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Simply put, presentation skill is the process of efficiently, effectively, and elegantly communicating and transmitting your message to your audience.

Your message may be simple or complex.

Presentation skills can vary depending on why you’re speaking in the first place and what you’re trying to accomplish: you may be attempting to persuade and influence your audience, or you may be trying to inspire and enlighten, or you may be required to impart new skills and abilities, or you may just be there to report facts and data.

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, you can use various presentation aids such as a flip chart, PowerPoint presentations with a projector or a whiteboard or flip chart.

In some cases nothing at all is just fine, again depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

The tone of your presentation may be more or less formal depending on the context. If you know everyone in the audience such as a work meeting of coworkers, that’s different than if you’re making a presentation to a group of people you’ve never met before.

Of course the beginner public speaker may need to deal with stage fright. See my other training articles if you have fear of public speaking.

Presentation skills boil down to using various techniques that are very easy to learn. With a little practice, anyone can become a polished presenter.

The best way to develop terrific presentation skills quickly is simply to take a very good presentation skills training (see my training articles on how to evaluate public speaking training).

Here are some tips to help you with your presentation:

* If you use PowerPoint, have a one-page bullet-point outline of your entire presentation handy in case the computer crashes, the projector doesn’t work, or for any reason you can’t use your PowerPoint presentation.

* Use the “Rule of 3″: distill your presentation down to 3 key points you want to cover. Tell them what you’ll tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you’ve told them: design your presentation in 3 parts: first an overview of your key points, then the details of your presentation, then a summary (basically a recap and repeat of the overview in the beginning).

* “Use the 5 Minute Rule” to conquer stage fright: most of my students report that any lingering fear of public speaking goes away within the first 5 minutes once they get rolling with their presentation.

* If you use PowerPoint, never read your slides out loud: the audience can already read them. Just put up bullet points that remind you of what you want to talk about.

* Openings and closings are most important: psychologists call it “primacy / recency” but really the last thing you say is the last thing they’ll really hear and remember, so hammer your main points at the end and then say “thank you” and you’re done.

Best of luck in all your public speaking! For more public speaking training articles visit http://www.bestpublicspeakingtraining.com/

Our USP is:

• our content (relevant, up-to-date, PRACTICAL)

• our style (high energy, high interactivity, FUN)

• our people (expert, experienced, EFFECTIVE).

Established in 1998, Working Voices delivers courses in the UK and abroad and engages a hand-picked team of trainers to meet the needs of a client list that includes some of the world’s most prestigious companies. You’ll learn more about our people in a moment too.

About our courses

If you’ve been on a course that was dull or uninformative; if delegates left it ill-equipped to put the fundamentals into practice from that moment forward – the “takeaways” as we call them – then the course was NOT one of ours. Groups, seminars, one-to-ones: here’s what we teach.

Presentation Skills

Presenting ourselves, our company, our case. It’s what we’re all doing all of the time. This comprehensive suite of courses is about doing these things properly and confidently – and getting the results we want.

• Presenting

• Pitching Skills

• Body Language

• Anger Management

• Assertiveness Training

• Essential Communication Skills

Leadership Development

Working Voices’ leadership development programmes focus on your managers – the people who hold the key to making your business successful and profitable. Ours is a suite of UNIQUE and proven one-to-one coaching techniques and team-building exercises.

• One-to-one Leadership Programmes

• The Chi * of Success

• Leadership Unplugged

• Coach the Coach

( * The circulating life force whose existence and properties are the basis of much of Chinese philosophy and medicine.)

Voice Coaching

Your voice says masses about you, face-to-face, on the phone or by voicemail. It might say good humour, energy, gravitas. It might say dull, uninterested, impatient. And, of course, it might say nothing at all if it is unclear or unintelligible. These courses deal with all the pitfalls.

• The Perfect Voicemail

• Speaking English Clearly for Business

• Making The Most Of Your Voice

Writing Skills

Today’s business writers write for the screen – and good screen-writing requires a new set of skills. We show you how to make your writing “screen-friendly”: easy to scan, easy to grasp, easy to action, easy to archive.

• Effective Business Writing

• Effective Report Writing

• Writing Effective Emails

Image Management

Look the best you can, every day. The clothes you wear, the way you wear them, the colours you choose. Savvy women realise that it’s part of their workplace weaponry. Savvy men realise that good grooming is a perfectly legitimate “male thing”. We’ll show how looking good is easy.

• Visual Impact in the Workplace

• Exclusive Personal Image Day

• Image Management

Cultural Diversity

No two people or businesses are the same. Our cultural diversity courses highlight how diversity within and outside your organisation can create opportunity and not division, when it is handled and managed properly.

