presentation on business communication

18 Best Presentation Topics for Business Communication

Table of Contents

Delivering effective presentations is a vital component of successful business communication. Whether you are presenting to your team, clients, or stakeholders, choosing the right topic can make all the difference in the success of your presentation.

However, with so many potential topics to cover, it can be challenging to know where to start. In this blog post, we will provide you with 15 presentation topics for business communication that are relevant and engaging for a variety of audiences.

What is a business presentation in business communication?

A business presentation is a formal presentation given to a group of people in a business setting. Business presentations are commonly used to inform stakeholders, investors, employees, or customers about various aspects of a business such as company performance, products or services, and marketing strategies.

It is often delivered using visual aids such as slides, charts, and graphs to enhance the clarity and effectiveness of the message. Business presentations can take many forms, such as sales presentations, product demonstrations, project proposals , financial reports, or company overviews. They can be delivered in person, through video conferencing, or even in written form. 

A successful business presentation should be well-structured, clear, and engaging, with a clear focus on the audience’s needs and interests.

18 Best Topics for Business Communication Presentation 

1/ the importance of emotional intelligence in business communication.

Emotional intelligence, or the ability to recognize and manage one’s emotions, is a critical factor in effective communication. Having this ability is crucial for developing robust connections, handling disputes, and guiding groups effectively. This topic will explore the principles of emotional intelligence , as well as techniques for improving emotional intelligence in the workplace. Additionally, it can highlight the essentiality of emotional intelligence in business communication and how professionals can develop this skill.

2/ The Role of Nonverbal Communication in Business Communication

In a professional environment, nonverbal cues like gestures, facial expressions, and vocal intonation can carry significant weight in determining how messages are perceived. In this topic, you could explore the various types of nonverbal communication and how professionals can improve their ability to read and use these cues.

Related Reading: What are the pros and cons of non-verbal communication

3/ Workplace Health and Wellness In the Business Environment

Promoting workplace health and wellness is becoming increasingly important for businesses, as research shows that healthy employees are more productive , engaged, and less likely to take sick leave. In addition, a workplace that prioritizes health and wellness can attract and retain top talent, which can give the business a competitive edge.

One of the key topics to cover in a presentation on workplace health and wellness is stress management. Stress is a major contributor to employee burnout, which can lead to decreased productivity. Additionally, other topics that can be covered include workplace ergonomics, and creating a culture of wellness.

4/ The Art of Persuasion in Business Communication

Persuasion is a valuable skill in the business world, whether you are trying to sell a product, convince a colleague to support your idea or negotiate a deal. Persuasion involves understanding the needs and motivations of your audience and tailoring your message to their interests. This topic will explore the principles of persuasion and provide tips for crafting persuasive messages.

5/ Writing for Business- How to Create Effective Business Documents

Business writing requires a unique set of skills and techniques that differ from other forms of writing. In this topic, you could explore the elements of effective business writing, such as tone, structure, and formatting, and provide examples of best practices.

6/ Writing Effective Business Emails

An email is a critical tool for business communication , but many people struggle with crafting clear and effective messages. Effective business emails are professional, concise, and to the point, and they convey important information in a way that is easy to understand. This topic will provide tips and best practices for writing professional, concise, and effective business emails.

7/ Business Communication Ethics

To communicate effectively, it is not enough to simply convey your message. You must also take into account ethical principles such as integrity, transparency, and consideration for others. This topic will explore the ethical principles of business communication , as well as techniques for avoiding ethical pitfalls and building trust and credibility with stakeholders.

8/ How to Give and Receive Constructive Feedback

Constructive feedback is feedback that is framed in a positive, helpful way, with the goal of helping the recipient improve. Feedback is essential for growth and development in the workplace. However, it can be difficult to give and receive constructive feedback. This topic will cover the best practices for giving and receiving feedback, including how to frame feedback in a constructive and productive way along with the feedback communication process .

9/ Cross-Cultural Communication in Global Business

As businesses become more global, professionals must learn to navigate communication barriers in business that arise in multicultural settings. In this topic, you could explore the unique challenges of cross-cultural communication in a global business context and provide strategies for improving communication effectiveness.

10/ How to Manage Conflict in the Workplace

Although conflict is a normal occurrence in any workplace, managing it in an efficient manner can be quite difficult. Effective conflict management involves understanding the underlying causes of conflict, identifying potential solutions, and working with others to find a resolution that is mutually beneficial. This topic will cover strategies for identifying and addressing conflict, as well as techniques for resolving disputes and building stronger relationships.

11/ Building Strong Business Relationships

Strong relationships are the foundation of any successful business. Whether you are working with customers, employees, or partners, building trust and rapport is critical for long-term success. This topic will explore the key principles of relationship-building, including communication, trust, and mutual benefit.

12/ Using Data Visualization to Communicate Business Insights

Data visualization is a powerful tool for communicating complex business insights in a clear and compelling way. This topic will explore the principles of data visualization, including choosing the right charts and graphs, using color and typography effectively, and avoiding common visualization pitfalls.

13/ Managing Virtual Communication Challenges

Virtual communication can present unique challenges, including technical difficulties, lack of face-to-face interaction , and time zone differences. This topic will cover techniques for managing virtual communication challenges, including using virtual collaboration tools, establishing clear communication protocols, and building rapport with remote team members.

14/ The Art of Negotiation in Business

Negotiation is an essential skill for achieving successful outcomes in business, from closing deals to resolving conflicts. This topic will explore the principles of negotiation, including preparing for negotiations, identifying common negotiation tactics, and building win-win solutions.

15/ The Impact of Technology on Business Communication

Technology is changing the way we communicate in business, from email to social media to virtual collaboration tools like instant messaging or  online presentation makers . This topic will explore the impact of technology on business communication , including the benefits and challenges of different communication channels and the future of business communication.

16/ The Role of Communication in Change Management

Effective communication is essential for managing change in the workplace, from introducing new products or services to implementing organizational changes. This topic will explore the principles of change management communication, including identifying key stakeholders, creating messaging guidelines, and managing resistance to change.

17/ Communicating with Confidence-B uilding Assertiveness in Business Communication

Assertiveness is an essential skill for effective communication in the workplace, from managing conflicts to presenting ideas effectively. This topic will explore the principles of assertiveness, including identifying communication styles, using “I” statements effectively, and managing challenging conversations.

18/ Communicating During Times of Crisis

When a crisis occurs, effective communication is essential to manage the situation and mitigate any potential damage. In this topic, you could explore the elements of effective crisis communication, including transparency, empathy, and quick response time.

Usefull Insight: We chose these topics because they cover a wide range of communication skills and are relevant to today’s business environment. Each topic provides practical strategies for improving communication and achieving business success. Additionally, these topics are evergreen and can be adapted to a variety of industries and organizations.

General business topics for presentation

General business topics cover a broad range of subjects related to the world of business, including management, marketing, finance, economics, and entrepreneurship. These topics are essential for understanding how businesses operate and how they can be successful in their respective industries. Examples of general business topics include:  

• General business topics for presentation 
• Supply chain management and logistics
• Human resources management and talent development
• International trade and globalization
• Leadership and management development

Business communication skills topics for presentation 

Business communication skills topics refer to the skills and techniques necessary to effectively communicate within a business environment. These skills involve the ability to effectively and persuasively convey information, ideas, and messages in a business setting. Here are some examples of topics related to business communication skills:

• Sales Communication: Techniques for Persuasive and Effective Sales Communication
• Business Etiquette: Best Practices for Professional Behavior in the Workplace
• Networking: Building Professional Relationships through Effective Communication
• Effective Presentation Skills: Techniques for Engaging and Persuading Audiences
• Business Storytelling: Using Narrative to Communicate Business Messages Effectively

Must Read: Top 10 business communication skills

Management topics for presentation 

Management topics for presentation focus on the principles and practices of effective management in a business setting. They cover a wide range of topics, including leadership, team building, decision-making, organizational behavior, and performance management. Some examples of management topics for presentation include:

• Innovation Management: Strategies for Fostering Innovation in Organizations.
• Strategic Planning: Developing a Comprehensive Strategic Plan for Your Organization.
• Performance Management: Strategies for Managing Employee Performance and Engagement.
• Project Management: Best Practices for Successfully Managing Projects.

Business communication topics for college students

• Social Media and Business Communication: Best Practices for Using Social Media to Build Relationships and Brand Awareness.
• Leadership Communication: Strategies for Effective Leadership Communication.
• Virtual Communication: Best Practices for Communicating Effectively in a Remote Work Environment.
• What are the Methods of Communication in Business ? 

Presentation topics for professional communication 

• Effective public speaking for business and career success.
• Delivering effective feedback to colleagues and team members.
• Navigating difficult conversations in the workplace.
• Cultivating a positive company culture through effective communication.

5-minute business presentation topics

• How to create a successful business plan
• Creative methods for marketing and advertising.
• How to improve customer retention through effective customer service
• Tips for successful project management

What is a good business presentation? 

A good business presentation should be clear, concise, and engaging. It should effectively convey the main message or idea, and be structured in a logical and easy-to-follow manner. Here are some key elements that contribute to a good business presentation:

1/ Clear and concise message: A good business presentation should have a clear and concise message that is easy for the audience to understand. The presentation should stay focused on its main topic and avoid unnecessary details.

2/ Audience-focused: For a business presentation to be effective, it should be customized to suit the requirements and concerns of the audience. The presenter should use language and examples that are relevant to the audience and take into consideration their level of knowledge and understanding.

3/ Confident and professional delivery: A good business presentation should be delivered with confidence and professionalism. The presenter should maintain eye contact with the audience, use appropriate body language, and speak clearly and audibly.

