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Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Getting the perfect presentation design is just a step toward a successful presentation. For the experienced user, building presentation skills is the answer to elevating the power of your message and showing expertise on any subject. Still, one can ask: is it the same set of skills, or are they dependable on the type of presentation?

In this article, we will introduce the different types of presentations accompanied by the skillset required to master them. The purpose, as always, is to retain the audience’s interest for a long-lasting and convincing message.

Table of Contents

The Importance of Presentation Skills

Persuasive presentations, instructional presentations, informative presentations, inspirational presentations, basic presentation skills, what are the main difficulties when giving a presentation, recommendations to improve your presentation skills, closing statement.

Effective communication is the answer to reaching business and academic goals. The scenarios in which we can be required to deliver a presentation are as diverse as one can imagine. Still, some core concepts apply to all presentations.

 We define presentation skills as a compendium of soft skills that directly affect your presentation performance and contribute to creating a great presentation. These are not qualities acquired by birth but skills you ought to train and master to delve into professional environments.

You may ask: is it really that evident when a presenter is not prepared? Here are some common signs people can experience during presentations:

• Evasive body language: Not making eye contact with the audience, arms closed tightly to the body, hands in pockets all the time.
• Lack of interest in the presenter’s voice: dull tone, not putting an effort to articulate the topics.
• Doubting when asked to answer a question
• Irksome mood

The list can go on about common presenter mistakes , and most certainly, it will affect the performance of any presented data if the lack of interest by the presenter is blatantly obvious.  Another element to consider is anxiety, and according to research by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73% of the population in the USA is affected by glossophobia , which is the fear of public speaking, judgment, or negative evaluation by other people.

Therefore, presentation skills training is essential for any business professional who wants to achieve effective communication . It will remove the anxiety from presentation performance and help users effectively deliver their message and connect with the audience.

Archetypes of presentations

Persuasive presentations aim to convince the audience – often in short periods – to acquire a product or service, adhere to a cause, or invest in a company. For business entrepreneurs or politicians, persuasive presentations are their tool for the trade.

Unless you aim to be perceived as an imposter, a proper persuasive presentation has the elements of facts, empathy, and logic, balanced under a well-crafted narrative. The central pillar of these presentations is to identify the single factor that gathered your audience: it could be a market need, a social cause, or a revolutionary concept for today’s society. It has to be something with enough power to gather critiques – both good and bad.

That single factor has to be backed up by facts. Research that builds your hypothesis on how to solve that problem. A deep understanding of the target audience’s needs , concerns, and social position regarding the solution your means can offer. When those elements are in place, building a pitch becomes an easy task. 

Graphics can help you introduce information in a compelling format, lowering the need for lengthy presentations. Good presentation skills for persuasive presentations go by the hand of filtering relevant data and creating the visual cues that resonate with what your audience demands.

One powerful example of a persuasive presentation is the technique known as the elevator pitch . You must introduce your idea or product convincingly to the audience in a timeframe between 30 seconds and less than 2 minutes. You have to expose:

• What do you do 
• What’s the problem to solve
• Why is your solution different from others 
• Why should the audience care about your expertise

For that very purpose, using engaging graphics with contrasting colors elevates the potential power of your message. It speaks professionalism, care for details, and out-of-the-box thinking. Knowing how to end a presentation is also critical, as your CTAs should be placed with care.

Therefore, let’s resume the requirements of persuasive presentations in terms of good presentation skills:

• Identifying problems and needs
• Elaborating “the hook” (the element that grabs the audience’s attention)
• Knowing how to “tie” your audience (introducing a piece of information related to the hook that causes an emotional impact)
• Broad knowledge of body language and hand gestures to quickly convey your message
• Being prepared to argue a defense of your point of view
• Handling rejection
• Having a proactive attitude to convert opportunities into new projects
• Using humor, surprise, or personal anecdotes as elements to sympathize with the audience
• Having confidence
• Be able to summarize facts and information in visually appealing ways

You can learn more about persuasive presentation techniques by clicking here .