• Communicating Across Cultures

• Cultural Awareness

• Embracing Diversity

Memory Techniques

The better your memory, the greater your ability to think on your feet and the greater your confidence. Think about it – then think about your performance at meetings or when you make presentations. We teach brain-training strategies that will give you the memory you want.

• Total Recall

• Power-up Your Memory

• Memories Are Made Of This

About our people

Nick Smallman is founder and Managing Director of Working Voices. He combined a classical acting and business career until asked to set up the company specifically to meet the interpersonal communication needs of the UK and overseas banking communities. Since then the client base has widened year-on-year and now includes the legal, media, fashion, distribution and pharmaceutical sectors. Nick trains in a variety of disciplines both in the UK and abroad (Europe, USA, China and Russia, principally) and is a sought-after motivational speaker.

Our trainers are expert and experienced; motivators as well as educators; high scorer’s against client feedback.

John Mabberley: A city Banker for 30 years, John’s enthusiastic and motivational style has given him a great track record for team and confidence building. John specialises in delivering all of our Presentation Skills courses except Anger Management and Assertiveness Training.

JC Mac: Chevron, Citigroup, EMI Music, BP/Amoco, Orange, Universal and the British Museum are just a handful of the major corporates which have benefited from JC Mac’s holistic approach to Leadership Training. He handles all our Leadership Development courses and is in demand both in the UK and abroad.

Paul Hill: A graduate of English from Cambridge University, Paul is a trained actor and highly qualified voice coach. His Voice Coaching courses are a favourite with our global-company clients but he’s also part of the Presentation Skills team, delivering all courses except Anger Management and Assertiveness Training.

Kate McGoldrick: Kate’s background in radio and print journalism and the theatre -and an infectiously enthusiastic style – mean her Writing Skills courses are in constant demand. She also delivers the Presentation Skills suite including Anger Management and Assertiveness Training.

Sara Hollamby: Sara’s combined careers in the fashion industry and presenting on TV have spanned 27 years and made her a seasoned and popular group and auditorium speaker. She takes all our Image Management courses, which, just like the rest of our portfolio, are available “one-to-one” as well.

Jo Rice: Author of over 50 books including “How to do Business in Japan”, multi-lingual Jo lived and worked in the Far East for many years and is now a leading expert in all – ALL – aspects of cultural diversity training. He delivers our Diversity Training courses – as much abroad as in the UK.

Paul Mabberley: Paul acquired his grasp of the art of presenting via, at one end of the spectrum, the UK’s creative design sector, and, at the other, university guest lectureships. He coaches our Presentation Skills courses (except Anger Management and Assertiveness Training), as well as Memory Techniques.

Genevieve Grant: Born in the USA, Genevieve came to London for post-graduate studies, and stayed. Her background has a wide span – political activist to charity organiser – and she brings the technique she’s gained to our Presentation Skills courses (excluding Anger Management and Assertiveness Training).

About our clients

Here are just a few of them. Channel 4; HSBC Group; Barclays Group; Deutsche Bank; Lovells, Credit Suisse; BAFTA; Swarovski; Morgan Stanley. With or without the 50 others, we believe these names speak volumes about the quality of our client base.

Please visit www.workingvoices.com for more information on our company, our courses, our people and our clients. Then contact Tina at info@workingvoices.com.

· Before presenting, ensure that you understand as much about your audience as possible (what is their knowledge of the topic, what is their background, what will they be expecting?). Once understood, determine the approach you will take (what information to provide, what questions the presentation should answer, what tone should be adopted etc.). What questions might they ask?

· Outline your presentation by writing down all of the key points and in what order they should be presented.

· Make a video of yourself presenting to others. Critically review it with a colleague or friend.

· The best way to improve public speaking and develop confidence is through practice.

- Seek out opportunities that require you to make presentations to small groups, perhaps outside work with community or service organisations.

· To present opinions forcefully and directly, avoid phrases like ‘it seems to me’ or ‘it is likely that’. Use strong, ‘punchy’ verbs.

· Illustrate key points of your presentation with real life examples that your audience will understand.

· Examine the habits of an excellent speaker (for example, watch the weather presenters on TV). What is it that they do? What are their behaviours, body language etc? What can you learn from them? What are you prepared to try and do differently?

· Learn to read the reaction from the audience. Are they attentive throughout, do any look bored?

· Check your tone of voice and body language, is it consistent with your words? Ask others for feedback.

· Read the following books – Successful Presentation Skills by Andrew Bradbury, You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard by Bert Decker, and The Definitive Book of Body Language, A&B Pease.

