How to improve your presentation - A guide to improving presentations .

                            Preparing for presentations can be a stressful time for many of us but presentations being the challenging events they are also give us an opportunity to make an impact on people, improve our careers, and spread our ideas. Here in this article you'll come across methods and strategies which you can use to give good and effective presentations. You'll see what you have to do before the presentation and what to do during the presentation.


Before the presentation -

1. Get to know your audience -The first and foremost thing which you need to know when you give a presentation is your audience. Giving an impressive presentation and making an impact depends on how well you know your audience. What is their interest? How can you capture their attention? What brings them here? What do most of the audiences do?
                 By knowing your audience you can tailor your presentation to make it more interesting to your audience by highlighting information they may find more relevant.

2. Be well versed in your topic - Needless to say you must be well versed in the topic you are going to present so that you can answer all the questions that the audience may ask. Do a good research in the topics you are going to present. Also when going through the presentation you made anticipate the questions which the audience may ask and keep good answers with you for them.

3. Simplify difficult to understand topics - If your presentation contains material which can be difficult to understand write and have simple explanations ready with you so that audience can understand it in easier manner. What you don't want is the situation you are trying to explain a difficult concept in your presentation and your audience doesn’t understand it. You can also use pictures, animations, videos to make concepts simpler.

4. Practice in front of a mirror- This classic advice would enhance your confidence when you are giving your presentation. So do remember to practice at least once in front of the mirror before the interview

5.  Structure your presentations-
Structuring your presentation systematically would give a logical flow to your presentation.
1> Engage -The starting part of a presentation is very important. Having a good start would excite your audience and keeps them interested during the presentation so start with what can engage your audience it could be the key points, a witty story, a joke or interesting facts.
2> What's in it for me - After engaging, tell the audience what's in it for them. What they can learn from the presentation and how they can use the information that you are going to present. This would give them an impetus to listen to the presentation carefully.
3> Body - In this section you would write the points and information you are presenting.
While writing the body of the presentation keep these
a. Avoid lengthy sentences, paragraphs on slides. - When you make your presentation make sure you don't write lengthy paragraphs and mention only important points and headings in it. If you have something lengthy which you would want to write then say that while you present it but avoid lengthy sentences, paragraph on your slides (PowerPoint/keynote).
b. Have more pictures - Include a lot of pictures in your slides. This would make your presentation very attractive to look at.
4> Summary - Give them a summary of the presentation Write your summary in such a way that it is short and captures the most important material from your presentation.
5> Next actionable step - Now as have completed the presentation, tell them what the next actionable step is for you and them.
  
5. Practice the presentation in parts - When practicing split your complete presentation and say it in parts. This way practice would be less over whelming.

6. Have a script of what you are going to say - Having a script of what you are going to say would prevent you from running into situations where you run out of words. During my presentations I either script or write the keypoints, facts, explanation I am going to say in Evernote while reading the PowerPoint presentation from my PC. Then after syncing Evernote I would have it in my phone and tablet. Then I can look at what I can say before the presentation or even during the presentation.

Tips for during the presentation -

1. Be confident- If you get nervous before the presentation it is highly likely you can mess up. So be confident without having fear or anxiety in your mind.
      If you are feeling nervous you can try the following to improve confidence -
     a. Deep breathing
     b. Listening to some upbeat songs before the interview
     c. Dress well.This will automatically increase your confidence.
     d. Maintain a good posture this also increases your confidence.

2. Body language - Your body language conveys a lot to the audience. Improve your body language with this info graph

3. Audience involvement - Try to involve your audience as you go through the presentation, You can ask your audience questions, ask for their opinion or give them activity to do. This would increase the interaction in your presentation

4. Silence - Silence during the presentation can feel awkward and uncomfortable. But they can also be used to let the information sink to sink into the audience. Silence would give them an opportunity to think over the matter that has been presented to them and understand them well. Be very intentional about it as it could be pretty difficult to use silence when you are just starting to give presentations.

5. Give them sources for your claims - Giving your audience the source for your various claims can increase your persuasiveness towards your audience. Audience would most likely accept most of your points if you give sources for your claims even if they aren't going to verify your sources.

6. Give examples - Try to find and give interesting examples. If you make interesting examples you can make the presentation feel exciting even when you don't have great content in it. Another main advantage of using examples is that the audiences tend to remember examples even more than facts. Audience would have remembered some key points you mentioned by remembering the examples you have said.

7. Slides with key points - When you create your presentation, just have the key points written on them. And give then you give an explanation of key points

8. Keep practicing - Giving presentations is an important skills and can be very useful both when you are a student or working in a firm. Keep on giving several presentations. This will make you more confident in giving presentations and improve your skills giving presentations.