4/ Engaging and visually appealing: A good business presentation should be visually appealing and use multimedia elements such as images, videos, and graphs to help convey information and keep the audience engaged.

What is the importance of business communication presentation and style

Business communication presentation and style are important because they can greatly impact the effectiveness of communication in a business setting. Here are some reasons why:

• Clarity: An effective presentation and communication style can help ensure that the message is clearly understood by the audience.
• Professionalism: A professional presentation and communication style can help to establish credibility and build trust with the audience. 
• Persuasion: A well-designed and well-delivered presentation can be a powerful tool for persuading an audience to take a particular course of action or to support a particular idea or proposal.
• Branding: A consistent presentation and communication style can help to reinforce a business’s brand identity and messaging. 

What are the 5 types of business presentations? 

The five commonly used business presentations are, sales presentations, financial presentations, training presentations, project proposal presentations, and company overview presentations. The type of presentation chosen will depend on the specific goals and objectives of the presenter and their audience.

1/ Sales presentation: A sales  presentation is used to convince prospective customers to buy a particular product or service. It usually includes information about the benefits of the product or service, the pricing, and any other relevant details.

2/ Financial presentation: This form of presentation is utilized to communicate financial data with stakeholders, such as investors. It may include financial statements, projections, and analysis of financial performance.

3/ Training presentation: A training presentation is designed to teach employees a new skill or provide them with important information. These presentations may include interactive elements such as quizzes or hands-on exercises.

4/ Project proposal presentation: This type of presentation is used to pitch a project or idea to stakeholders, such as investors or management. It typically includes information about the project’s goals, timeline, budget, and potential benefits.

5/ Company overview presentation: This type of presentation provides an overview of the company’s history, mission, values, and current operations. It may be used for onboarding new employees or introducing the company to potential partners or customers .  

What are the uses of PPT in business communication? 

Business communication is a crucial aspect of any business, and presentations are a key tool for conveying important information, ideas, and messages to an audience. It helps businesses communicate more effectively, both internally and externally, and it is an essential part of modern business communication. 

One of the primary uses of PPT is to create and deliver presentations that convey information to an audience. PPT allows presenters to create visually appealing slides with images, graphics, and text that help to reinforce key points and keep the audience engaged.

Organizations also facilitate collaboration through PPT as it can be used among team members for creating collaborative presentations where multiple team members can contribute content and ideas.  At the same time, management can also simplify complex ideas and pass clear instructions that can easily be understood by the employees.

Additionally, PPT can be used to enhance branding by creating presentations that are consistent with a company’s branding guidelines, including the use of logos, colors, and fonts.

Advantages and disadvantages of presentation in business communication

Advantages of presentation in  business communication.

• Clear and Concise Communication: Presentations are an effective way of conveying complex information to a large group of people. The use of visual aids, such as graphs and charts, can help to clarify complex data and concepts.
• Showcase expertise: Presentations allow business professionals to showcase their expertise on a particular topic. This can help to build credibility and establish the presenter as an authority in their field.
• Foster teamwork: Presentations can be a great way to foster teamwork among a group of individuals. It provides an opportunity for team members to collaborate on the presentation and work together towards a common goal.
• Professionalism: Presentations can enhance the professionalism of business communication. It shows that you have put effort and thought into your message, which can reflect positively on your business.

Disadvantages of presentation in  business communication

• Technical difficulties: Presentations often rely on technology, such as projectors or audio systems, which can sometimes fail. Technical difficulties can disrupt the flow of the presentation and cause frustration for both the presenter and the audience.
• Time-consuming: Preparing and delivering a presentation can be time-consuming. It may require a significant amount of research, planning, and practice to ensure that the presentation is effective.

Frequently Asked Questions 

Q1) what are the topics of business communication .

Ans: Some of the most common topics of business communication include business plans and strategies, sales and customer service, financial reports and analysis, corporate social responsibility, and crisis communication. The choice of topic largely depends on the context of the communication and the goals of the organization.

Q2) How to do presentations in business communication?

Ans: To create an effective presentation in business communication, you should:

• Define your objective and audience
• Plan your content and structure
• Choose appropriate visuals and media
• Practice your delivery and timing
• Engage your audience with interactive elements
• End with a strong call to action or conclusion

Q3) How do I start a business presentation? 

Ans: A good way to start a business presentation is by introducing yourself and your role in the company, stating the purpose and objective of the presentation, providing a brief overview of the content and structure, and previewing any key points or takeaways. 

Q4) What is the good rule of a business presentation? 

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15 Useful Presentation Topics for Business Communication

By: Author Shrot Katewa

If you are on this page, we know that you are a change maker in your business! We know that you understand the role that business communication plays in any professional setup. So, we want to give our best to enable you to make this change happen. Today, we want to talk about 15 useful topics for Business Communication that you can present in your organisation and empower others.

But first, let’s start with What is business communication? Business communication, in rudimentary terms, can be defined as a form of formal communication among professionals who are working for a common business objective.

While communication, in general, is important for any business to survive and thrive, in order to achieve success in business and for its respective teams, business communication becomes absolutely critical as success can’t be achieved without interacting with each other and having a common goal and objective in mind.

It is important to keep in mind that business communication is not just between your subordinates or your boss, you need to consider all stakeholders associated with your business. It can be one to many, one on one or many to one. Furthermore, it can involve various forms for communication medium such as email, telephone, intranet, presentations, video, social media, magazines, meetings, interviews, discussions etc.

So, what are some of the topics for business communication that you can give a presentation for your team? Let’s have a look –

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1. How to communicate business decisions during a crisis

Crisis management is one of the key moments when clear and coherent communication is of utmost importance. Any lack of communication or miscommunication during a crisis can lead to tragic circumstances for the business. A great topic for teams and companies to debate and create guidelines and response mechanisms to combat such issues.

2. Importance of Intranet

Intranet is a perfect platform to communicate business news and updates. As an internal business communication tool, it provides opportunities for information to be shared with the employees. Its importance can not be doubted. Taking up a topic like this one can help your team and colleagues truly understand the purpose behind deploying and managing the intranet within organisations.

3. Townhall and its benefits

This is often a forgotten mode of communication in many organisations. In today’s modern day of social media and other platforms, it is easy to forget the impact that a townhall can have on the employees of an organisation. An interesting presentation topic for business communication.

4. How to give an effective feedback

Giving feedback to your colleagues or team members can constitute one of the most essential types of communication as it ensures that the team has a healthy work relationship and there is no hindrance on the journey of achieving the common goal of the organisation. The best part about such a topic is that it is applicable across divisions and teams and can be useful irrespective for the background of your audience.

5. How to crack a business deal

Every organisation needs clients. Converting a potential lead into a successful client needs a lot more than business communication. However, understanding the need of your audience and communicating the right message, product or service that fulfils the requirement plays a key role in cracking a deal. It serves as a great topic for discussion on the importance of business communication among the sales team.

6. Managing relationship with you boss

There are many among us who don’t like their boss. Trust me, it is not uncommon! 🙂 But, part of the reason for the failure of a healthy relationship with your boss is business communication or the lack of it. A topic like this may not only enable you to come across colleagues who may resonate with your ideas, but also help improve relationships of your colleagues with their respective bosses.

7. Email Etiquettes

Let’s face it – email is the most common mode of communication among all employees in an organisation. Thus, it is of utmost importance that messages sent over an email communicate what was intended and not anything else. It is a great business communication presentation topic especially for the new employees who have recently joined your office.

8. How to communicate with your peers

Another important topic for most business settings. It is important for the employees to really understand the company’s policy on the work environment and communication among the employees. Having a presentation session on this business topic can be really helpful in setting up a healthy work environment for your employees.

9. Role of millennials in your brand success

I view this as a very interesting presentation topic for business communication. Why? Because, the role of millennials in the success of a brand is often not completely understood. With the onset of social media, millennials are finding it more and more easy to voice their opinion and impact a brand. This topic could serve as an interesting business communication presentation. 

10. Is the newsletter dead?

In this modern age where more and more information is consumed over digital mediums and the attention span of your audience is only diminishing, the importance of newsletter can form a good topic for not just a business presentation, but also include an interesting debate as an activity post your presentation.

11. Tips for successful business relationships with customers

Having a successful business relationship with customers goes way beyond just converting a potential lead into a customer. This is often a part of the business that gets missed out. Thus, considering this topic for your business communication presentation can be really fruitful.

12. Role of influencers for building a brand –

Social media has played a pivotal role of distributing the power to influence others from celebrities to individuals known as influencers. The role of an influencer is often not completely understood even though there are several influencers who now have the authority to influence your brand both positively and negatively. The lack of this understanding can impact the communication strategy of your brand. Thus, a very carefully curated session with this presentation topic for business communication can be highly effective in reaching success and achieving the goals of your business.

13. Brand guidelines and its importance

When we are talking about business communication, brand guidelines is a perfect topic as it sets the method of ensuring that the messaging and communication is consistent irrespective of which employee is engaging with a stakeholder outside your organisation. It is also really important that all employees understand the importance of consistent messaging.

14. Impact of social media for employees

We’ve come across several organisations that are struggling with leveraging their own employees across social media to create an awesome brand image. Furthermore, the impact of identifying the opportunities to leverage your employees towards a focused campaign is barely understood. Thus, considering this topic for your business communication presentation can be an eye opener for many within your organisation including business leaders.

15. Significance of company blogs

If you are a business communicator, you surely understand that each medium of communication is important as it often has its own pros and cons. Many believe that a company blog is turning out to be irrelevant. However, if a company blog is created with a correct strategy that is specific to a business, it can not just be successful but also push across customers. Taking up this presentation topic for business communication can, again, be a very interesting one. It may lead to an open debate and also help to work around and build upon your company’s existing communication strategy.

