Ways to Give an Effective Presentation

One of the most useful skills for a professional in any field or as a child in a classroom is outstanding public speaking ability. The ability to look and be comfortable and confident when addressing a room full of people will help you standout and advance in any career. Whenever you speak publicly, make a conscious effort to develop your own memorable speaking style and enhance your own public speaking skills through constructive self-criticism and analysis. Here are some things you can do to improve your public speaking skills:

Plan Your Space Make sure that the physical appearance and setup of the room is taken care of so things keep moving along well during your speech. If you are a guest speaker somewhere, contact the host a few days in advance to tell him or her what you will need to have your speech run smoothly. This is the time to request a certain type of microphone—and to remember that, if you request a lavaliere, you will have to wear clothing that will allow you to clip the transmitter comfortably on your body—and to request a computer or projector if needed. If you are going to use a Power Point presentation or slideshow, make sure you are backing up the files in multiple ways. Make sure you save your file to, at least, a USB drive and an online cloud service like Dropbox. Make your content easily accessible from many mediums incase a few fail so you

can still deliver the presentation you prepared for.

Audience Analysis If possible, figure out the kind of people you will be presenting to. Find out the age range, if there is a predominate gender present, their level of experience and education, even socioeconomic and geographical background. If you can figure out some specifics about the audience you will be speaking to, it will be easier to create material that will keep them interested and intrigued. Remember, in most public speaking situations, the audience wants the speaker to succeed and give a relevant speech on a topic they want to know more about. The key to success is preparation.

Engage With the Audience Try and make your audience feel that they are being talked with instead of being talked at. Even if your host introduces you, which will likely happen, make sure you introduce yourself to the audience as well. Engage the crowd next by telling a joke, mentioning a famous quote, or asking a relevant question about the subject matter. Try not to look at your notes. Even the most prepared speakers can look unprepared if they are constantly looking at their notes or—even worse—reading them, exactly as they were written, because they're nervous. This looks bad makes the audience lose interest. While the audience wants you to succeed, they also want to be entertained by your presentation. There is no such thing as a bad topic, just a good or bad delivery of a topic. You can

always find a way to engage your audience, and one simple way to do this is to start by simply looking at them during your presentation.