In the case of instructional presentations, we ought to differentiate two distinctive types:

• Lecture Presentations : Presentations being held at universities or any other educative institution. Those presentations cover, topic by topic, and the contents of a syllabus and are created by the team of teachers in charge of the course.
• Training Presentations : These presentations take place during in-company training sessions and usually comprise a good amount of content that is resumed into easy-to-take solutions. They are aimed to coach employees over certain topics relevant to their work performance. The 70-20-10 Model is frequently used to address these training situations.

Lecture presentations appeal to the gradual introduction of complex concepts, following a structure set in the course’s syllabus. These presentations often have a similar aesthetic as a group of professors or researchers created to share their knowledge about a topic. Personal experience does tell that course presentations often rely on factual data, adequately documented, and on the theoretical side.

An example of a presentation that lies under this concept is a Syllabus Presentation, used by the teaching team to introduce the subject to new students, evaluation methods, concepts to be learned, and expectations to pass the course.

On the other hand, training presentations are slide decks designed to meet an organization’s specific needs in the formal education of their personnel. Commonly known as “continuous education,” plenty of companies invest resources in coaching their employees to achieve higher performance results. These presentations have the trademark of being concise since their idea is to introduce the concepts that shall be applied in practice sessions. 

Ideally, the training presentations are introduced with little text and easy-to-recognize visual cues. Since the idea is to summarize as much as possible, these are visually appealing for the audience. They must be dynamic enough to allow the presenter to convey the message.

Those key takeaways remind employees when they revisit their learning resources and allow them to ruminate on questions that fellow workers raise. 

To sum up this point, building presentation skills for instructional presentations requires:

• Ability to put complex concepts into simpler words
• Patience and a constant learning mindset
• Voice training to deliver lengthy speeches without being too dense
• Ability to summarize points and note the key takeaways
• Empathizing with the audience to understand their challenges in the learning process

The informative presentations take place in business situations, such as when to present project reports from different departments to the management. Another potential usage of these presentations is in SCRUM or other Agile methodologies, when a sprint is completed, to discuss the advance of the project with the Product Owner.

As they are presentations heavily dependent on data insights, it’s common to see the usage of infographics and charts to express usually dense data in simpler terms and easy to remember. 

Informative presentations don’t just fall into the business category. Ph.D. Dissertation and Thesis presentations are topics that belong to the informative presentations category as they condense countless research hours into manageable reports for the academic jury. 

Since these informational presentations can be perceived as lengthy and data-filled, it is important to learn the following professional presentation skills:

• Attention to detail
• Be able to explain complex information in simpler terms
• Creative thinking
• Powerful diction
• Working on pauses and transitions
• Pacing the presentation, so not too much information is divulged per slide

The leading inspirational platform, TEDx, comes to mind when talking about inspirational presentations. This presentation format has the peculiarity of maximizing the engagement with the audience to divulge a message, and due to that, it has specific requirements any presenter must meet.

This presentation format usually involves a speaker on a stage, either sitting or better standing, in which the presenter engages with the audience with a storytelling format about a life experience, a job done that provided a remarkable improvement for society, etc.

Empathizing with the audience is the key ingredient for these inspirational presentations. Still, creativity is what shapes the outcome of your performance as people are constantly looking for different experiences – not the same recipe rephrased with personal touches. The human factor is what matters here, way above data and research. What has your experience to offer to others? How can it motivate another human being to pursue a similar path or discover their true calling?

To achieve success in terms of communication skills presentation, these inspirational presentations have the following requirements:

• Focus on the audience (engage, consider their interests, and make them a part of your story)
• Putting ego aside
• Creative communication skills
• Storytelling skills
• Body language knowledge to apply the correct gestures to accompany your story
• Voice training
• Using powerful words

After discussing the different kinds of presentations we can come across at any stage of our lives, a group of presentation skills is standard in any type of presentation. See below what makes a good presentation and which skills you must count on to succeed as a presenter.

