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Articles > Self Development > How to power up your presentation
How to power up your presentation
The art and science of making a world class presentation
07th June ,2007
| Have a presentation nearing!!! You always get the nerves and shivers while presenting. This presentation will help you advance your career ahead. Read on to find out how to improve your presentation skills for lifetime. |
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During the Presentation
1. Manage your voice
The voice is probably the most valuable tool of the presenter. It carries most of the content that the audience takes away. One of the oddities of speech is that we can easily tell others what is wrong with their voice, e.g. too fast, too high, too soft, etc., but we have trouble listening to and changing our own voices.
Voice modulation is very important for a great presentation. If the presenter speaks in a monotonous tone, there is a fair chance that the audience would mentally close its doors and windows of listening. This is not because you are boring them to death, it's because the attention span of a person is very small as every person's mind wanders. To control this default behavior it is necessary to modulate your voice. By increasing the pitch and emphasis of your voice occasionally on important points, helps the audience to absorb the information disseminated.
There are two good methods for improving your voice:
- Listen to it! Practice listening to your voice while at home, driving, walking, etc. Then when you are at work or with company, monitor your voice to see if you are using it how you want to.
- To really listen to your voice, cup your right hand around your right ear and gently pull the ear forward. Next, cup your left hand around your mouth and direct the sound straight into your ear. This helps you to really hear your voice as others hear it...and it might be completely different from the voice you thought it was! Now practice moderating your voice.
2. Manage your body
Your body communicates different impressions to the audience. People not only listen to you, they also watch you. Slouching tells them you are indifferent or you do not care...even though you might care a great deal! On the other hand, displaying good posture tells your audience that you know what you are doing and you care deeply about it. Also, a good posture helps you to speak more clearly and effective.
Throughout you presentation, display:
- Eye contact: This helps to regulate the flow of communication. It signals interest in others and increases the speaker's credibility. Speakers who make eye contact open the flow of communication and convey interest, concern, warmth, and credibility.
- Facial Expressions: Smiling is a powerful cue that transmits happiness, friendliness, warmth, and liking. So, if you smile frequently you will be perceived as more likable, friendly, warm, and approachable. Smiling is often contagious and others will react favorably. They will be more comfortable around you and will want to listen to you more.
- Gestures: If you fail to gesture while speaking, you may be perceived as boring and stiff. A lively speaking style captures attention, makes the material more interesting, and facilitates understanding.
- Posture and body orientation: You communicate numerous messages by the way you talk and move. Standing erect and leaning forward communicates that you are approachable, receptive, and friendly. Interpersonal closeness results when you and your audience face each other. Speaking with your back turned or looking at the floor or ceiling should be avoided as it communicates disinterest.
- Proximity: Cultural norms dictate a comfortable distance for interaction with others. You should look for signals of discomfort caused by invading other's space. Some of these are: rocking, leg swinging, tapping, and gaze aversion. Typically, in large rooms, space invasion is not a problem. In most instances there is too much distance. To counteract this, move around the room to increase interaction with your audience. Increasing the proximity enables you to make better eye contact and increases the opportunities for others to speak.
- Voice: One of the major criticisms of speakers is that they speak in a monotone voice. Listeners perceive this type of speaker as boring and dull. People report that they learn less and lose interest more quickly when listening to those who have not learned to modulate their voices.
3. Manage your nerves
The main enemy of a presenter is tension, which ruins the voice, posture, and spontaneity. The voice becomes higher as the throat tenses. Shoulders tighten up and limits flexibility while the legs start to shake and causes unsteadiness. The presentation becomes "canned" as the speaker locks in on the notes and starts to read directly from them.
First, do not fight nerves, welcome them! Then you can get on with the presentation instead of focusing in on being nervous. Actors recognize the value of nerves...they add to the value of the performance. This is because adrenaline starts to kick in. It's a left over from our ancestors' "fight or flight" syndrome. If you welcome nerves, then the presentation becomes a challenge and you become better. If you let your nerves take over, then you go into the flight mode by withdrawing from the audience. Again, welcome your nerves, recognize them, let them help you gain that needed edge! Do not go into the flight mode! When you feel tension or anxiety, remember that everyone gets them, but the winners use them to their advantage, while the losers get overwhelmed by them.
Tension can be reduced by performing some relaxation exercises. Listed below are a couple to get you started:
- Before the presentation: Lie on the floor. Your back should be flat on the floor. Pull your feet towards you so that your knees are up in the air. Relax. Close your eyes. Fell your back spreading out and supporting your weight. Feel your neck lengthening. Work your way through your body, relaxing one section at a time - your toes, feet, legs, torso, etc. When finished, stand up slowly and try to maintain the relaxed feeling in a standing position.
- If you cannot lie down: Stand with you feet about 6 inches apart, arms hanging by your sides, and fingers unclenched. Gently shake each part of your body, starting with your hands, then arms, shoulders, torso, and legs. Concentrate on shaking out the tension. Then slowly rotate your shoulders forwards and the backwards. Move on to your head. Rotate it slowly clockwise, and then counter-clockwise.
- Mental Visualization: Before the presentation, visualize the room, audience, and you giving the presentation. Mentally go over what you are going to do from the moment you start to the end of the presentation.
- During the presentation: Take a moment to yourself by getting a drink of water, take a deep breath, concentrate on relaxing the most tense part of your body, and then return to the presentation saying to your self, "I can do it!"
- You do NOT need to get rid of anxiety and tension! Channel the energy into concentration and expressiveness.
- Know that anxiety and tension is not as noticeable to the audience as it is to you.
- Know that even the best presenters make mistakes. The key is to continue on after the mistake. If you pick up and continue, so will the audience. Winners continue! Losers stop!
4. Manage your audience
No matter what you do, you will find some members of the audience who would either misbehave or would not pay any attention at all. Ultimately the effect of this is that your goal of presenting the topic to the audience gets defeated.
You need to manage such people. The obvious question is how. Sometimes politely making a general statement like "For the benefit of all the audience I would recommend if some people in the audience could be a little more attentive, it would help".
Then at times you will encounter people who below to your same peer group and pass unnecessary remarks to sabotage your presentation. What do you do then? You need to assert to them that you could settle that question or remarks after the presentation is over and that it isn't fair that the pace of the presentation suffers as there are other people in the audience who will benefit from the content of the presentation.
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