So there you have it. There is a lot to talk about when we need to share something useful on business communication. I would like you to consider these topics only as a conversation starter and build up from the brief pointers that we have mentioned. I also hope that you find the above topics really something that you can use and is effective in your business setting. Do let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Our goal on this blog is to create content that helps YOU create fantastic presentations; especially if you have never been a designer. We’ve started our blog with non-designers in mind, and we have got some amazing content on our site to help YOU design better.

If you have any topics in mind that you would want us to write about, be sure to drop us a comment below. In case you need us to work with you and improve the design of your presentation, write to us on [email protected] . Our team will be happy to help you with your requirements.

Lastly, your contribution can make this world a better place for presentations . All you have to do is simply share this blog in your network and help other fellow non-designers with their designs!

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Chapter 1: Effective Business Communication

Venecia Williams

Learning Objectives

• Examine the importance of being a good communicator
• Define the communication process
• Explain 8 essential components of communication
• Discuss the role of ethics in communication

Communication is an activity, skill, and art that incorporates lessons learned across a wide spectrum of human knowledge. Perhaps the most time-honoured form of communication is storytelling. We’ve told each other stories for ages to help make sense of our world, anticipate the future, and certainly to entertain ourselves. The art of storytelling draws on your understanding of yourself, your message, and how you communicate it to an audience that is simultaneously communicating back to you. Your anticipation, reaction, and adaptation to the process will determine how successfully you are able to communicate. You were not born knowing how to write or even how to talk—but in the process of growing up, you have undoubtedly learned how to tell, and how not tell, a story out loud and in writing.

Effective communication takes preparation, practice, and persistence. There are many ways to learn communication skills; the school of experience, or “hard knocks,” is one of them. But in the business environment, a “knock” (or lesson learned) may come at the expense of your credibility through a blown presentation to a client. The classroom environment, with a compilation of information and resources such as a text, can offer you a trial run where you get to try out new ideas and skills before you have to use them to communicate effectively to make a sale or form a new partnership. Listening to yourself, or perhaps the comments of others may help you reflect on new ways to present or perceive, thoughts, ideas and concepts. The net result is your growth; ultimately your ability to communicate in business will improve, opening more doors than you might anticipate.

Importance of Good Communication Skills

Communication is key to your success—in relationships, in the workplace, as a citizen of your country, and across your lifetime. Your ability to communicate comes from experience, and experience can be an effective teacher, but this text and the related business communication course will offer you a wealth of experiences gathered from professional speakers across their lifetimes. You can learn from the lessons they’ve learned and be a more effective communicator right out of the gate.

Business communication can be thought of as a problem-solving activity in which individuals may address the following questions:

• What is the situation?
• What are some possible communication strategies?
• What is the best course of action?
• What is the best way to design the chosen message?
• What is the best way to deliver the message?

In this book, we will examine this problem-solving process and help you learn to apply it in the kinds of situations you are likely to encounter over the course of your career.

Communication Influences Your Thinking about Yourself and Others

We all share a fundamental drive to communicate. Communication can be defined as the process of understanding and sharing meaning (Pearson & Nelson, 2000). You share meaning in what you say and how you say it, both in oral and written forms. If you could not communicate, what would life be like? A series of never-ending frustrations? Not being able to ask for what you need or even to understand the needs of others?

Being unable to communicate might even mean losing a part of yourself, for you communicate your  self-concept —your sense of self and awareness of who you are—in many ways. Do you like to write? Do you find it easy to make a phone call to a stranger or to speak to a room full of people? Perhaps someone told you that you don’t speak clearly or your grammar needs improvement. Does that make you more or less likely to want to communicate? For some, it may be a positive challenge, while for others it may be discouraging. But in all cases, your ability to communicate is central to your self-concept.

Take a look at your clothes. What are the brands you are wearing? What do you think they say about you? Do you feel that certain styles of shoes, jewelry, tattoos, music, or even automobiles express who you are? Part of your self-concept may be that you express yourself through texting, or through writing longer documents like essays and research papers, or through the way you speak.

On the other side of the coin, your communications skills help you to understand others—not just their words, but also their tone of voice, their nonverbal gestures, or the format of their written documents provide you with clues about who they are and what their values and priorities may be. Active listening and reading are also part of being a successful communicator.

Communication Influences How You Learn

When you were an infant, you learned to talk over a period of many months. When you got older, you didn’t learn to ride a bike, drive a car, or even text a message on your cell phone in one brief moment. You need to begin the process of improving your speaking and writing with the frame of mind that it will require effort, persistence, and self-correction.

You learn to speak in public by first having conversations, then by answering questions and expressing your opinions in class, and finally by preparing and delivering a “stand-up” speech. Similarly, you learn to write by first learning to read, then by writing and learning to think critically. Your speaking and writing are reflections of your thoughts, experience, and education. Part of that combination is your level of experience listening to other speakers, reading documents and styles of writing, and studying formats similar to what you aim to produce.

As you study business communication, you may receive suggestions for improvement and clarification from speakers and writers more experienced than yourself. Take their suggestions as challenges to improve; don’t give up when your first speech or first draft does not communicate the message you intend. Stick with it until you get it right. Your success in communicating is a skill that applies to almost every field of work, and it makes a difference in your relationships with others.

Remember, luck is simply a combination of preparation and timing. You want to be prepared to communicate well when given the opportunity. Each time you do a good job, your success will bring more success.

Communication Represents You and Your Employer

You want to make a good first impression on your friends and family, instructors, and employer. They all want you to convey a positive image, as it reflects on them. In your career, you will represent your business or company in spoken and written form. Your professionalism and attention to detail will reflect positively on you and set you up for success.

In both oral and written situations, you will benefit from having the ability to communicate clearly. These are skills you will use for the rest of your life. Positive improvements in these skills will have a positive impact on your relationships, your prospects for employment, and your ability to make a difference in the world.

Communication Skills Are Desired by Business and Industry

Oral and written communication proficiencies are consistently ranked in the top ten desirable skills by employer surveys year after year. In fact, high-powered business executives sometimes hire consultants to coach them in sharpening their communication skills. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (2018), the following are the top five personal qualities or skills potential employers seek:

• Communication skills (verbal and written)
• Strong work ethic
• Teamwork skills (works well with others, group communication)
• Analytical skills

Knowing this, you can see that one way for you to be successful and increase your promotion potential is to increase your abilities to speak and write effectively. An individual with excellent communication skills is an asset to every organization. No matter what career you plan to pursue, learning to express yourself professionally in speech and in writing will help you get there.

What is Communication?

Many theories have been proposed to describe, predict, and understand the behaviours and phenomena of which communication consists. When it comes to communicating in business, we are often less interested in theory than in making sure our communications generate the desired results. But in order to achieve results, it can be valuable to understand what communication is and how it works. All communication is composed of three parts that make a whole: sharing, understanding, and meaning.

Sharing  means doing something together with one or more person(s). In communication, sharing occurs when you convey thoughts, feelings, ideas, or insights to others. You also share with yourself (a process called intrapersonal communication) when you bring ideas to consciousness, ponder how you feel about something, figure out the solution to a problem, or have a classic “Aha!” moment when something becomes clear.

The second keyword is understanding . “To understand is to perceive, to interpret, and to relate our perception and interpretation to what we already know.” (McLean, 2003) Understanding the words and the concepts or objects they refer to is an important part of the communication process.

Finally,  meaning  is what you share through communication. For example, by looking at the context of a word, and by asking questions, you can discover the shared meaning of the word and better understand the message.

Watch the following video reviewing Types of Communication

• Interpersonal communication is any message exchanged between two or more people.
• Written communication is any message using the written word.
• Verbal, or oral, communication is any message conveyed through speech.
• Nonverbal communication is any message inferred through observation of another person.

Communications Process: Encoding and Decoding

In basic terms, humans communicate through a process of  encoding  and  decoding . The encoder is the person who develops and sends the message. As represented in Figure 1.1 below, the encoder must determine how the message will be received by the audience, and make adjustments so the message is received the way they want it to be received.

Encoding is the process of turning thoughts into communication. The encoder uses a ‘medium’ to send the message — a phone call, email, text message, face-to-face meeting, or other communication tools. The level of conscious thought that goes into encoding messages may vary. The encoder should also take into account any ‘noise’ that might interfere with their message, such as other messages, distractions, or influences.

The audience then ‘decodes’, or interprets, the message for themselves.  Decoding  is the process of turning communication into thoughts. For example, you may realize you’re hungry and encode the following message to send to your roommate: “I’m hungry. Do you want to get pizza tonight?” As your roommate receives the message, they decode your communication and turn it back into thoughts to make meaning.

Of course, you don’t just communicate verbally—you have various options, or channels, for communication. Encoded messages are sent through a channel, or a sensory route, on which a message travels to the receiver for decoding. While communication can be sent and received using any sensory route (sight, smell, touch, taste, or sound), most communication occurs through visual (sight) and/or auditory (sound) channels. If your roommate has headphones on and is engrossed in a video game, you may need to get their attention by waving your hands before you can ask them about dinner.

The  transmission model of communication describes communication as a linear, one-way process in which a sender intentionally transmits a message to a receiver (Ellis & McClintock, 1990). This model focuses on the sender and message within a communication encounter. Although the receiver is included in the model, this role is viewed as more of a target or endpoint rather than part of an ongoing process. You are left to presume that the receiver either successfully receives and understands the message or does not. Think of how a radio message is sent from a person in the radio studio to you listening in your car. The sender is the radio announcer who encodes a verbal message that is transmitted by a radio tower through electromagnetic waves (the channel) and eventually reaches your (the receiver’s) ears via an antenna and speakers in order to be decoded. The radio announcer doesn’t really know if you receive their message or not, but if the equipment is working and the channel is free of static, then there is a good chance that the message was successfully received.