Punctuality

Punctuality is a crucial aspect of giving an effective presentation. Nothing says more about respect for your audience and the organization you represent than delivering the presentation on time . Arriving last minute puts pressure on the tech team behind audiovisuals, as they don’t have enough preparation to test microphones, stage lights, and projector settings, which can lead to a less powerful presentation Even when discussing presentations hosted in small rooms for a reduced audience, testing the equipment becomes essential for an effective presentation.

A solution for this is to arrive at least 30 minutes early. Ideally, one hour is a sweet spot since the AV crew has time to check the gear and requirements for your presentation. Another benefit of this, for example, in inspirational presentations, is measuring the previous presenter’s impact on the audience. This gives insights about how to resonate with the public, and their interest, and how to accommodate your presentation for maximum impact.

Body Language

Our bodies can make emotions transparent for others, even when we are unaware of such a fact. Proper training for body language skills reduces performance anxiety, giving the audience a sense of expertise about the presented topic. 

Give your presentation and the audience the respect they deserve by watching over these potential mistakes:

• Turning your back to the audience for extended periods : It’s okay to do so when introducing an important piece of information or explaining a graph, but it is considered rude to give your back to the audience constantly.
• Fidgeting : We are all nervous in the presence of strangers, even more, if we are the center of attention for that moment. Instead of playing with your hair or making weird hand gestures, take a deep breath to center yourself before the presentation and remember that everything you could do to prepare is already done. Trust your instincts and give your best.
• Intense eye contact : Have you watched a video where the presenter stared at the camera the entire time? That’s the feeling you transmit to spectators through intense eye contact. It’s a practice often used by politicians to persuade.
• Swearing : This is a no-brainer. Even when you see influencers swearing on camera or in podcasts or live presentations, it is considered an informal and lousy practice for business and academic situations. If you have a habit to break when it comes to this point, find the humor in these situations and replace your swear words with funny alternatives (if the presentation allows for it). 

Voice Tone plays a crucial role in delivering effective presentations and knowing how to give a good presentation. Your voice is a powerful tool for exposing your ideas and feelings . Your voice can articulate the message you are telling, briefing the audience if you feel excited about what you are sharing or, in contrast, if you feel the presentation is a burden you ought to complete.

Remember, passion is a primary ingredient in convincing people. Therefore, transmitting such passion with a vibrant voice may help gather potential business partners’ interest.  

But what if you feel sick prior to the presentation? If, by chance, your throat is sore minutes before setting foot on the stage, try this: when introducing yourself, mention that you are feeling a bit under the weather. This resonates with the audience to pay more attention to your efforts. In case you don’t feel comfortable about that, ask the organizers for a cup of tea, as it will settle your throat and relax your nerves.

Tech Skills

Believe it or not, people still feel challenged by technology these days. Maybe that’s the reason why presentation giants like Tony Robbins opt not to use PowerPoint presentations . The reality is that there are plenty of elements involved in a presentation that can go wrong from the tech side:

• A PDF not opening
• Saving your presentation in a too-recent PowerPoint version
• A computer not booting up
• Mac laptops and their never-ending compatibility nightmare
• Not knowing how to change between slides
• Not knowing how to use a laser pointer
• Internet not working
• Audio not working

We can come up with a pretty long list of potential tech pitfalls, and yet more than half of them fall in presenters not being knowledgeable about technology.

If computers aren’t your thing, let the organization know about this beforehand. There is always a crew member available to help presenters switch between slides or configure the presentation for streaming. This takes the pressure off your shoulders, allowing you to concentrate on the content to present. Remember, even Bill Gates can get a BSOD during a presentation .

Presentations, while valuable for conveying information and ideas, can be daunting for many individuals. Here are some common difficulties people encounter when giving presentations:

Public Speaking Anxiety

Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, affects a significant portion of the population. This anxiety can lead to nervousness, trembling, and forgetfulness during a presentation.

Lack of Confidence

Many presenters struggle with self-doubt, fearing that they may not be knowledgeable or skilled enough to engage their audience effectively.

