Our presentation courses are planned to significantly improve presentation skills to allow delegates of all levels to be able to make powerful presentations.  The presentation seminars that we provide are packed full of presentation tips and techniques that demonstrate strategies which will show delegates how to reduce nerves in presentations and to allow them to present confidently when presenting to clients or colleagues. Our presentation skills workshops are designed not just to show delegates how to make a simple presentation: they are designed to show delegates how to create a successful presentation also maximising the applications of PowerPoint to make great presentations.  Presentation training will allow delegates to build on their presenting skills; make better presentations; enjoy making presentations and teach delegates how to present successfully.  Delegates who have taken our Presentation Courses have expressed how much they enjoyed the variety in our presentation skills training and now feel confident to present in any situation.

Gaining (and holding) the audience’s attention:

Attention Gaining Devices

Always be aware that attention spans are short and work on techniques to gain your audience’s attention. Once you have created your talk, go through it and make sure that every 2-4 minutes you use some kind of attention gaining device. You could use any of the following techniques:

• increase your voice inflection
• show a visual
• hold up a prop
• move around the room
• tell a (short) story
• throw out a one liner
• write on a flip chart

Ensure that no more than a few minutes goes by between attention gaining devices. The audience won’t be aware of what you are doing, but they are likely to leave feeling that time went fast. Individual members of the audience will vary in their responsiveness to the factors of attention. With this in mind, you should use a variety of factors in your presentation. In addition, audience members are capable of responding to more than one factor; multiple use will increase the chances of their concentration on your message.

Persuading your audience

Effective presentations end with action. The most important question to ask before any presentation is, “What do I want my audience to do and how do I convince them to do it?”

Of course, aiming to persuade is different from actually persuading. The best presentations answer basic questions that few presenters ever bother asking: What’s my core message? How does that message benefit my audience? What barriers are there to people accepting the message? What common ground (values, experience, goals) do I share with the audience? When I finish, what do I want the audience to do? Presenting is about benefits to the audience and motivating the audience to action post-presentations. As the discussion of the vital suggests, audiences will give more attention to the elements that seem to have pertinent for them. By pointing to the utility of the ideas being presented, and being specific about how and why the audience can benefit from your message, you will increase the chances of keeping their attention.

Focus on your message, but ensure that the message is geared towards the audience.

Pre-presentation questioning

Try and find out about your audience before you are due to give a speech.

Whether you ask directly, via a pre-presentation questionnaire, asking amongst other things, what they hope to gain from the presentation and what their current issues are, if any. You could also include interests, goals, pet peeves; or whether you speak to managers and/ or colleagues to find out information, but remember to use the information once you have it, and to pepper this throughout your presentation, so that your audience become aware that this is about them.

Your attitude should be “to serve.” You are there for ‘them‘ and to give them what ‘they‘ need, as opposed the what you have prepared.

Excellent presentation skills give you a platform to demonstrate your sales skills, leadership qualities, communication skills, influencing abilities and promotion potential. Our objective over the two days is to teach you the skills and techniques that will give you both the confidence and competence to enjoy making presentations in all situations. We will be giving action points to sharpen your image; reduce nerves; allow you to appear both confident and competent and increase your credibility in the eyes of colleagues and clients.

PowerPoint presentation skills, Advanced Presentation skills and Presentation skills are three of the courses trained by Total Success Training, a training consultancy specialising in communication training and management skills in London and throughout the UK. Other related courses include sales presentation skills, training the trainer, assertiveness skills, selling skills, negotiation skills and communication skills for managers. Click here if you need more information regarding presentation skills course information or contact Total Success who will be delighted to talk to you via e-mail.