The  interaction model  of communication describes communication as a process in which participants alternate positions as sender and receiver and generate meaning by sending messages and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts (Schramm, 1997). Rather than illustrating communication as a linear, one-way process, the interaction model incorporates feedback, which makes communication a more interactive, two-way process. Feedback includes messages sent in response to other messages. For example, your instructor may respond to a point you raise during class discussion or you may point to the sofa when your roommate asks you where the remote control is. The inclusion of a feedback loop also leads to a more complex understanding of the roles of participants in a communication encounter. Rather than having one sender, one message, and one receiver, this model has two sender-receivers who exchange messages. Each participant alternates roles as sender and receiver in order to keep a communication encounter going. Although this seems like a perceptible and deliberate process, you alternate between the roles of sender and receiver very quickly and often without conscious thought.

The  transaction model  of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators generate social realities within social, relational, and cultural contexts. In this model, you don’t just communicate to exchange messages; you communicate to create relationships, form intercultural alliances, shape your self-concepts, and engage with others in dialogue to create communities. In short, you don’t communicate about your realities; communication helps to construct your realities (and the realities of others).

The roles of sender and receiver in the transaction model of communication differ significantly from the other models. Instead of labelling participants as senders and receivers, the people in a communication encounter are referred to as communicators. Unlike the interaction model, which suggests that participants alternate positions as sender and receiver, the transaction model suggests that you are simultaneously a sender and a receiver. For example, when meeting a new friend, you send verbal messages about your interests and background, your companion reacts nonverbally. You don’t wait until you are done sending your verbal message to start receiving and decoding the nonverbal messages of your new friend. Instead, you are simultaneously sending your verbal message and receiving your friend’s nonverbal messages. This is an important addition to the model because it allows you to understand how you are able to adapt your communication—for example, adapting a verbal message—in the middle of sending it based on the communication you are simultaneously receiving from your communication partner.

Eight Essential Components of Communication

The communication process can be broken down into a series of eight essential components, each of which serves an integral function in the overall process:

Environment

Interference.

The source imagines, creates, and sends the message. The source encodes the message by choosing just the right order or the best words to convey the intended meaning and presents or sends the information to the audience (receiver). By watching for the audience’s reaction, the source perceives how well they received the message and responds with clarification or supporting information.

“The message is the stimulus or meaning produced by the source for the receiver or audience” (McLean, 2005). The message brings together words to convey meaning but is also about how it’s conveyed — through nonverbal cues, organization, grammar, style, and other elements.

“The channel is the way in which a message or messages travel between source and receiver.” (McLean, 2005). Spoken channels include face-to-face conversations, speeches, phone conversations and voicemail messages, radio, public address systems, and Skype. Written channels include letters, memorandums, purchase orders, invoices, newspaper and magazine articles, blogs, email, text messages, tweets, and so forth.

“The receiver receives the message from the source, analyzing and interpreting the message in ways both intended and unintended by the source” (McLean, 2005).

When you respond to the source, intentionally or unintentionally, you are giving feedback. Feedback is composed of messages the receiver sends back to the source. Verbal or nonverbal, all these feedback signals allow the source to see how well, how accurately (or how poorly and inaccurately) the message was received (Leavitt & Mueller, 1951).

“The environment is the atmosphere, physical and psychological, where you send and receive messages” (McLean, 2005). Surroundings, people, animals, technology, can all influence your communication.

“The context of the communication interaction involves the setting, scene, and expectations of the individuals involved” (McLean, 2005). A professional communication context may involve business suits (environmental cues) that directly or indirectly influence expectations of language and behaviour among the participants.

Interference, also called noise, can come from any source. “Interference is anything that blocks or changes the source’s intended meaning of the message” (McLean, 2005). This can be external or internal/psychological. Noise interferes with normal encoding and decoding of the message carried by the channel between source and receiver.

Your Responsibilities as a Communicator – 4 tips

Whenever you speak or write in a business environment, you have certain responsibilities to your audience, your employer, and your profession. Your audience comes to you with an inherent set of expectations that is your responsibility to fulfill. The specific expectations may change given the context or environment, but two central ideas will remain: be prepared, and be ethical.

Preparation

Being prepared means that you have selected a topic appropriate to your audience, gathered enough information to cover the topic well, put your information into a logical sequence, and considered how best to present it.

Organization

Being organized involves the steps or points that lead your communication to a conclusion. Once you’ve invested time in researching your topic, you will want to narrow your focus to a few key points and consider how you’ll present them. You also need to consider how to link your main points together for your audience so they can follow your message from point to point.

You need to have a clear idea in your mind of what you want to say before you can say it clearly to someone else. It involves considering your audience, as you will want to choose words and phrases they understand and avoid jargon or slang that may be unfamiliar to them. Clarity also involves presentation and appropriate use of technology.

Conciseness

Concise means to be brief and to the point. In most business communications you are expected to ‘get down to business’ right away. Being prepared includes being able to state your points clearly and support them with trustworthy evidence in a relatively straightforward, linear way. Be concise in your choice of words, organization, and even visual aids. Being concise also involves being sensitive to time constraints. Be prepared to be punctual and adhere to deadlines or time limits. Some cultures also have a less strict interpretation of time schedules and punctuality. While it is important to recognize that different cultures have different expectations, the general rule holds true that good business communication does not waste words or time.

Ethics in Communication

Communicating ethically involves being egalitarian, respectful, and trustworthy—overall, practising the “golden rule” of treating your audience the way you would want to be treated. Communication can move communities, influence cultures, and change history. It can motivate people to take a stand, consider an argument, or purchase a product. The degree to which you consider both the common good and fundamental principles you hold to be true when crafting your message directly relates to how your message will affect others.

The Ethical Communicator Is Egalitarian

The word “egalitarian” comes from the root “equal.” To be egalitarian is to believe in basic equality: that all people should share equally in the benefits and burdens of a society. It means that everyone is entitled to the same respect, expectations, access to information, and rewards of participation in a group. To communicate in an egalitarian manner, speak and write in a way that is comprehensible and relevant to all your listeners or readers, not just those who are ‘like you’ in terms of age, gender, race or ethnicity, or other characteristics. In business, an effective communicator seeks to unify the audience by using ideas and language that are appropriate for all the message’s readers or listeners.

The Ethical Communicator Is Respectful

People are influenced by emotions as well as logic. The ethical communicator will be passionate and enthusiastic without being disrespectful. Losing one’s temper and being abusive are generally regarded as showing a lack of professionalism (and could even involve legal consequences for you or your employer). When you disagree strongly with a coworker, feel deeply annoyed with a difficult customer, or find serious fault with a competitor’s product, it is important to express such sentiments respectfully.

The Ethical Communicator Is Trustworthy

Trust is a key component in communication, and this is especially true in business. Your goal as a communicator is to build a healthy relationship with your audience and to do that you must show them how they can trust you and why the information you are about to share with them is believable. Your audience will expect that what you say is the truth as you understand it. This means that you have not intentionally omitted, deleted, or taken information out of context simply to prove your points. They will listen to what you say and how you say it, but also to what you don’t say or do. Being worthy of trust is something you earn with an audience. Many wise people have observed that trust is hard to build but easy to lose.

The “Golden Rule”

When in doubt, remember the “golden rule,” which is to treat others the way you would like to be treated. In all its many forms, the golden rule incorporates human kindness, cooperation, and reciprocity across cultures, languages, backgrounds, ad interests. Regardless of where you travel, with whom you communicate or what your audience is like, remember how you would feel if you were on the receiving end of your communication and act accordingly.

Being a good communicator is essential to becoming a successful business person. Therefore, it is important to learn how to communicate well. The first step in that process is understanding what effective communication means. This will help you to evaluate and improve your communication skills.

End of Chapter Activities

1a. thinking about the content.

What are your key takeaways from this chapter? What is something you have learned or something you would like to add from your experience?

1b. Review Questions

Discussion Questions

• Recall one time you felt offended or insulted in a conversation. What contributed to your perception?
• When someone lost your trust, were they able to earn it back?
• Does the communicator have a responsibility to the audience? Does the audience have a responsibility to the speaker? Why or why not?

1c. Applying chapter concepts to a situation

Communicating with a supervisor

Mako is an international student enrolled in a post-degree program in Vancouver. She has been working at a grocery store for the past three months on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays when she doesn’t have class. Mako enjoys working at the grocery store and gets along well with her colleagues and supervisor. Customers often comment on her professionalism and friendliness and she has noticed that her communication skills have improved.

When she applied for the job and filled out her available hours, she made sure to state that she could only work a maximum of 20 hours per week as an international student. She mentioned it once more during the interview and was told it would not be a problem.

Since then her supervisor has asked her to work overtime in a few instances to accommodate a colleague who was running late. That was not a problem. However, recently her supervisor asked if she could pick up an extra shift for two weeks because one colleague was out sick. Mako is not comfortable working so many hours over her maximum, but she is worried her supervisor might be upset and think she is not a team player.

What should Mako do? How should she communicate her decision to her supervisor?

1d. Summary Writing

Read this article from Salesforce.com on the 10 Must-Have Communication Skills for Business Success . Summarize the article and identify which of these skills you would like to improve.

Content Attribution

This chapter contains content from Communication for Business Professionals – Canadian Edition which was adapted from Business Communication for Success in 2013 by  University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing  through the  eLearning Support Initiative . The 2018 revision continues to be licensed with a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) following the precedent of a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution.

Ellis, R. and Ann McClintock,  You Take My Meaning: Theory into Practice in Human Communication  (London: Edward Arnold, 1990), 71.

Leavitt, H., & Mueller, R. (1951). Some effects of feedback on communication.  Human Relations, 4 , 401–410.

