Why should a presentation be great?
There are many ways to communicate information to people. Presenting an idea or product requires a great presentation to have a lasting impact on the audience. A presentation which does not highlight the important aspects of the product or services does not catch the eye of the audience and hence the idea or service or product cannot survive the competition.
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Tips to deliver a great presentation
Here are the few tips that need to be followed while making and preparing a presentation -
Present or create a story: People are always interested in a story that makes them very attentive to a point. Have a story to tell before any presentation. Use presentation media like sketch papers or the whiteboard to make the story more gripping.
Create great headings: Apple introduced iPod with a headline, "One thousand songs in your pocket". Before Apple Inc., many people tried to introduce the portable music player but they did not succeed. The second time, once again, Apple created a great heading like, "The world's thinnest notebook" to introduce the Macintosh notebook. Great heading catches the eyes of the customers and creates eagerness in them. This ultimately responds with action.
Use animations: Animations in the presentation creates a lasting impact. People understand more by giving them a picture in motion. Often people misunderstood or visualize the words presented by the presenter. For example, working of the domestic refrigerator in a power point presentation with diagrams seems difficult to understand by the layman audience but animation does that task very easily.
Follow 7/7 rule: Do not crowd the slide with many words into it. Put only a few words to explain the matter. Words in the slide just get you a topic to discuss. Follows 7/7 rules means at maximum, a given slide should contain only 7 words and that slide should contain such 7 lines. Not more than that!
Have eye contact with the audience: Do not just read the slide or discuss with the back to the audience. You need to discuss with eye contact. That creates a trust in the audience.
Give a real-life experience: "The brain does not pay attention to the boring things", as said by John Medina. That means, if you share a real-life experience, people get to engage with the topic.
Present more by visual aids: A human only remembers 10 % of what is said by words but that % is increased to 65 % when the same thing can be said with the help of a suitable diagram.
Refine and rehearse: One should practice the presentation before delivering it to the real audience to make sure it is not exceeding the time limit. Limit the total number of slides in a presentation based on the time limit. It should be very concise and effective. Your body language should be good to have the lasting impact. Master the hand posture while presenting the idea.
Make the audience laugh: Nothing is better than when humour is added in to the presentation. People often find it engaging. Thus, try to incorporate a joke or some experience into the slide or during the explanation to make people laugh
Slide Layout: The text and background color of the slide should not create a visual problem for an audience. There should be a contrast between them. The light color text is easy to read on a dark color background and vice versa. Have slide layout, color, font, and theme should be consistent throughout the presentation.
Portability: Make sure your presentation file should run on every PC. You can create a multiple file of the presentation by Save As to different version of MS Office. Always have a pdf of the presentation in case of file corruption.
Hope these tips are helpful for your next presentation!
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These days for getting recognition for an individual and his efforts, it is more important to showcase your achievements in a very attractive manner. It is more important how you market your achievements rather than the achievements itself. So here, the communication plays a very important role. Powerpoint presentation is a very effective way of communication.
When you make a presentation please be as brief as possible on the screen. But elaborate more while you present. Don't read what you have written in the presentation. Use it as a guide only. Go on explaining in detail and try to catch the attention of the audience. In between add some interesting incidents which you have encountered during the progress of the work in an interesting way so that they will be more attentive.
Another important point you should note is the time management. You should programme your presentation by being clear as to where more elaboration is required and where you can skip. If you spend more time on some unnecessary issues, the time may lapse and finally, you may not be able to explain the main points due to the paucity of time. Your entire effort will become futile if such mismanagement happens.