Content Organization

Organizing information in a coherent and engaging manner can be challenging. Presenters often grapple with how to structure their content to make it easily digestible for the audience.

Audience Engagement

Keeping the audience’s attention and interest throughout the presentation can be difficult. Distractions, disengaged attendees, or lack of interaction can pose challenges.

Technical Issues

Technology glitches, such as malfunctioning equipment, incompatible file formats, or poor internet connectivity, can disrupt presentations and increase stress.

Time Management

Striking the right balance between providing enough information and staying within time limits is a common challenge. Going over or under the allotted time can affect the effectiveness of the presentation.

Handling Questions and Challenges

Responding to unexpected questions, criticism, or challenges from the audience can be difficult, especially when presenters are unprepared or lack confidence in their subject matter.

Visual Aids and Technology

Creating and effectively using visual aids like slides or multimedia can be a struggle for some presenters. Technical competence is essential in this aspect.

Language and Articulation

Poor language skills or unclear articulation can hinder effective communication. Presenters may worry about stumbling over words or failing to convey their message clearly.

Maintaining appropriate and confident body language can be challenging. Avoiding nervous habits, maintaining eye contact, and using gestures effectively requires practice.

Overcoming Impersonal Delivery

In virtual presentations, maintaining a personal connection with the audience can be difficult. The absence of face-to-face interaction can make it challenging to engage and read the audience.

Cultural and Diversity Awareness

Presenting to diverse audiences requires sensitivity to cultural differences and varying levels of familiarity with the topic.

In this section, we gathered some tips on how to improve presentation skills that can certainly make an impact if applied to your presentation skills. We believe these skills can be cultivated to transform into habits for your work routine.

Tip #1: Build a narrative

One memorable way to guarantee presentation success is by writing a story of all the points you desire to cover. This statement is based on the logic behind storytelling and its power to connect with people .

Don’t waste time memorizing slides or reading your presentation to the audience. It feels unnatural, and any question that diverts from the topic in discussion certainly puts you in jeopardy or, worse, exposes you as a fraud in the eyes of the audience. And before you ask, it is really evident when a presenter has a memorized speech. 

Build and rehearse the presentation as if telling a story to a group of interested people. Lower the language barrier by avoiding complex terms that maybe even you aren’t fully aware of their meaning. Consider the ramifications of that story, what it could lead to, and which are the opportunities to explore. Then, visualize yourself giving the presentation in a natural way.

Applying this technique makes the presentation feel like second nature to you. It broadens the spectrum in which you can show expertise over a topic or even build the basis for new interesting points of view about the project.

Tip #2: Don’t talk for more than 3 minutes per slide

It is a common practice of presenters to bombard the audience with facts and information whilst retaining the same slide on the screen. Why can this happen? It could be because the presenter condensed the talk into very few slides and preferred to talk. The reality is that your spectators won’t retain the information you are giving unless you give visual cues to help that process. 

Opt to prepare more slides and pace your speech to match the topics shown on each slide. Don’t spend more than 3 minutes per slide unless you have to introduce a complex piece of data. Use visual cues to direct the spectators about what you talk about, and summarize the principal concepts discussed at the end of each section.

Tip #3: Practice meditation daily

Anxiety is the number one enemy of professional presenters. It slowly builds without you being aware of your doubts and can hinder your performance in multiple ways: making you feel paralyzed, fidgeting, making you forget language skills or concepts, affecting your health, etc.

Meditation is an ancient practice taken from Buddhist teachings that train your mind to be here in the present. We often see the concepts of meditation and mindfulness as synonyms, whereas you should be aware that meditation is a practice that sets the blocks to reach a state of mindfulness. For presenters, being in the here and now is essential to retain focus, but meditation techniques also teach us to control our breathing and be in touch with our body signals when stress builds up. 

The customary practice of meditation has an impact on imagination and creativity but also helps to build patience – a skill much needed for connecting with your audience in instructional presentations.