McLean, S. (2003).  The basics of speech communication . Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

McLean, S. (2005).  The basics of interpersonal communication  (p. 10). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

NACE. (2018). Employers Want to See These Attributes on Students’ Resumes. Retrieved August 26, 2020, from https://www.naceweb.org/talent-acquisition/candidate-selection/employers-want-to-see-these-attributes-on-students-resumes/

Pearson, J. C., & Nelson, P. E. (2000).  An introduction to human communication: understanding and sharing . Boston: McGraw Hill.

Schramm, W.,  The Beginnings of Communication Study in America  (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997).

Video Attribution

This chapter contains the video Types of Communication Interpersonal, Non Verbal, Written Oral Video Lesson Transcript Stud by Zaharul Hafiq from YouTube.com.

Chapter 1: Effective Business Communication by Venecia Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What Are Effective Presentation Skills (and How to Improve Them)

Presentation skills are essential for your personal and professional life. Learn about effective presentations and how to boost your presenting techniques.

At least seven out of 10 Americans agree that presentation skills are essential for a successful career [ 1 ]. Although it might be tempting to think that these are skills reserved for people interested in public speaking roles, they're critical in a diverse range of jobs. For example, you might need to brief your supervisor on research results.

Presentation skills are also essential in other scenarios, including working with a team and explaining your thought process, walking clients through project ideas and timelines, and highlighting your strengths and achievements to your manager during performance reviews.

Whatever the scenario, you have very little time to capture your audience’s attention and get your point across when presenting information—about three seconds, according to research [ 2 ]. Effective presentation skills help you get your point across and connect with the people you’re communicating with, which is why nearly every employer requires them.

Understanding what presentation skills are is only half the battle. Honing your presenting techniques is essential for mastering presentations of all kinds and in all settings.

What are presentation skills?

Presentation skills are the abilities and qualities necessary for creating and delivering a compelling presentation that effectively communicates information and ideas. They encompass what you say, how you structure it, and the materials you include to support what you say, such as slides, videos, or images.

You'll make presentations at various times in your life. Examples include:

Making speeches at a wedding, conference, or another event

Making a toast at a dinner or event

Explaining projects to a team 

Delivering results and findings to management teams

Teaching people specific methods or information

Proposing a vote at community group meetings

Pitching a new idea or business to potential partners or investors

Why are presentation skills important? 

Delivering effective presentations is critical in your professional and personal life. You’ll need to hone your presentation skills in various areas, such as when giving a speech, convincing your partner to make a substantial purchase, and talking to friends and family about an important situation.

No matter if you’re using them in a personal or professional setting, these are the skills that make it easier and more effective to convey your ideas, convince or persuade others, and experience success. A few of the benefits that often accompany improving your presentation skills include:

Enriched written and verbal communication skills

Enhanced confidence and self-image

Boosted critical thinking and problem-solving capabilities

Better motivational techniques

Increased leadership skills

Expanded time management, negotiation, and creativity

The better your presenting techniques, the more engaging your presentations will be. You could also have greater opportunities to make positive impacts in business and other areas of your life.

Effective presentation skills

Imagine yourself in the audience at a TED Talk or sitting with your coworkers at a big meeting held by your employer. What would you be looking for in how they deliver their message? What would make you feel engaged?

These are a few questions to ask yourself as you review this list of some of the most effective presentation skills.

Verbal communication

How you use language and deliver messages play essential roles in how your audience will receive your presentation. Speak clearly and confidently, projecting your voice enough to ensure everyone can hear. Think before you speak, pausing when necessary and tailoring the way you talk to resonate with your particular audience.

Body language

Body language combines various critical elements, including posture, gestures, eye contact, expressions, and position in front of the audience. Body language is one of the elements that can instantly transform a presentation that would otherwise be dull into one that's dynamic and interesting.

Voice projection

The ability to project your voice improves your presentation by allowing your audience to hear what you're saying. It also increases your confidence to help settle any lingering nerves while also making your message more engaging. To project your voice, stand comfortably with your shoulders back. Take deep breaths to power your speaking voice and ensure you enunciate every syllable you speak.

How you present yourself plays a role in your body language and ability to project your voice. It also sets the tone for the presentation. Avoid slouching or looking overly tense. Instead, remain open, upright, and adaptable while taking the formality of the occasion into account.

Storytelling

Incorporating storytelling into a presentation is an effective strategy used by many powerful public speakers. It has the power to bring your subject to life and pique the audience’s curiosity. Don’t be afraid to tell a personal story, slowly building up suspense or adding a dramatic moment. And, of course, be sure to end with a positive takeaway to drive your point home.

Active listening

Active listening is a valuable skill all on its own. When you understand and thoughtfully respond to what you hear—whether it's in a conversation or during a presentation—you’ll likely deepen your personal relationships and actively engage audiences during a presentation. As part of your presentation skill set, it helps catch and maintain the audience’s attention, helping them remain focused while minimizing passive response, ensuring the message is delivered correctly, and encouraging a call to action.

Stage presence

During a presentation, projecting confidence can help keep your audience engaged. Stage presence can help you connect with your audience and encourage them to want to watch you. To improve your presence, try amping up your normal demeanor by infusing it with a bit of enthusiasm. Project confidence and keep your information interesting.

Watch your audience as you’re presenting. If you’re holding their attention, it likely means you’re connecting well with them.

Self-awareness

Monitoring your own emotions and reactions will allow you to react well in various situations. It helps you remain personable throughout your presentation and handle feedback well. Self-awareness can help soothe nervousness during presentations, allowing you to perform more effectively.

Writing skills

Writing is a form of presentation. Sharp writing skills can help you master your presentation’s outline to ensure you stay on message and remain clear about your objectives from the beginning until the end. It’s also helpful to have strong writing abilities for creating compelling slides and other visual aids.

Understanding an audience

When you understand your audience's needs and interests, you can design your presentation around them. In turn, you'll deliver maximum value to them and enhance your ability to make your message easy to understand.

Learn more about presentation skills from industry experts at SAP:

How to improve presentation skills

There’s an art to public speaking. Just like any other type of art, this is one that requires practice. Improving your presentation skills will help reduce miscommunications, enhance your time management capabilities, and boost your leadership skills. Here are some ways you can improve these skills:

Work on self-confidence.

When you’re confident, you naturally speak more clearly and with more authority. Taking the time to prepare your presentation with a strong opening and compelling visual aids can help you feel more confident. Other ways to improve your self-confidence include practicing positive self-talk, surrounding yourself with positive people, and avoiding comparing yourself (or your presentation) to others.

Develop strategies for overcoming fear.

Many people are nervous or fearful before giving a presentation. A bad memory of a past performance or insufficient self-confidence can contribute to fear and anxiety. Having a few go-to strategies like deep breathing, practicing your presentation, and grounding can help you transform that fear into extra energy to put into your stage presence.

Learn grounding techniques.

Grounding is any type of technique that helps you steer your focus away from distressing thoughts and keeps you connected with your present self. To ground yourself, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and imagine you’re a large, mature tree with roots extending deep into the earth—like the tree, you can become unshakable.

Learn how to use presentation tools.

Visual aids and other technical support can transform an otherwise good presentation into a wow-worthy one. A few popular presentation tools include:

Canva: Provides easy-to-design templates you can customize

Powtoon: Animation software that makes video creation fast and easy

PowerPoint: Microsoft's iconic program popular for dynamic marketing and sales presentations

Practice breathing techniques.

Breathing techniques can help quell anxiety, making it easier to shake off pre-presentation jitters and nerves. It also helps relax your muscles and get more oxygen to your brain.  For some pre-presentation calmness, you can take deep breaths, slowly inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth.

While presenting, breathe in through your mouth with the back of your tongue relaxed so your audience doesn't hear a gasping sound. Speak on your exhalation, maintaining a smooth voice.

Gain experience.

The more you practice, the better you’ll become. The more you doanything, the more comfortable you’ll feel engaging in that activity. Presentations are no different. Repeatedly practicing your own presentation also offers the opportunity to get feedback from other people and tweak your style and content as needed.

Tips to help you ace your presentation

Your presentation isn’t about you; it’s about the material you’re presenting. Sometimes, reminding yourself of this ahead of taking center stage can help take you out of your head, allowing you to connect effectively with your audience. The following are some of the many actions you can take on the day of your presentation.

Arrive early.

Since you may have a bit of presentation-related anxiety, it’s important to avoid adding travel stress. Give yourself an abundance of time to arrive at your destination, and take into account heavy traffic and other unforeseen events. By arriving early, you also give yourself time to meet with any on-site technicians, test your equipment, and connect with people ahead of the presentation.

Become familiar with the layout of the room.

Arriving early also gives you time to assess the room and figure out where you want to stand. Experiment with the acoustics to determine how loudly you need to project your voice, and test your equipment to make sure everything connects and appears properly with the available setup. This is an excellent opportunity to work out any last-minute concerns and move around to familiarize yourself with the setting for improved stage presence.

Listen to presenters ahead of you.

When you watch others present, you'll get a feel for the room's acoustics and lighting. You can also listen for any data that’s relevant to your presentation and revisit it during your presentation—this can make the presentation more interactive and engaging.

Use note cards.

Writing yourself a script could provide you with more comfort. To prevent sounding too robotic or disengaged, only include talking points in your note cards in case you get off track. Using note cards can help keep your presentation organized while sounding more authentic to your audience.

Learn to deliver clear and confident presentations with Dynamic Public Speaking from the University of Washington. Build confidence, develop new delivery techniques, and practice strategies for crafting compelling presentations for different purposes, occasions, and audiences.

Article sources

Forbes. “ New Survey: 70% Say Presentation Skills are Critical for Career Success , https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2014/09/25/new-survey-70-percent-say-presentation-skills-critical-for-career-success/?sh=619f3ff78890.” Accessed December 7, 2022.

