There are literally dozens of things you can do to improve your presenting skills, and most of these don’t even involve any active motions. Of course, you should not try to actively include all 13 of the recommended improvements which are described below at once, because this could seem awkward and would probably be seen by your audience as unnatural.
The best way to approach improving your presenting skills is to take one or two of these suggestions, and gradually incorporate them into your style until you master them. Then you’ll be able to add in a couple more at a time, until you’re successfully using all of these tips naturally. After that, there will be even more things you can do to improve, if you’re still looking to improve.
Attend Other Presentations
It’s a good idea to attend other presentations so that you can spot the skills used by other speakers. If you’re at a seminar for instance, take the opportunity to engage with participants, and ask what they liked and disliked about the speaker. You may also pick up something of value from another person’s presentation, and include it in your own speech.
Practice
Practicing is the best way to reduce or eliminate your fear of speaking to a crowd, and after you have delivered your speech or demonstration a number of times, you’ll be so familiar with it, that you’ll find that your nervousness has completely dissipated. If you really want to take advantage of practicing, you should record your speech and watch it once or twice, so you can critique yourself and eliminate any rough spots.
Meet and Greet
It’s always a good idea to break the ice with members of your crowd by talking with them before your demonstration because this will make you seem more approachable and more likable. Ask them some questions and listen to their responses, because they may provide you with the material you can use in your talk.
Positive Visualization
Positive visualization has proven to be effective at influencing the result of any event and making it come out just as we have envisioned it. When you talk to yourself beforehand and tell yourself you’re going to be great in delivering your speech, it’s more likely that you’ll end up doing just that, and you’ll have a terrific demonstration.
Arrive Early
Arriving early will give you time to settle in before you have to deliver your demonstration. It’s a good idea to adapt to your surroundings so you have a level of comfort because if you don’t do this, it will only add to your nervousness and discomfiture.
Know Your Audience
It will help in the delivery of your presenting if you know some of the backgrounds of the attendees. Find something you have in common with most of those in attendance and mention it during your talk. Even if you don’t know anyone in attendance on a personal level, you’ll still be able to find some common ground that will connect you with your audience. You should also have a feel for what your attendees might consider offensive, as well as something they might appreciate, for instance, reference to a hometown sports franchise.
Smile
Smiling has the effect of replacing anxiety and nervousness with a sense of calm, and it will help you feel better about the presentation you’re delivering. It also shows your spectators that you are confident and that you’re glad to be with them. It would be hard to make a mistake on this aspect of your presentation unless you constantly giggle or grossly overdo the smiling.
Incorporate Humor
If you can incorporate humor into your talk, it will be much easier to win over your spectators. Most people enjoy a good laugh and no one really wants to sit through a dull, dry demonstration. One effective way of doing this is to tell a “before” story, which puts you in bad light, yet is amusing or inspiring because the audience can ultimately see how much you have improved in the time since the anecdote.
Make Eye Contact
Don’t get in the habit of looking at the floor or the computer screen too much during your demonstration. Work on establishing eye contact with several individuals out in the crowd, rather than having a blank stare out at some unnamed group. When you make eye contact with individuals, you are connecting with them at least briefly, and this helps to establish trust that will also lead to greater interest in what you’re saying.
Engage Your Audience
Since your spectator has tacitly agreed to spend some portion of their day with you, it’s up to you to make it worthwhile for them. Show them respect and show them that you understand that they have sacrificed some part of their day in order to listen to you give a speech. Find ways that you can connect with your audience while you’re delivering your talk, so it’s more an atmosphere of friends making connections rather than someone delivering a speech from an ivory tower.
Pause Occasionally
Dramatic pauses can be extremely effective when incorporated at just the right moment, for instance before delivering a punchline. Both you and the crowd will be able to sense the anticipation leading up to that punchline, and a dramatic pause could have a powerful effect. If you become proficient at this, it can certainly add an element of drama and anticipation to your talk.
Don’t Try to Cover too Much
It might be a fine line to walk, when you’re trying to provide your crowd with a good amount of material which is useful and has value to them, but which doesn’t overdo it in terms of the volume of content. Based on the allotted time for your demonstration, you should consider beforehand what is essential to convey to your spectators and what can be left out. This should result in a condensed, tight demonstration that has tremendous value for your listeners.
Put Yourself in Your Audience’s Shoes
If you can imagine yourself as part of your own attendance while you are rehearsing, and listening to the speech that you are delivering, you might have a better feel for what their reactions are going to be, or any emotions they will be feeling as you talk. Focus on the big picture of what your demonstration is all about, and make sure that your delivery comes across in a way that your crowd can really appreciate. You would do well to remember how you felt during the last presentation you attended. What did you focus on, and what did you walk away with? If you can examine your demonstration from this perspective, you should see the real takeaways that an audience will be left with. Filming yourself while rehearsing can be instrumental in helping with this.
Improving Your Skills
There are literally tons of things you can do to improve your presenting skills, but one of the most important is to practice as much as possible. That old saying about ‘Practice makes perfect’ is totally appropriate to public speaking and presenting, and the more practice you get at it, the better you’ll become. Also do your best to engage with your audience, so you don’t have a ‘me vs. them’ kind of situation, because it’s much better to think of the group in attendance as ‘us’. To learn some of the fine points about becoming a noteworthy presenter, contact the London Image Institute and find out how some of our programs can help you become a much better presenter in the future.