Having the proper set of presentation skills can be quite subjective. It goes beyond presentation tips and deepens into how flexible we can be in our ability to communicate ideas.

Different presentations and different audiences shape the outcome of our efforts. Therefore, having a basic understanding of how to connect, raise awareness, and empathize with people can be key ingredients for your career as a presenter. A word of advice: success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication and patience to build communication skills . Don’t condition your work to believe you will be ready “someday”; it’s best to practice and experience failure as part of the learning process.

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Business Presentations, Presentation Approaches, Presentation Skills Filed under Education

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Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

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Blog – Creative Presentations Ideas

infoDiagram visual slide examples, PowerPoint diagrams & icons , PPT tricks & guides

7 Sections for Effective Presentation Training Slides

Are you delivering a public speaking or presentation skills training? Find some inspiration for your slides here.

In this article I suggest how you can prepare engaging PowerPoint visuals covering presentation training topics, specifically:

• How to illustrate presentation structure and content types on a slide
• Visualizing speaker and listener types
• Presenting various meeting room setups
• How to show hints for preparing speech and presentation itself
• Closing the presentation training with a recap and summary slide

Whether you are a professional communication trainer or a beginner, I believe you can find some handy examples.

Note: All slide examples are from the Presentation Skills Training PPT Toolbox . Click the pictures to see details.

We’re talking a lot here about presentation content, right visualizations, showing concepts… Let’s get back tot he roots and recall the very basics of high-quality presentation and how it should look like.

Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind. Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling was right that words are a very powerful tool, however, if used and delivered effectively. Let’s break down some theory into short sections.

#1: Illustrating Presentation Structure by Drawing

In my presentation experience, I see usually those 3 most popular kinds of structures: classical 3-part, monotonous and ‘Hollywood-movie’ style. When you explain such structures, I suggest you draw a simple diagram like the one above. Either on a flipchart or if you want to have materials prepared before, then make a slide with those speech flow diagrams.

You can either show them all together on one slide for comparison or put each on a separate slide. This way you will get attention focus on one presentation type t a time.

For discovering more tips for structuring presentation I recommend to check Nancy Duarte’s blog series:  Structure Your Presentation Like a Story and her book Resonate.

4MAT – My Favorite Presentation Structure

Out of various speech structures, I like the most the 4MAT concept. It is pretty simple and works for me.

I suggest that when you create a presentation, ask yourself those four questions. Those are questions listeners have in their head when they listen to you.

Using the 4MAT framework help me to see things from the viewpoint of my audience and be sure listeners will get your ideas right.

#2: Explore Presentations by Content

It’s obvious the presentation content defines the presentation type. However, it’s good to remind yourself what’s the goal of the presentation – to inspire or to entertain only? Do you want to persuade your audience of your idea or only to inform, to give a report?

Some examples:

• For inspiring presentations: Talks on TED.com are the best examples. Or check one of Elon Musk’s speech on Mars Mission .  Politicians use this presentation to type a lot
• Informative presentations are usually used when you do a project summary report or yearly business review. Unfortunately, lots of school lectures fall into this category, even though the teachers should work on moving towards an inspiring segment with a bit of entertainment to keep kids attention.
• For persuasive presentations just think of last sales or marketing presentation you experienced.
• For entertainment – check any stand-up comedy talks, for example, this or this (being a father I really appreciate that later talk).
• A mixture of entertainment and information is e.g. famous John Oliver show

You have to make sure that your speech is relevant to the audience you’re speaking to.

#3: Analyze the Speaker Types

When teaching about properly preparing a talk, you need to consider also different speaker types classification. I put here four kinds of presenters: a typical talkative salesman style, an analyst type who likes to go into details (sometimes too much), a monotonous teacher style (that would need a point of wake up) and an involving storyteller. However, you can think of other examples based on your experience.

Depending on the particular speaker type, you can use its strong sides to build the presentation differently and also support it with proper visuals. For instance, for a talkative salesman, the agenda slides can provide a structure to follow. On the other hand, a too much detailed analyst on lengthy teacher talk can benefit from having a strong visual section slides that will wake up your audience.