Beautiful.ai. “ 15 Presentation and Public Speaking Stats You Need to Know , https://www.beautiful.ai/blog/15-presentation-and-public-speaking-stats-you-need-to-know. Accessed December 7, 2022.

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Effective Presentation Skills for Business Communication

Professional presentation skills matter, and not just in the obvious way that you stand in front of the class and give your presentation. They matter even more in business communication, where you must be able to get your point across, persuade your audience and move them to action.

Your presentation skills can make or break your success as an entrepreneur, whether it’s getting investors on board or closing a high-stakes contract with another company.

These are the top 10 reasons why presentation skills matter in business communication and why they should be front and centre in any business communications strategy.

Why Presentation Skills Matter in Business Communication

1) you have to be clear.

You may have heard the saying a picture is worth a thousand words. This could not be more accurate than when you are trying to communicate with your audience.

The power of visuals can convey the message you want to share and demonstrate how your product or service solves its problem in seconds.

A presentation should be thought of as a conversation, where you are talking with your audience. You want them to feel engaged and excited about what they see and you want them to know that there is a solution for their need. But if they don't understand what's being communicated, it can be confusing and frustrating for everyone involved.

2) You have to be concise

In business communication, presentation skills are vital. This is because you only have a short window of time to make a lasting impression on your audience.

With this being the case, it is important to ensure that you use your words and body language to convey your message. To do this, you need to be concise with your words as well as ensure that your posture and gestures match up with what you're trying to say.

Doing so will help ensure that the person listening will understand what you're trying to convey and feel confident in making a decision based on it.

3) You have to be credible

This may seem like a no-brainer, but credibility is crucial to everything you do. If you're not credible, your business will never get off the ground.

There are many ways to build credibility, and you can start by being honest with yourself and others about what you don't know.

Honesty earns trust and leads to opportunities for growth. It's also important to avoid blaming others when things go wrong; instead, use it as an opportunity to learn how you can improve.

If possible, provide feedback that doesn't hurt feelings. Lastly, be realistic about where you're at in life and your career so that you stay motivated rather than discouraged.

4) You have to be able to connect with your audience

No matter how good your product or service is, if you can't effectively communicate the value proposition to a potential customer, you're not likely to make a sale. To do this, you'll need to have excellent presentation skills so that people can connect with what you're saying and understand why they should buy from you.

To start with, your message must resonate with your audience. This means understanding their background knowledge on the topic and what interests them so that you can speak to these interests.

You should also be able to draw similarities between your product or service and something of interest to them - such as showing how it benefits both parties involved in a transaction.

5) You have to be able to control the room

Presenting your pitch is an opportunity to show the world what you're made of. It's not just a way to get your ideas across; it's a chance to sell yourself, and show people why they should believe in you.

You have to be able to control the room and make them understand what you're saying. The best way to do that is with strong presentation skills.

That means speaking, succinctly, and without rambling or going off on tangents. You also need to know how to handle objections: What if someone brings up some flaw in your business plan? How will you counter their point?

Know how to answer these questions before you start presenting so you can keep the conversation on track while still addressing their concerns.

6) You have to be able to handle questions

You will always be faced with questions about your business. There is no way to avoid it. You have to be able to handle them so that you can maintain your composure and control of the conversation. If you answer with confidence, you'll come across as confident and professional, which will make the prospect more likely to buy from you.

Another important skill is being able to close a sale: When a prospect comes into contact with your company, they're already interested. But not all prospects are going to buy right away. A good salesperson knows how to close a sale at just the right time so that they can get their commission and leave happy knowing they've sold something.

Presentation skills in general are crucial for any profession: These days, presentation skills matter for any profession--not just public speaking or marketing, or teaching--to attract potential clients or customers to hire you or visit your company or class.

7) You need to know your material

Knowing your material is a big part of having strong  professional presentation skills . This is one of the most important skills to develop as it shows you have confidence and know what you're talking about.

For example, if you're presenting at an event and someone asks a question that you don't know the answer to, this will show. You want to practice answering all questions so that you feel comfortable and confident when speaking about your topic or company.

And it's always best to have some backup facts handy just in case someone throws a curveball at you! You need to be able to effectively communicate with people: For communication to happen, you need good listening skills and verbal communication skills.

It's easy for us humans to get carried away with our thoughts and not listen to what the other person is saying, but successful communication requires active listening - hearing and understanding both verbal language (words) and nonverbal cues (body language).

Sometimes we find ourselves caught up in our own emotions or thoughts and forget about others' feelings too. To communicate successfully, try asking open-ended questions that invite conversation like what do you think instead of closed-ended ones like do you agree?

8) You need to be passionate about your topic

Whether you're presenting to a small group or a large crowd, your ability to capture and maintain the audience's attention is crucial. Communicating effectively is all about getting your message across.

The way you deliver that message, with enthusiasm and the appropriate tone of voice, will have a direct impact on how well people can understand what you have to say. You want them to walk away from your presentation feeling empowered and excited about what they've learned – not confused or bored.

And when it comes down to it, isn't that really what any good speaker wants? A big part of being an effective presenter is understanding the needs of your audience.

How much background knowledge do they have on the subject at hand? What are their questions and concerns? Do they need to know more about a certain topic before diving into your main idea?

That requires deep research before going into an important meeting or speech - as does tailoring content specifically for an audience, whether it's adapting some existing material to fit their needs better or coming up with new examples that speak directly to their challenges.

9) You need to be prepared for the worst

You never know what will happen during a presentation, so it's best to be prepared for anything. You may need to speak on your feet and inform the audience of something that just happened, or you may need to step back from the podium and take an important phone call.

Whatever the scenario, you'll want to be able to handle it as smoothly as possible. That's where presentation skills come into play.

They're essential for anyone who needs to get their message across in a public setting - whether that means delivering an oral report or giving a speech at a conference.

10) Practice, practice, practice!

Practice, practice, practice! In the words of the famous American football coach Vince Lombardi, Practice doesn't make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. Practice your  presentation skills with a friend or in front of a mirror to get feedback and see what parts need more work.

You'll also want to rehearse your slides and make sure they work on your computer before you present them to an audience. Avoid reading from the slides, as this can lead to a lack of eye contact with your audience.

Effective Presentation Skills Every Business Person Needs to Know

Do you have an upcoming presentation at work? Whether it’s in front of your boss or customers, giving a great speech can be nerve-wracking, but it doesn’t have to be. By being prepared, taking control of your fears, and engaging with your audience, you can give yourself the best possible chance of nailing that presentation! Here are 10 skills that will help you do just that.

1) The ability to capture and hold the attention

The ability to capture and hold attention is essential for any presentation. This can be done through the effective use of PowerPoint slides, voice inflection, and eye contact.

Slides should be designed with a clear message in mind and they should be kept simple so that the audience doesn't get bored or confused. Voice inflection is important because it allows the speaker to emphasize certain words or sentences which helps keep the audience engaged.

Eye contact is key because it allows the speaker to make a connection with those watching and makes them feel like they are being heard.

Effective communication skills are needed for this type of interaction because there need to be good listening skills as well as the ability to understand how another person is feeling based on their tone, body language, and facial expression. Good communication also means being able to say no without offending someone if necessary.

2) Strong eye contact

Strong eye contact is one of the most important things you can do in a presentation. Making eye contact with your audience will make them feel like they are being listened to and respected. It will also help keep their attention on what you're saying.

One way to maintain strong eye contact is by looking at the person who asked the question first and then glancing around the room before answering so that others can see that you're acknowledging their presence.

3) A clear, strong voice

To have a strong, clear voice, it is important to use proper breathing techniques and speak from the diaphragm.

This will allow you to speak loudly without straining your voice. To practice speaking with a strong voice, try this exercise: Stand up and place both hands on your stomach. Now exhale all of the air in your lungs (don't force the air out).

As you inhale, push your stomach out against your hands as though you are inflating a balloon. Keep pushing until you feel that your lungs are full of air and not empty. When you are ready, start speaking in an assertive tone.

If this exercise doesn't seem like it is working for you, try reading aloud from a book or magazine for about five minutes.

4) Enthusiasm

Many skills are important for business success. Knowledge of the industry, excellent negotiation skills, and knowing how to navigate a tricky situation can all come in handy. However, there is one skill that trumps them all:  effective presentation skills .

There is nothing more important than being able to communicate clearly and effectively with others. You need to be able to speak with confidence and sound like you know what you are talking about even if you don't have a clue what's going on!

What should I do? I'm so nervous! What's my audience going to think about me? These are just a few of the thoughts that run through one's mind during the lead-up to a presentation.

It's understandable and important that people should be nervous when it comes time for them to present, but it can be detrimental if they let those nerves get the best of them. For this reason, here are some tips on how you can help your business presentation go off without a hitch.

Practice  oral presentations   in business communication in front of friends or family before presenting. Make sure you have all your materials and notes in order beforehand so you don't have any distractions while presenting.

6) Confidence

One of the most important aspects of  presentation skills in business communication is being confident. It's not enough that you have a well-thought-out idea and are prepared to back it up with facts and figures, if you don't believe in your presentation, then why should anyone else?

To make a great first impression, stand up straight with your shoulders squared. Smile when you make eye contact with people, even if it feels fake at first. When speaking, don't mumble or rush your words. Speak clearly and slowly so that people can follow along easily.

Poise is the most important aspect of a presentation. It's what keeps the speaker calm, confident, and in control. Here are a few tips for maintaining poise:

• Stand up straight with your shoulders back, looking at the audience instead of your notes. This will make you feel more confident and poised. 
• Try not to shift around too much and keep your hands at your sides or on the podium unless they're gesturing while you talk. 
• Use an even tone of voice that is neither too loud nor too soft. -Don't move around excessively and avoid distracting movements like fidgeting or chewing gum. Practice making eye contact with the audience, but don't stare them down since this can make people uncomfortable or nervous.

