How to make my presentation more presentable and eye catching
Be Entertaining – Speeches should be entertaining and informative. It does not means you should act like a dancing monkey when giving a serious presentation. But unlike an e-mail or article, people expect some appeal to there emotions. Simply reciting dry facts without any passion or humor will make people less likely to pay attention.Slow Down – Nervous and inexperienced speakers tend to talk way to fast. Consciously slow your speech down and add pauses for emphasis.
Eye Contact – Match eye contact with everyone in the room.
15 Word Summary – Can you summarize your idea in fifteen words? If not, rewrite it and try again. Speaking is an inefficient medium for communicating information, so know what the important fifteen words are so they can be repeated.
Don’t Read – This one is a no brainer, but somehow Powerpoint makes people think they can get away with it. If you don’t know your speech without cues, that doesn’t just make you more distracting. It shows you don’t really understand your message, a huge blow to any confidence the audience has in you.
“That’s a Good Question” – You can use statements like, “that’s a really good question,” or “I’m glad you asked me that,” to buy yourself a few moments to organize your response. Will the other people in the audience know you are using these filler sentences to reorder your thoughts? Probably not. And even if they do, it still makes the presentation more smooth than um’s and ah’s littering your answer.
Do Apologize if You’re Wrong – One caveat to the above rule is that you should apologize if you are late or shown to be incorrect. You want to seem confident, but don’t be a jerk about it.
Put Yourself in the Audience - When writing a speech, see it from the audiences perspective. What might they not understand? What might seem boring? Use WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) to guide you.
Have Fun - Sounds impossible? With a little practice you can inject your passion for a subject into your presentations.