#4: Analyze the Listener Groups

Knowing the speaker type is one thing. However, even more, important is to examine the audience carefully to reach them best.

Every presenter should ask first “Who are my listeners”? Do they prefer a formal or informal way of communication? Are they feelers or thinkers (see MBTI types of personality )? Will the audience be active or rather passive during the talk?

When doing a presentation training, you should address this key question. And what is the better way than to illustrate it e.g. by a set of icons?

In my slides, I added there also a hand drawn chart where you can position the major listeners’ types. Then you can place and move around the central circle to show various audience cases on a knowledge and involvement scale.

In a training, you can include a similar chart (or apply those presentation training diagram slides ) for determining the audience type.

#5: Room set up – the importance of the presentation environment

After talking about presentation audience and speaker types, the good presenter should think also about the place where a talk will take place. Choosing a suitable environment is an important factor for the effective delivery of the speech.

I distinguish here five common kinds of room setups: classroom, multiple groups environment, interactive roundtable, big theater and sitting in a circle. Each one suits a different purpose. Some of these you need to arrange before, of course, you will know if you speak at a big conference that there will likely be a theater-like room. However, sometimes even a small change of sitting arrangements can provide a totally different atmosphere for a speech.

• Classroom setup assumes rather one-directional communication from teacher to students.
• Roundtable or sitting in a circle encourages discussion and underlines equality of all participants.
• Having clusters of multiple groups is great if you want to have several teams working on some group work.

#6: Presenting Hints for Speech Preparation

If you want to add a list of things to remember before making a presentation, I suggest you try to illustrate each point by some image, as I did above. This creates a better mnemonic association for each point and people will remember the hints longer. Even better, replace the bullet points by a vivid diagram along keeping the icons.

#7: Presenting Summary of the Training

At the end of the training, remember to repeat the main message once again. Present the main conclusion, give your audience something to think about. You can write it down on a slide clearly, without too many distractions. Or write it by hand on a board or flipchart.

Resources for Presentation Training

Besides the links I shared above I recommend those further reading and resources

• Toastmasters International public speaking clubs all over the world
• Books: Slide:ology Nancy Duarte and Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
• Our PowerPoint Training templates for various soft-skills training, see details below.
• Feedback Training Presentation Hints 
• Motivation Training Presentation Template & Ideas

So if you’re having training on how to create and deliver a presentation, you can reuse slide from our collection in your projects. Or just get inspiration from my slides and create them yourself.

If you decide to go for our handdrawn style diagrams, you will be able to easily edit all content, adapt the colors to your brand, add the whole slides or particular charts to your training presentation.

Graphics resource: Presentation skills training toolbox

You can also check the presentation template we’ve designed with illustrations of types of speakers or presentation structures:

Presentation Skills Training Toolbox

If you like such scribble style, see the complete All Scribble Symbols Bundle , with over 250 handwritten hand-drawn symbols and shapes.

About the author: Peter Zvirinsky is a slide design trainer and the founder of infoDiagram. He is helping presenters, trainers and various business managers to communicate their ideas in clear visual way usually in form of PowerPoint slides. Peter loves changing text information into simple diagrams and he wants to inspire also others to use this visualization process in everyday life. Reach out to Peter on LinkedIn or via his slide design & training website.

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Our Top 8 Tips For Creating Effective Training Presentations!

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Staff training for all employees, including managers, supervisors, and executives, is vital to an efficient and safe working space. For optimal results, you not only need active participants and good public speaking skills, but you need effective training materials that are easy to digest.

If you’re hoping to create a staff training PowerPoint presentation, or any other training material, this is the place to be. Here’s our guide to creating effective training presentations that leave lasting impressions on your trainees .

What Is A Training Presentation?

As many individuals in the human resources department know, employee training is mandatory for employees to complete when they start a job.

A training presentation is a learning material that helps build the right skills that employees need in order to perform their jobs accurately. For optimal results, your training presentations should include lessons that showcase the specialized knowledge in well-structured and easy-to-read slides .

