Presentation Skills Tips for a Greater Impact

Nowadays, people from all the industries require good presentation skills. This is because an employee from any and every type of department may be required to give a presentation. It is no more limited to the sales or marketing department. Presentation skills need to be developed by everybody from an intern to a senior manager.

Though you may be an expert at your job, there are certain little things that will be helpful for you to make a great impact of your presentation. These tips will hone your presentation skills and have the desired effect on the audience.

a)   Make the most shortcut keys available in PowerPoint.
In the “slide show” view of PowerPoint, many shortcut keys are available. The Help section has information on all of these, but we seldom make use of them. They help greatly in enhancing your presentation skills. Some of the keys are mentioned below:

# + Enter key
This shortcut can be used when you want to jump directly to a certain page number. For instance, if you need to revisit page 20, simply type “20 + Enter” and you are done! This is helpful for viewing important slides again and again in a Q & A session, where you can emphasize on your point using such key slides with effective presentation skills.

Black/White
Black (B) / White (W) keys can be used to gain the consideration of the audience. When you hit the “B” or “W” keys, the screen turns black and white respectively. This diverts the people’s attention to you, instead of the slides. Your presentation skills lie in getting noticed.

b)   Get Applauded
The audience is unaware in majority of the times about when to applaud. To ensure a good applause, do these things at the end of your presentation:
1.   Start your concluding speech with sentences like “The last thing I would like to tell is…”
2.   Say this in a slow paced way.
3.   You can bow to the audience to get applauded and display your presentation skills.

c)   Gathering feedback
It is a common practice to ask for the audience feedback after a presentation is over. Your presentation skills are judged too in this response sheet. People are not keen on writing after everything is over. This is partly because they are more comfortable with typing than handwriting. On the other hand, sending an email later does not help either. An email is not returned due to their busy schedule.

There is one way out though. When you are finished with the presentation, tell the audiences, “You can get a copy of this presentation after answering a short survey on (URL).” You can also try giving some additional goodies like helpful links, more information on the discussed topic etc. Thus, you can expect a better response from the audience with regards to feedback.

Though these points are simple, they are important for developing good presentation skills. Once you are well versed with the nuances, your presentation skills are sure to make a great impact.

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Presentation Skills Tips for a Greater Impact

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