare

This means that you need to plan every part carefully. Your presentation must tell a story. At this stage you are like a screen-writer, someone who is writing a play.

Preparation at homeWhen you plan your presentation you need to answer the

following questions:1. Who is my audience (how much do they know about my

topic?)2. How am I going to organise my topic? (it needs to tell a

story)3. How long should my presentation be? (you will have time

limits and you need to say everything within that limit)4. What visual support shall I use? (PowerPoint,

transparencies, models, objects...?)

Putting parts together

Particularly if you are working in a group it is important that you put the parts of your speech in a logical sequence. Your presentation needs to tell a story and be told in a simple language so that the audience can follow you. You will no doubt discover many ideas that you want to include in your presentation but you must be selective. Include only the information that is relevant to your audience and your objective. Leave all other ideas out. What approach should you use? Formal or informal? Lots of visual aids or only a few? But remember, your time is always limited, therefore be selective.

Effective vocal technics include:

• Speed – It is rate at which you communicate the message to the audience.

• Volume – The optimum volume depends on the size of the room and the size of the audience.

• Pitch – Pitch is the tone or the inflection in your voice.

• Quality – Vocal quality is the overall sound of your voice.

Non-Verbal Communication

Effective non-verbal communication includes:

• Eye contact• Facial expression• Appearance• Hand gesture• Posture

Visuals

Professor Albert Mehrabian carried out some investigative research several years ago to find out which factors most influence an audience during a presentation.The results showed that most what an audience remembers are things they have seen.The next important factors is the tone of voice used by the presenter and least influential factor is the actual content of the presentation.

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Pictures & Everything they see(Except Bullet Points)

Tone of Voice Text & Content ( IncludingBullet Points)

Presentation Skills

Presentation Skills

The ratios are :• Visual impact - 55 %• Tone of voice – 38 %• Text and Content – 7 %

Visual Aids

should be on

the

speaker’s

left.

Practice Practice is a vital part of preparation. You should leave time to practise your

speech two or three times and also practise with your group. In this way you will:

– become more familiar with what you want to say

– identify weaknesses in your presentation

– be able to practise difficult pronunciations

– be able to check the time that your presentation takes and make any

necessary modifications .

So practise, practise, practise! Prepare everything: words, visual aids, timing,

equipment. Rehearse your presentation several times and time it. Is it the right

length? Are you completely familiar with all your illustrations? Are they in the

right order? Can you give good comments to your visuals? How will you

answer difficult questions? Do you know the room? Are you confident about the

equipment? When you have answered all these questions, you will become

more confident .

Present / Deliver

As presenter, most of the attention is focused on you – what you are saying and how you are delivering your message. To be an effective communicator you must use presentation skills that promote a coordinated presentation.Even a well organised presentation with appealing visual aids can fail to reach its objectives if the presenter’s delivery style is not effective.

Presenter as an “Actor”

When you come to stand on the podium you become the actor of your presentation. During your presentation you are going to speak and not read from your notes. This means using your voice, and also your body language. What is importnat is that you establish eye contact with each member of your audience. Each person should feel that you are speaking directly to him or her. You need to think in advance: Where shall I stand? How shall I keep eye contact? Where shall I keep my hands? What if I get lost? How to manage audience phobia?

Introduction

Introduction is probably the most important part. ThePurpose of the introduction is “to tell the audience what you are going to tell them”. You should remember that there is no second chance for a first bad impression. If you start off badlyyou will spoil everything.During the introduction you need to achieve the following aims:

Gain Attention

attract Interest

create Desire

stimulate Action

Getting started - greeting the audience

• Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.• Welcome to my presentation.• It’s very nice to see you all here today.• Can we get started?• Let me say just a few words about my background...

What you need to do first is to greet your audience. Here are some useful phrases:

Making an effective opening

• Give them a problem to think about (Suppose you... Why is it that...)• Give them some amazing facts.(Did you know that ...)• Give them a story or a personal anecdote.(stories always atract

attention) • Use a citation (if you want to start on a more philosophical note) • Make a funny remark(but be careful with humour, not all jokes work well)• Record a music piece perhaps (if appropriate for the topic)

There are several ways how to attract the audience right from the beginning. Think of one of the following techniques to introduce your talk:

Possible Introduction Scheme:

1. start with welcoming courtesies/introduce yourself2. state the purpose of your talk, using one of the techniques3. give a route map (tell them how long will your presentation take) 4. give the rules (do you allow to be interrupted or should your audience keep questions until the end)

Some useful phrases

• What I want to do this morning is to …..• My talk will take about 30 minutes.• During my presentation, I’m going to be focusing on four main areas. • I’ll be giving out copies of my transparencies at the end.• If you have any questions, or comments you’d like to make, please don’t hesitate to stop me.

Ending your talk

When you come to the end of your presentation you need to indicate this to the people. Don’t just end up abruptly without giving a conclusion.The purpose of the conclusion is to “tell the people what you have told them”.

Follow this scheme:

• summarise facts• give recommendations• give proposals

Thank the audience

Invite questions

Ending your talk : useful phrases

Thanking the audience & Inviting questions

•Thank you for your attention and if you have any questions I’ll be pleased to answer them.• I’ll be happy to answer any questions.• Are there any questions you’d like to ask?

Wrapping up• This brings me to the end of my presentation.• Let me just run over the key points again…• To sum up briefly…• To conclude …• As we’ve seen…• So, my recommendation is ….• I would welcome any suggestions.

Questions & Answers

“Does anyone have any questions for my answers?”

-Henry Kissinger

Questions & Answers• Beginning of a whole new interactive

presentation• Opportunity to make a point• Most presentations are won or lost

here

Questions & Answers

• Anticipate lines of questioning

• Rehearse• Don’t rank questions• Keep answers brief• Be honest• Avoid negative

words

• Don’t repeat negative questions

• Clarify question• Defer to experts• Move your eyes off

questioner• If negative, end your

response focused on somebody else

• Look at the questioner.• Remain neutral and attentive.• Listen to the whole question.• Pause before you respond.• Address the questioner, then move your eyes

to others.

Instead…

Easy as A B C

“I can’t Answer that question Because …, but I Can tell you…”

“Better to keep your mouth shut and appear ignorant than open it and remove all doubt.”

-Mark Twain

Consider this in preparing your presentation:

• Simplify the text.

• Focus your material. You can’t say everything.

• Use transitions (signsposting) to move smoothly.

• Use examples, anecdotes, statistics to support your message.

• Use a lot of visuals to reinforce the message.

• Consider timing.

• Apply the KISS principle. KISS principle: Keep it Simple Stupid.

• Practise alone and with the whole group.

Conclusion

“Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.”

-Dorothy Sarnoff

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Thank You..