An effective presentation will create a great learning experience for your audience and will illustrate the main message throughout the presentation.

Youth Employment Services Training Presentation

Youth Employment Services (YES) was faced with the challenge of developing a training series aimed at you guessed it, increasing youth employment. A typical PowerPoint just wasn’t captivating enough, so we gave them an engaging presentation from start to finish.

Why Are Effective Employee Training Presentations Beneficial To My Company?

Providing relevant training information to your team is extremely important to the overall safety and efficiency of your company. A solid training presentation that can provide knowledge and important information to your participants can benefit your company in a number of ways. Here are just a few that come to mind:

Peace Of Mind

First, a training presentation can provide peace of mind to your organization. When your team members fully understand the importance of safety requirements or the different responsibilities of their job, it means you can rest assured that they are well equipped for daily tasks and emergency situations.

Employee Retention

Another benefit of effective training presentations is employee retention. When your employees fully understand their role in your organization and feel equipped and supported, they are more likely to stay in their role. Also, knowledge is power and development/progression is more than just monetary.

Setting Standards & Expectations

Finally, an effective training course will ensure that your team members have a set of clear expectations and standards to hold to throughout their time at your company. Clear expectations for your employees can not only lead to a more efficient workplace, but can also create a safer and healthier work environment.

5 Tips That Ensure You Have An Effective Training Presentation

Now that we understand what a training presentation is and why a good presentation is so beneficial for your company, we can focus on how to create a professional and effective training presentation.

Here are 5 training presentation tips that you can use to enhance your training Powerpoint slides and keep the materials interesting to your audience:

Tell Your Story And Articulate Your Learning Goals

When you present your training course to your employees, you want to first start with a summary of the organization’s story and what your main goals are. Your brand’s story should be woven throughout the presentation so that everything ties back together. This solid structure will allow you to build off it and further engage your audience.

In order to engage your team you want them to understand why your business exists and what the main mission or key goals are. When you include these things in your Powerpoint presentation, you can further engage your audience.

As seen in this training presentation for Soccer Shots , the organization’s mission and main goals are clearly articulated at the beginning of the training session.

Make Your Presentation Accessible

In order to even fully engage your students at a training session, they need to be able to hear the presenter and see and read the slides.

Creating an accessible presentation will allow every person in the audience to gain knowledge from the Powerpoint slides.

Accessibility can mean different things for different people, so it’s important to know what kind of needs your audience requires. For example, you may need to use a larger text size, a microphone, a clear font, sign language, or narration throughout the presentation.

As a presenter, it’s important to ensure that everyone present at the session is able to reach each slide, complete each task, and can hear the trainer’s speech.

Cater To Different Learning Styles

Another aspect of a good training presentation is understanding that everyone learns differently. Where some employees can gain a lot of knowledge from slides full of bullet points, other employees may need more interactive elements during the training presentation.

To ensure that your professional training presentation appeals and engages all types of learners, you should try to include a variety of elements in your PowerPoint presentation design .

For example, you might include more graphics, images, or videos that can talk for you. Or, you can have specific conversations starters where participants can engage in conversation with the trainer and the other audience members.

Too much text can lead to an information overload that can cause participants to zone out while the trainer is talking. Instead, structure your presentation slides with some white space so your audience isn’t overwhelmed with information.

Use Real World Examples In Your Training Sessions

Another way to boost training skills in a good training presentation is throughout using real life examples. While data charts and abstract ideas can provide extremely helpful information to participants, real world examples can allow that information to stick.

People are more perceptive to ideas that make an impact on their own lives. So, if you include examples from daily life to illustrate and explain your point, you may find that your audience is more engaged in the training presentation.

Now, use your findings to integrate realistic situations as examples or exercises that show trainees the value of your session. The key to an engaged and motivated audience is to keep things real.

Design Is Critical, So Don't Underestimate It

One of the most important tips for creating effective training presentations is that design matters. As much as it may seem that the information is more important than the design for a training course, the design is actually very critical.

