Essential Presentation Skills

Essential Presentation Skills - the three things YOU MUST KNOW.

Here we expose the three essential pieces of information that can make your presentation fly. Most of these are common sense, but you'd be surprised how often they are missed out.

The Three Presentation Essentials

- Use visual aids where you can

- Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

- The audience will only remember
three messages

OK? Want to know more? We have built a number of lessons that will take you through the whole process.

Click on this link to take you to the first of the essentials.

Use visual aids in your next presentation.

Why should you use visual aids?

1. How we take in information during a presentation

Professor Albert Mehrabian did a lot of research into how we take in information during a presentation. He concluded that 55% of the information we take in is visual and only 7% is text.

There are some important conclusions that we can take in from this information

1. Use visuals (pictures, graphs, tables, props) whenever you can

2. In a speech you are only using 38% of the communication medium

3. Ditch the bullet points

2. Making the presentation memorable

In a Study at the Wharton Research Centre they showed that using visual slides had a dramatic effect on message retention. The effect of using visuals is truly staggering!

The old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words" is as true today as it has always been.

3. Achieving your objectives

If I said that I could double your chances of achieving your objectives in a presentation with just one piece of advice you would probably be very skeptical. And yet if you use visual images that is just what happens.

This study by Decker Communications showed that by using visuals in your presentation you could expect roughly to double the chance of achieving your objectives. And if you are trying to make a sales presentation or a job interview presentation, this piece of advice could have a major impact on your bank balance.

The conclusion: Use visual aids

So hopefully by now you have got the message loud and clear. Use visual aids in your next presentation.

Click on this link below to take you to the second of the essentials.

Rehearse your presentation and it will get better.

Sorry to sound like a bit of an old nag. It's obvious - rehearsing - isn't it? But it's also a bit of a drag and one that is easy to forget. It is probably the most common mistake of all presentations that I have seen.

You wouldn't dream of going to see a Shakespeare play at the RSC only to find that they hadn't properly learnt the script. You wouldn't dream of going to the opera to hear the band play out of time because they hadn't got round to rehearsing properly. Yet in presentations and in speeches we see this happening all the time.

The impact of inadequate rehearsal on the audience

Rehearsing could make the difference between a good and an average presentation.

1. Plan to rehearse your presentation out loud at least 4 times.

We suggest that you should rehearse at least four times, and if you can get word perfect so much the better. I know that you haven't got the time, but we have seen so many presentations that have been let down due to a lack of rehearsal.

Make sure that one of your rehearsals is in front of a really scary audience - family, friends, partners, colleagues; children. They will tell you quite plainly where you are going wrong - as well as providing you with the support that you need.

2. Rehearse against the clock

If you have to give a presentation in a short period of time then try to practice your presentation against the clock. This is particularly true with something like the five minute job presentation. You can add in parts from the script or take them out to fit the time. Allow extra time in your presentation for questions and watch out for nerves - this could mean that you talk faster on the day.

In the actual presentation you could take in a clock or take off your wrist watch and put it on the podium. This way you can see how the timings can develop.

3. Take a leaf out of Winston Churchill's book - memorize your script.

He is widely attributed as being one of the great speakers. It took him six weeks to prepare his Maiden Speech in the House of Commons and he learnt it word perfect.

4. Video or tape record yourself

A very simple trick that could help you with your performance is to video or tape record yourself. This will give you some immediate feedback and will enable you to fine tune your performance.

Videoing a rehearsal is the staple of many presentation training companies - so why not save time and money and do it yourself?

Does it work? - Just read this bit of feedback from someone who got a new job using these techniques

"Then I practised, I think this is the key.
I practised in front of my husband, my brother in law, my 12 year old daughter.
Then my 4 year old son on the day, he wasn't impressed, he just wanted me to put the telly on.

I blew their socks off!! he he

Definitely could not have done it without your help"

Rehearse and you will get better.

The Rule of Three - We remember three things.

The rule of three is one of the oldest in the book - Aristotle wrote about it in his book Rhetoric. Put simply it is that people tend to easily remember three things.

Remember as a kid when your mum sent you down to the shop to buy a number of things. But when you got to the shop all you could remember were three things. This is the rule of three

Odds are that people will only remember three things from your presentation

What will they be?

1. The audience are likely to remember only three things from your presentation - plan in advance what these will be.

Believe it or not, the chances are, people will only remember three things from your presentation. So before you start writing your presentation, plan what your three key messages will be. Once you have these messages, structure the main part of your presentation around these three key themes and look at how they could be better illustrated.

2. There are three parts to your presentation

The beginning, the middle and the end. Start to plan out what you will do in these three parts. The beginning is ideal for an attention grabber or for an ice breaker. The end is great to wrap things up or to end with a grand finale.

3. Use lists of three wherever you can in your presentation

Lists of three have been used from early times up to the present day. They are particularly used by politicians and advertisers who know the value of using the rule of three to sell their ideas.

Veni, Vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) - Julius Caesar**
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears" - William Shakespeare
"Our priorities are Education, Education, Education" - Tony Blair
A Mars a day helps you to work, rest and play - Advertising slogan
Stop, look and listen - Public safety announcement

A classic example of the rule of three was Winston Churchill's famous Blood, Sweat and Tears speech. He is widely attributed as saying I can promise you nothing but blood sweat and tears. What he actually said was "I can promise you Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears". Because of the rule of three we simply remember it as Blood sweat and tears.

There are lots of other examples of the rule of three on this link

4. In Presentations "Less is More"

If you have four points to get across - cut one out. They won't remember it anyway. In presentations less really is more. No one ever complained of a presentation being too short.

Presentation Essentials

Three Presentation Essentials

Use visual aids where you can

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

The audience will only remember three messages

So there you have the presentation essentials. I suggest that you print out this little box and stick it in your work book for future reference.

So does it all work? Well it works most of the time - but don't take my word for it Read these three posts on the Forum and make up your own mind....

"Got the job"
I Blew their socks off!!
Images in presentations

Good luck and happy presenting.

http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/Essential_Presentation_skills.htm