8) The ability to handle questions with ease

No matter how well you have prepared, there is always a chance that someone will ask a question you haven't anticipated. This is where your presentation skills come in handy.

Be sure to always have an answer and be able to present it confidently. You don't want your audience wondering if you know what you're talking about. Furthermore, if someone asks a question that is outside the scope of your topic, redirect them back with a solid response.

9) Preparation

Before you can even begin the presentation, your preparation will determine the quality of your message and how it resonates with your audience. To ensure that you are ready for any situation, we recommend:

• Doing some research about the company or organization to which you are presenting. Understanding their core values and what they do makes a big difference in how you deliver your message. 
• Practicing in front of a mirror or with friends and family until you are comfortable enough with what you want to say and how you want to say it. 
• Dressing appropriately for the occasion by wearing clothes that won't distract from what you're saying but also fit into the culture of where the event is being held.

10) Naturalness

It's important to be natural when you present. Practice your presentation in front of friends and family members and get their feedback on how you're coming across.

When delivering a presentation, make sure that you are making eye contact with the audience, not looking down at your laptop screen or phone screen, standing up straight, and projecting your voice so that the audience can hear what you are saying.

There is nothing worse than a presenter who walks around the stage or fidgets in place during their presentation because it distracts from the message that they are trying to convey.

It is also important to have good posture when presenting as it will help make you look confident and authoritative. If you find yourself feeling nervous before a presentation, try practicing some deep breathing exercises before going on stage.

As a business person, you know how important is  professional presentation skills to your employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

Of course,  professional presentation skills can also be useful in everyday life, whether you’re selling yourself on the job market or asking your partner to babysit the kids for one more night so you can go out with friends.

Our School of Meaningful Experiences (SoME) creates and delivers transformative communication programs designed to meet the workplace challenges of the post-pandemic 21st century. Effective communication is an essential skill for today's modern professionals and leaders. With it, you can confidently manage conflict, collaborate with others and successfully develop yourself.

We offer both onsite and online training programs based on the needs of your organization; from one-day workshops to three-month diploma programs. Our instructors are highly experienced professionals with extensive backgrounds in different industries such as law enforcement or even diplomacy! They will teach you how to handle difficult conversations in a way that is respectful but also gets results. Whether it's dealing with an argument with a spouse or having difficult conversations at work—we have something for everyone!

What are effective presentation skills?

Effective presentation skills are what every businessperson needs to know. They are a crucial aspect of the business world, and without them, someone may not be able to succeed or thrive in their field. While there is no one right way to give an effective presentation, there are some basics that can help make it as successful as possible.

Why is presentation skill important in business communication?

If you are a business person, you must have strong presentation skills. A presentation is a way for you to tell your story, and it's an opportunity for you to establish credibility with the people in the room. You want them to feel engaged and entertained, but most of all, you want them to feel like they can trust what you say.

What is a presentation in business communication?

A presentation is a short speech delivered in front of an audience. Depending on the type of presentation, the audience may be composed of your coworkers or clients, or a mixture of both. Effective presentations are well-organized and planned with an objective in mind.

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13.6 Creating an Informative Presentation

Learning objectives.

• Discuss the parts of an informational presentation.
• Understand the five parts of any presentation.

An informational presentation is common request in business and industry. It’s the verbal and visual equivalent of a written report. Information sharing is part of any business or organization. Informative presentations serve to present specific information for specific audiences for specific goals or functions. The type of presentation is often identified by its primary purpose or function. Informative presentations are often analytical or involve the rational analysis of information. Sometimes they simply “report the facts” with no analysis at all, but still need to communicate the information in a clear and concise format. While a presentation may have conclusions, propositions, or even a call to action, the demonstration of the analysis is the primary function.

A sales report presentation, for example, is not designed to make a sale. It is, however, supposed to report sales to date and may forecast future sales based on previous trends.

An informative presentation does not have to be a formal event, though it can be. It can be generic and nonspecific to the audience or listener, but the more you know about your audience, the better. When you tailor your message to that audience, you zero in on your target and increase your effectiveness. The emphasis is on clear and concise communication, but it may address several key questions:

• Topic: Product or Service?
• Who are you?
• Who is the target market?
• What is the revenue model?
• What are the specifications?
• How was the information gathered?
• How does the unit work?
• How does current information compare to previous information?

Table 13.2 “Presentation Components and Their Functions” lists the five main parts or components of any presentation (McLean, S., 2003).

Table 13.2 Presentation Components and Their Functions

You will need to address the questions to establish relevance and meet the audience’s needs. The five parts of any speech will serve to help you get organized.

Sample Speech Guidelines

Imagine that you have been assigned to give an informative presentation lasting five to seven minutes. Follow the guidelines in Table 13.3 “Sample Speech Guidelines” and apply them to your presentation.

Table 13.3 Sample Speech Guidelines

Key Takeaway

Informative presentations illustrate, explain, describe, and instruct the audience on topics and processes.

• Write a brief summary of a class or presentation you personally observed recently; include what you learned. Compare with classmates.
• Search online for an informative speech or presentation that applies to business or industry. Indicate one part or aspect of the presentation that you thought was effective and one you would improve. Provide the link to the presentation in your post or assignment.
• Pick a product or service and come up with a list of five points that you could address in a two-minute informative speech. Place them in rank order and indicate why.
• With the points discussed in this chapter in mind, observe someone presenting a speech. What elements of their speech could you use in your speech? What elements would you not want to use? Why? Compare with a classmate.

McLean, S. (2003). The basics of speech communication . Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Business Communication for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Module 8: Developing and Delivering Business Presentations

Making a presentation for a meeting, learning outcomes.

• Create a presentation intended for a business meeting

With perspective on the technical tools, communications planning and information design, let’s take this learning for a test drive.

What’s considered an effective (that is, persuasive) presentation structure hasn’t changed fundamentally over the centuries. In his analysis of dramatic structure in the Poetics , Aristotle identified a play as having three parts: a beginning, middle and end. The story begins with a “complication” (problem), ends with an “unraveling” (resolution), and follows a logical sequence of events from beginning to end. Hollywood screenwriters use the same structure and dynamics. Screenwriter, producer and author Syd Field, whom CNN called “the guru of all screen writers,” translated this simple three-step structure into numerous books and workbooks, including the bestsellers Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting and The Screenwriter’s Workbook .

In a business context, a good presentation is an effective presentation. That is, a good presentation achieves its intended outcome. Clearly, in order to achieve a specific outcome or objective, you need to know what it is. So, prior to crafting the drama (in word or slide), you need to hone in on three things:

• The purpose of your presentation
• Your audience
• Your (one) message

For a review of these elements, refer to What’s my Presentation About .

Once you’re clear on those points, let’s proceed.

To build our presentation, we’ll use presentation expert Nancy Duarte’s interpretation of the classic 3-part story structure illustrated in Figure 1. For additional perspective on this structure, watch her TED Talk, “ The Secret Structure of Great Talks, ” or read her Harvard Business Review article, “ Structure Your Presentation Like a Story .”

Figure 1. Persuasive story structure (Duarte, “Structure Your Presentation Like a Story,” 2012).

The Beginning

The story starts with “What is”—the current state. Describe this baseline state in a way that is recognizable to the audience. This allows you and the audience to get in sync. And with this base level of agreement, your audience will be more receptive to your proposed change.

The second step is to introduce “What could be.” The gap between what is and what could be adds tension and drama to your story and largely determines the significance of your presentation. If there’s no conflict, no proposed change, what’s the point of the presentation?

Let’s say you’re an analyst on the new product development team of a retailer known for exclusive, trend-forward “house” branded products. Your company’s reputation and revenue depends on consistent introduction of new consumer-product goods. Marketing and distribution are key strengths, but new-product performance is off, revenue is below expectations and the company’s stock price recently fell 30 percent. Within your company, R&D (research & development) is strictly an insider’s game; any ideas or innovations that weren’t developed in-house are blocked. The problem is, you can’t innovate fast enough—or with enough market demand accuracy—to meet financial and stock market expectations. You and the other analysts on your team have been tracking innovation trends and successes and you think the answer is opening the R&D works to outside ideas and innovations. Here’s how you might lay out your presentation:

• What Is: We missed our quarterly earnings numbers, largely due to a failure to meet our innovation success targets over the last six months.
• What Could Be: Initial data suggests we could get back on track by modifying our R&D model to incorporate external innovations.

The bulk of your the presentation is developing the contrast between what is and what could be in order to set up your proposed resolution of the conflict or challenge. The objective is also to establish the validity of your arguments, so your proposed call to action is perceived as a logical, ideally inevitable, conclusion of the conflict.

• What Is: We currently bear the full cost and risk of developing new products and our innovation success rate—the percentage of new products that meet financial objectives—is running 25 percent below target.
• What Could Be: Sourcing promising innovations from outside the company could reduce R&D costs and risk while also increasing our innovation success rate.
• What Is: Our R&D process is taking so long that we’re missing trends and losing our market-leading brand reputation.
• What Could Be: We could license or buy promising innovations for a fraction of the cost it would take to develop them from scratch and leverage our marketing and distribution strengths to claim shelf and market share.
• What Is: Our below-plan performance and new product pipeline is costing us political capital with executive management, and we’re at risk of losing budget and/or layoffs.
• What Could Be: Adopting an open innovation culture would allow us to create partnerships that leverage our strengths and drive revenue, regaining a position of value within the company.