Not only can your design reinforce your brand image and brand identity, but it can further engage your participants. Charts that showcase data and information, graphics, high quality images, eye catching colours, and smooth transitions can all help you make a powerpoint presentation that gets your point across effectively.

A great presentation template and slide deck will have a organic design that not only pleases the eye, but will explain important information to your audience.

Consider Additions or Alternatives To Help Support Your Training Efforts

An effective presentation isn’t just about the slides. There are other components that you need to keep in mind before leading your presentation.

Practice Your Presentation Skills

For one, the trainer will need to practice the presentation ahead of the course.

Good public speaking skills and having a strong idea of what you are talking about can all help with creating an effective and engaging presentation.

Use Effective Handouts

You may also want to use handouts to aid your presentation, but make sure it isn’t just information that is already on a slide in your presentation.

Whether it’s an article with more information, notes about the course, a summary of information, or further tips, handouts can be beneficial for your audience.

Hire a Design Agency

Finally, you should consider hiring a presentation design agency to help you create these slides.

While a presentation template can be a good starting point, a great presentation requires a lot more time, effort, and skill. A professional design agency can take this task off your hands so you can focus on the speech aspect.

This was the case for a Lawyer at BelkerPalm Legal who was giving a presentation to a group of law students. Although his experience was vast and his presentation skills were strong, he didn’t have the visuals to back him up. He was relieved to find the Geeks!

Need Help Designing Your Training Materials?

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We’re a presentation and training manual design company that truly understand how crucial it is building effective training materials for new employees. We’ve done it for clients, and ourselves, but we always put you first.

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Effective presentation skills are required for enhanced success. here are some points to be kept in mind while preparing for and delivering an impactful presentation. – powerpoint ppt presentation.

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• MMM Training Solutions
• Contact Pramila Mathew
• Mobile 91 98409 88449
• Website www.mmmts.com
• A presentation is a reflection of you and your work. You want to make the best possible impression in the short amount of time given you.
• This session will cover
• How to prepare for a presentation.
• Guidelines for creating effective slides.
• Make it simple.
• Make it clear.
• Dont let the technology dominate the presentation. You want the audience to remember the quality of your research, not your PowerPoint wizardry.
• What are the key points you want to make?
• Who is your audience? What are they interested in hearing and how familiar are they with your topic? Do they expect data or concepts?
• Remember A presentation is different than a paper. Dont try to cover everything.
• How big is the hall where you will be speaking?
• How much time will you be given?
• What time of day is your talk?
• Carefully consider if you will depend on anyone else for producing your presentationallow plenty of lead time.
• Ask what you will be given and what you must bring with you.
• Consider all equipment you will need
• Internet connection
• Consider what could go wrong and plan accordingly.
• Always have a backup.
• Bring a handout that covers all of your slides. Make sure they are legible.
• Time to sell your idea or research.
• Answer the question, Why should I listen to you?
• Establish your personal credibility.
• Stick to a maximum of two READABLE typefaces.
• Limit the use of color.
• Pick a style and stick with it.
• Keep it short, especially titles.
• Leave empty space.
• Make data/results the focus of your presentation.
• Dont try to include all datause handouts for detailed information or refer audience to a Web site.
• Use color or special effects sparingly and consistently.
• Practice! Recruit a friendly and constructively critical audience.
• Recruit a grammar expert.
• Show your presentation to someone who knows nothing about your field. Do they get what you want to say?
• Use upper and lower case lettering compared to all caps.
• Lines and rules should be thick or bold.
• Use font sizes large enough to view from anywhere in the room.
• Try not to use fonts smaller than 28pt (anything less than 18pt will be illegible to an audience).
• Simulations
• Role-playing,
• Team-building exercises
• Brainstorming
• The group remains silent.
• Things are moving too fast.
• Things are moving too slowly.
• A talkative participant.
• A silent participant.
• The typical know-all.
• Sessions getting sidetracked.
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