While the above is not meant to be an exhaustive list of tips to improve one’s presentation skills, it does serve as an example that a management training course may not be the answer to develop your presentation skills.

However, even after taking the time to work on perfecting your presentation, it may not be enough. You need help with your presentation skills on the actual day. Giving presentations involves interacting with and engaging your audience in a way that reflects your personality. This means communicating with people and delivering your key messages without losing their attention.

There are few basic principles to improving your preparation and presentation skills. Each of which needs plenty of consideration and time spent on preparation. Before any presentation, you must be clear about the purpose of your presentation, research and understand your audience, sort your material into a logical structure, add ‘flavour’ to the facts and prepare visual aids.

The first step to improving your presentation skills is preparation. Imagine you have just been given the task to prepare a presentation based on your work, studies, research etc. However, you have been a set time limit to prepare and speak. The moment you are given the task is when you should start planning. Ask yourself what is the main objective of the presentation and what are the main points you would like to make?

Jot down key points in bullet format. Never use a script in a presentation, because you are likely to appear unnatural or even uncertain when delivering. Use cue cards or postcards instead, making sure to number each card. Some people do not use notes at all and rely on their slides as a prompt. Be careful with this, as there is a great temptation to fill your slides with facts.

It is actually counterproductive. Your audience cannot listen to you and read at the same time and you may find you struggle to sift the key points from packed slides as you speak. Once you have gathered the points you want to make organise them into a logical flow. Add examples and anecdotes to make each key point memorable. Prepare for the question and answer session too.

The second step is to practise – this may come under preparation but often people forget that when preparing their speech and organising visual aids they leave very little room to practise with other people around. Ask your friends, colleagues and family to listen to your presentation and encourage them to give you feedback. Choose your rehearsal audience carefully – they need to be honest without knocking your confidence.

Consider the way you speak, how you pronounce your words and how clearly you can be heard. Projecting your voice is not about shouting – it is about good breathing, clarity of pronunciation and eye contact. If you speak quietly, you may come across as timid or uncertain of your facts. If you speak too quickly, they will find it hard to take everything in. Remember that you communicate through body language, therefore stand up straight and use a few gestures to emphasise key points.

Finally, the delivery of your presentation, in theory if you have put effort into good preparation and have rehearsed you should be fine on the day. One thing you should be aware of is that many people feel nervous because they care about getting it right. If you have prepared well it will reduce your nerves considerably. If you think about all the things that can go wrong, you create a negative picture in your mind. Imagine a positive outcome and visualise success – top sports personalities do not use this technique for nothing!

On the day, make sure you arrive early. The only part of your speech you need to memorise is your opening line – this will help you get off to a good start. Make sure you make eye contact with everyone in the room, take your time – own the space – then proceed with the presentation.

A sales presentation doesn’t begin when you are telling and showing the prospect how you’ll solve their problems. It begins before you walk in the door to give the presentation. It begins with doing your homework on the company or person you’re presenting to and continues through the follow up after the sale.

Make sure you’ve done your homework on the company, the people you’re meeting with and as much as you can find out about their problems in advance. Customizing and practicing as much of the specific presentation you’ll give to them before you walk in the door is one of many sales presentation skills you must master.

Connect with your audience, make friends with them before you begin your presentation. If they don’t warm up to you or they aren’t friendly…leave. You’re not going to make the sale anyway so why waste your time?

If you have a fear of speaking or are nervous in a sales presentation, the prospects will spot that and loose confidence in you. Get over your fear of speaking. It’s not ok to be nervous. You need to come across as being extremely confident.

An important sales presentation skill of top sales people is public speaking. Take a public speaking course, join Toastmasters, do what ever is necessary to feel comfortable and confident speaking to one or a hundred people.

A sales presentation should be perfect every time. So how do you make it perfect? Practice, Practice, Practice. When I started in real estate I carried a cassette recorder with me and when I gave a listing presentation I would ask the couple or person if they would mind if I recorded it. I told them it was for my benefit and would help me become better at what I do.

Then I listened to the recording and learned how I sounded, what I said, how I said it, how persuasive I was and in the end how successful I was. It helped me understand what I did right, what I did wrong and what I would do different the next time.

Develop the right attitude. Become so confident in your product or service and the benefits it provides that your shocked when someone doesn’t want to purchase it. You need to have the attitude that someone would have to crazy not to purchase your product.

Also, go in with the attitude that you don’t need the sale. If it’s the end of the month, it’s a big sale or you need the money, it’s likely your prospect will sense you urgency.

You spent the time finding the lead and making the appointment, don’t waste the sales opportunity by not mastering the sales presentation skills to give a great sales presentation.