Here are the Top 10 effective presentation techniques.

1. Use visual aids

Using pictures in your presentations instead of words can double the chances of meeting your objectives.

2. Keep it short and sweet

There is an old adage that said – “No one ever complained of a presentation being too short.” Nothing kills a presentation more than going on too long.

There are some college professors who will penalise a short presentation (most lecturers see no problem in droning on) , but for most people a shorter presentation is better. Keep your presentation to under 22 minutes if you can.

3. Use the rule of three

A simple technique is that people tend to only remember three things. Work out what the three messages that you want your audience to take away and structure your presentation around them. Use a maximum of three points on a slide.

4. Rehearse

Practice makes for perfect performance. Many experts say that rehearsal is the biggest single thing that you can do to improve your performance. Perform your presentation out loud at least four times. One of these should be in front of a real scary audience. Family, friends or colleagues. Even the dog is better than nothing.

5. Tell stories

All presentations are a type of theatre. Tell stories and anecdotes to help illustrate points. It all helps to make your presentation more effective and memorable.

6. Lose the bullet points – don’t put your speaker notes up on the screen

Bullet points are the kiss of death for most presentations. Most people use bullet points as a form of speaker notes. To make your presentation more effective put your speaker notes in your notes and not up on the screen.

7. Video yourself

Set up a video camera and video yourself presenting. You will see all sorts of mistakes that you are making, from how you are standing, if you are jangling keys, to how well your presentation is structured.

8. Know what slide is coming next

You should always know when presenting which slide is coming up next. It sounds very powerful when you say “On the next slide [Click] you will see…”, rather than than a period of confusion when the next slide appears.

9. Have a back-up plan

Murphy’s law normally applies during a presentation. Technology not working, power cuts, projector blowing a bulb, spilling coffee on your front, not enough power leads, no loudspeakers, presentation displays strangely on the laptop – all of these are things that have happened in presentations that I have given.

Have a back-up plan. Take with you the following items – a printed out set of slides – (you can hold these up to the audience if you need to), a CD or data stick of your presentation, a laptop with your slides on it. Just in case it goes wrong.

Guess what? When you have back-ups – you seldom need to use them.

10. Check out the presentation room

Arrive early and check out the presentation room. If you can make sure that you see your slides loaded onto the PC and working on the screen. Work out where you will need to stand.

Do you agree or disagree with any of these effective presentation techniques? Have you have any experiences like this? Add it in to the comments box below.

If you are reading this then it’s likely that you have been asked to do some kind of presentation and are looking for some tips or advice on what to do, or you might even be hoping to find a presentation that has been prepared already so that you don’t have to do any work, right?Well, I’m not going to make it that easy for you but I will help you to put your own presentation together, and guide you through everything, from deciding what topic to choose to what to do on the day.

Step one

So, you need to  prepare a presentation; it may be quite short, so I’m guessing that it will be 5 or 10 minutes. Make sure that you know exactly how long you are allowed to talk for. I know you want to get it over with as soon as possible but it’s often easier to have a bit more time. Once you know how long you have to talk then you can work out how many words to use.  Use this as a guideline:

5 minutes talktime =  750 words

10 minutes talktime =  1500 words

15 minutes talktime =  2250 words

This will help you work out roughly how many words to write so that you can fill the time you have been given.

Step two

Ok, next we need to decide what you will talk about.

If you have been given a topic then great, move on to the research and find out as much as you can, look for key points and things that you feel are important and make lots of notes. (more…)