Find out how to develop powerful presentation skills!

After high school, you have probably all experienced doing many presentations, and this is not the easiest thing to do for everyone. Do you always feel nervous about a presentation? Do you prefer to not present at all? Or do you think you can improve your presentation skills? Then take your time and read the following tips and tricks carefully, since presenting is very important and is very useful for your future career. 

Importance of presentation skills

Effective presentation skills are a valuable life skill, which will help you in your further education and in your future career. And you’ll probably need presentation skills someday to present your ideas, projects, plans, strategies or product to an audience. Furthermore, employers these days need graduates with excellent communication skills. In this way, a student’s presentation in a classroom becomes more important in delivering a positive learning experience. It is also important to be able to present yourself, as this may be necessary when applying for a job, for example.

Preparing your presentation

The preparation is the most important part of a successful presentation. Thorough preparation ensures that you have thought carefully about the messages you want (or need) to convey in your presentation and it also helps to boost your confidence. The first step in preparing your presentation is identifying the objective of the presentation, and then based on the objective you can choose the subject of the presentation. One of the most important steps in preparing your presentation is to evaluate all the resources you intend to use. When you present your presentation to an expert audience, there is nothing more embarrassing than misinterpreting your facts. Last but not least, it is important to rehearse the presentation multiple times, so you can give all your attention to the audience.

Calm your nerves before the presentation

Presentations can be frightening for some of you, so here are some tips to calm your nerves. The first tip is already mentioned: you should practice and rehearse the presentation multiple times, so you know the shape of your presentation. Don’t forget to smile during your presentation, as smiling increases endorphins, replaces fear with calmness and makes you feel good about your presentation. You can also increase endorphins by exercising early in the day prior to the presentation. Another way to calm your nerves is making sure to arrive early so you have plenty of time to settle in before the talk.

Calm your nerves during the presentation

An easy but useful tip is to take a deep breath during the presentation to get oxygen into your brain and relax your body. It often happens that nervous people tend to speed up their speech and end up talking too fast, which can be solved by taking pauses. Don’t be afraid to slow down and use pauses in your talk. 

A dry mouth is a common consequence of anxiety. Keep a bottle of water at your fingertips when you present yourself in case you get a dry mouth. During the presentation, you can move around and make eye contact to expend some of your nervous energy. 

Keep your presentation interesting for the audience

One of the best ways to keep your audience focused is to make them feel part of your presentation. A simple icebreaker can take everyone to the same level and give them energy for your presentation. Besides, videos are a great tool when it comes to giving an engaging presentation. Videos can evoke emotions in an audience that might otherwise be difficult to bring out. Or take an occasional break from your presentation and interact with your audience by asking them questions. Another option is using props on stage and show them to help attendees visualize what you verbally describe. 

We hope the tips will help you improve your presentation skills and that you won’t be as nervous as you were before for presentations. If you want to learn more about presenting yourself then you can find here a blog about presenting yourself in a job application.