Presentation is quite common in both academic and professional realm. The basic purpose of a presentation is to provide a way to present your ideas, services or product to an audience with visual support. In simple words, presentation is the process of speaking to a group of people.

Remember speaking in front of people is a skill, not an innate ability or knowledge. It is a pure skill that you need to practice over time. Delivering an effective presentation needs good preparation. Presentation skill helps you deeply to perform well in the future by heightening your academic and professional skills. It also enhances your leadership quality as you need to learn how to present yourself to the audience.

Moving forward, we have discussed the things that need to be considered at the time of making presentations and while giving presentations.

At the time of making presentation

1. Know your audience (Who)

Before making a presentation, you should be aware of the need of your audience. You should be aware of your audience’s characteristics and their diversity.
You need to understand the level of competency of the audience sitting in the presentation to tailor your content to target their interest.
Your topic should be relevant to the audience of both genders, different age groups, range of education, experience and socialization.
It is almost impossible to know your audience at an individual level but finding common ground will help you to connect more with the audience.
Visualize your audience, feel them to make an emotional bond with them.

2. Understand your motive (Why)

Through presentation you are marketing your content. It is one of the weapons that should lead to you that strategic objective.
You should be very clear about the purpose of your presentation.
Verify the purpose of the presentation because it has so many topics and varies across the message that you deliver.
You should understand what you are going to achieve through the presentation.

3. Context delivery (What)

The context should drive your content and intent.
For better delivery of the presentation, it is very important to know what to include and what to leave.
Do not try to cover too much material. Your presentation should be full of useful, insightful and actionable information.
Prepare your content by keeping the audience at the center. You should never try to go over their head and beneath their feet.
You can also add some humour to make the audience feel fresh. This will make the audience more receptive to what you are saying.

4. Less text more visual

Use visual aid like infographics and charts to make information more engaging and easier to understand.
It is important to use more visuals because the minute you have words on the slides your audience will direct their attention away from you and begin reading.
And if you use more visuals it looks more informative and easy to understand and explain.
To reach your audience more efficiently and effectively, visual communicate better than words.

5. Structure your presentation

Structure your presentation in such a way that your audience should understand the flow of your content.
While structuring, there should be a formal introduction, main body and conclusion i.e ending part.
Structuring your presentation helps in breaking the information into different segments to present it in a simpler way.
Structuring will provide a clear connection between main points, explanations and examples.
Think about the length of time you have to speak and the amount of information you can include.
To make your presentation looks good use the 10-20-30 rule of presentations.

At the time while giving presentation

1. Arrive early

Make sure to spend some time in the room where you will be delivering your presentation.
It is the best way to allow yourself to get settled before the talk. This helps you in getting adapted to your presentation space.
Arriving before time will provide you time to interact with the audience. This will transform your nervous energy into enthusiasm.
Talking to the audience before the presentation will make you seem more likable and approachable.

2. Be loud and clear

It is very important to be loud enough during presentations to make sure that everyone can hear your speech.
If you are not audible then it is very likely that most of the people will lose interest.
Don’t be too hurry or too slow. You should be very fine with your pitch to gain more attention from the audience.
Do not take a pause in between because it can allow yourself and the audience time to reflect and think.

3. Never read your slide

To make your presentation an interactive one don’t ever read your slide.
Reading slides will not allow you to do a two ways interaction.
So to avoid reading slides keep more content in visual form. The statement in text form should contain the keyword rather than a complete explanation.
You can use the flashcards notes as a guide to help you remember what needs to be said.

4. Engage the audience

Welcoming audience participation can boost engagement and attendees feel like a part of a conversation.
Practice your presentation facing forward with your content memorized. By doing this, the audience will be able to see your expression and confidence which will make them more engaged.
The best simple way to engage the audience is to keep eye contact with them. Because if people feel like you are taking notice of them, they start paying attention to what you are saying.
Another way is, you can be prepared with some questions that can be asked to the audience during the presentation.
Your focus should be on the audience and not on yourself.

5. Time limit

Every single person’s time is valuable and so don’t waste precious meeting time.
You should be very clear about the content to present. You should know what to tell and what not to tell during the presentation.
Create an outline of your talk to know exactly how much time is needed to complete the presentation.
Do not drag your explanation or examples to avoid confusion.