
There are many things that one must be aware of and have under control in order to deliver a great presentation. All these breelittle parts combine like pieces of a puzzle into a great session. You can nurture your unique style, you might have some components that you do well and some that you do less well, but if you want to be a solid (or even great) presenter or speaker, you need to conquer each one of them and bring them to a solid level! Let’s look into all of those aspects…
Purpose
Always have in mind the purpose of your presentation! Whether you want to provide information, entertain, motivate or persuade your audience and invite them to action, you should always be focused on what it is that you would like to achieve.
Design
Every presentation starts with a preparation and a design. Good presentation must have a basic structure – intro to warm up the audience and catch their attention, body of a presentation to explain the whole story with your ideas and arguments and closing to deliver your final message and invite to action. Next to the core message of the presentation, you can enrich your presentation with stories to provide motivation or knowledge on how to do something, analogies to add additional clarity and make it memorable, examples to link it to real life, quotes…
Don’t forget to create powerful visuals to support your message and catch the attention of the audience.
Delivery
This is where it all happens! This is where you get to convey your message! In order to do that effectively, you will need to grasp the attention of the audience. You will need to gain credibility, make it interesting, and make it memorable. You will have to extract the main message and carve it into your audience hearts and minds. To do so, you will need to master your body language, control your voice and pace and maintain a purposeful movement and balanced posture. Only if delivered with confidence and owning the stage (no fear! or at least develop fearless appearance :)) will your message have its full strength.
And don’t forget to keep it personal by maintaining good eye contact!
How am I going to do all that?!
Obviously, all this is not simple! That’s why this blog is here – to lead you step by step through all these aspects, and help you master each and every one of them!