To craft a powerful close, heed Duarte’s advice and avoid a list of bullet point to-dos. Your objective here is to achieve resolution of the conflict introduced at the beginning, to issue a call to action that inspires your audience to support your vision of what could be, a state Duarte refers to as the “new bliss.”

Call to Action

To recover our position of a source of revenue and brand value, we need to start working to build a culture and networks that support open innovation and accelerate the development of new products, regardless of the source of the idea.

Our ability to drive value secures our position and reputations in the company, and in the marketplace, and pays off in employee stock value and profit sharing.

The new bliss articulates the proposed—and a desired future state—incorporating the WIIFM, what’s in it for me, that motivates your audience to buy into and work to support the required change.

Practice Question

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• Making a Presentation for a Meeting. Authored by : Nina Burokas. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
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• 1. “You can have all the great ideas in the world and if you can’t communicate, nobody will hear them.” -Kara Blackburn Business Communication
• 2. Topics • Communication - Meaning • Business Communication - Definition • Importance • Process • Types – One-way/Two-way, Verbal/Non- Verbal, Oral/Written, Formal/Informal, Upward, Downward, Lateral, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Organizational, Mass Communication • Models – SMCR, Shannon Weaver • Language Skills-Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing
• 3. What is Communication?  Derived from the Latin word "communis," meaning to share.  Communication is the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behaviour.  It is the transmission of an idea or feeling so that the sender and receiver share the same understanding.
• 4. Definition “Communication is a process involving the selection, production and transmission of signs in such a way as to help a receiver perceive a meaning similar to that in the mind of the communicator.” -Fotheringham
• 5. Business Communication - Definition  Business communication is the sharing of information between people within an organization that is performed for the commercial benefit of the organization.
• 6. Importance  In the professional world, communication and related skills decide a person’s career curve - better the communication skills, higher are the chances of touching the zenith of success.  The new global and diverse workplace requires excellent spoken and written communication skills!
• 7. Process of Communication  Communication is a process whereby information is encoded, channeled and sent by a sender to a receiver via some medium.  All forms of communication require a sender, a channel, a message, a receiver and the feedback.  A hindrance in the communication process is called noise
• 9. Components of Communication  Sender - Initiates the communication process by developing an idea into a message known as encoding.  Channel - The sender transmits the message through a channel, or a method of delivery; eg. e-mail, phone conversations, instant messages, face-to-face discussion or even a text message.
• 10.  Receiver – This message then moves through the channel to the receiver, who completes the communication process by interpreting and assigning meaning to the message known as decoding.  Feedback - This is a critical component in the communication process as it ensures a message was properly received and interpreted.
• 11. Types •One-way , Two-way •Verbal(Oral & Written), Non-verbal •Formal, Informal(Grapevine) •Upward, Downward, Lateral •Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Organizational, Mass Communication
• 12. One way Communication  One-way communication involves the transfer of information in one direction only, from the sender to the receiver.  There is no opportunity for the receiver to give feedback to the sender.  Eg. weather report on television, newspaper, recorded music on the CD, billboard messages
• 13. Two-way Communication  Two-way communication is a form of transmission in which both parties involved, transmit information.  Two-Way communication has also been referred to as interpersonal communication.  Eg. Chat rooms and Instant Messaging, Telephone conversations, classroom lectures etc.
• 14. Verbal Communication In this type of communication the professional uses language as a vehicle of communication.  Oral communication – A face-to-face interaction between the sender and the receiver. Eg. Making presentations and appearing for interviews  Written Communication – The sender uses the written mode to transmit his/her messages. Eg. Writing reports and emails.
• 15. Non Verbal Communication When a message is communicated without using a word, the process requires non-verbal cues to be transmitted and received. Eg. facial expressions, posture, eye contact, walk, person’s voice, sign language, body language volume, pitch, voice modulation etc. Communication includes both verbal and non-verbal forms.
• 16. Formal  Communication takes place through the formal channels of the organization structure along the lines of authority established by the management.  Such communications are generally in writing and may take any of the forms; policy; manuals: procedures and rule books; memoranda; official meetings; reports, etc.
• 17. Informal  Communication arising out of all those channels of communication that fall outside the formal channels is known as informal communication.  Informal communication does not follow lines of authority as is the case of formal communication.  Such communication is usually oral and may be covered even by simple glance, gesture or smile or silence.  Eg. Talking with friends
• 18. Formal Informal Official Channel Unofficial Channel Planned & Systematic Cuts across formal relationships Goal and task oriented Individual Goal and need oriented Impersonal Personal & Social Stable and rigid Flexible and instable Slow & Structured Fast & unstructured Authentic – little chance of distortion Non- Authentic - bigger chance of distortion
• 19. Grapevine  It is an informal type of communication and is called so because it stretches throughout the organization in all directions irrespective of the authority levels.  It exists more at lower levels of organization.  Thus, grapevine spreads like fire and it is not easy to trace the cause of such communication at times.
• 21. Downward  Communication in the first place, flows downwards.  All information in this medium is usually in form of instructions, directions and orders.  This direction of communication strengthens the authoritarian structure of the organization.
• 22. Upward  Upward Communication is the process of information flowing from the lower levels of a hierarchy to the upper levels.  The function of upward communication is to send information, suggestions, complaints and grievances of the lower level workers to the managers above.
• 23. Lateral/Horizontal  This type of communication takes place between persons at the same level or working under the same executive.  The main use of this is to maintain coordination and review activities assigned to various subordinates.
• 24. Interpersonal  Interpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people.  It is the process by which people exchange information, feelings, and meaning through verbal and non-verbal messages.
• 25. Intrapersonal  It is the communication which takes place within one’s own self.  This implies individual reflection, contemplation and meditation.
• 26. Organizational  A process by which activities of a society are collected and coordinated to reach the goals of both individuals and the collective group.  It is a subfield of general communications studies and is often a component to effective management in a workplace environment.
• 27. Mass Communication  It is a means of conveying messages to an entire populace.  This is generally identified with tools of modern mass media, which include books, the press, cinema, television, radio, internet etc. It also includes speeches delivered by leaders to a large audience
• 28. SMRC Model of Communication
• 29. SMCR MODEL  The SMCR (Source-Message-Channel-Receiver) Model is a standard in communication studies.  This model was originally developed by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, and then altered by David Berlo, but the latest credit has been given to Wilbur Schramm for his interactive interpretation
• 31. The source is were the message originates.  Attitudes – The attitude towards the audience, subject and towards one self for e.g. for the student the attitude is to learn more and for teachers wants to help teach.  Knowledge– The knowledge about the subject.  Social system – The Social system includes the various aspects in society like values, beliefs, culture, religion and general understanding of society.  Culture: Culture of the particular society also comes under social system. Source
• 32.  Encoder: The sender of the message (message originates) is referred as encoder.  Content – The beginning to the end of a message comprises its content.  Elements – It includes various things like language, gestures, body language etc. so these are all the elements of the particular message.  Treatment – The way in which the message is conveyed or the way in which the message is passed on or deliver it. Message
• 33.  Hearing: The use of ears to get the message for e.g. oral messages, interpersonal etc.  Seeing: Visual channels for e.g. TV can be seen and the message is delivered.  Touching: The sense of touch can be used as a channel to communicate for e.g. we touch and buy food, hugging, pat on the back etc.  Smelling: Smell also can be a channel to communicate for e.g. perfumes, food, charred smell communicates something is burning, we can find out about which food is being cooked etc.  Tasting : The tongue also can be used to decipher e.g. Food can be tasted and communication can happen. Channel
• 34.  Decoder : Who receives the message and decodes it is referred to as decoder.  Receiver: The receiver needs to have all the things like the source. This model believes that for an effective communication to take place the source and the receiver needs to be in the same level, only if the source and receiver are on the same level communication will happen or take place properly. So source and receiver should be similar
• 35. Criticism of Berlo’s SMCR model of communication:  No feedback / don’t know about the effect  Does not mention barriers to communication  No room for noise  Needs people to be on same level for communication to occur but not true in real life.  The model omits the usage of sixth sense as a channel which is actually a gift to the human beings (thinking, understanding, analyzing etc).
• 36. Shannon Weaver Model of Communication
• 38. Shannon- Weaver Model  The Shannon–Weaver model of communication has been called the "mother of all models.“  It embodies the concepts of information source, message, transmitter, signal, channel, noise, receiver, information destination, probability of error, encoding, decoding, information rate, channel capacity, etc.
• 39. Elements of the Model  Sender : The originator of message or the information source selects desired message  Encoder : The transmitter which converts the message into signals For example: In telephone the voice is converted into wave signals and it transmits through cables  Decoder : The reception place of the signal which converts signals into message. A reverse process of encode
• 40.  Receiver : The destination of the message from sender  Noise: The messages are transferred from encoder to decoder through channel. During this process the messages may distracted or affected by physical noise like horn sounds, thunder and crowd noise or encoded signals may distract in the channel during the transmission process which affect the communication flow or the receiver may not receive the correct message
• 41. Barriers to Communication
• 42. Barriers to Communication  When there is a problem which might cause our communication to be distorted or problematic, it is known as a barrier to effective communication. There are 4 types of barriers to communication 1. Physical barriers 2. Psychological barriers 3. Semantic blocks 4. Organizational Barriers
• 43. Physical Barriers  Distance: – communication is found obstructed in long distance. Like communication between America and Nepal.  Noise: – it is from external sources and affects the communication process. Noise negatively affects the accuracy
• 44. Psychological Barriers  Perception: – it is the process of accepting and interpreting the information by the receiver. People receive things differently for a various number of reasons.  Filtering: –In this process, knowingly or unknowingly some valuable information may be disposed.  Emotions: – emotion also creates barriers to effective communication like anger, hate, mistrust, jealousy etc.
• 45.  Viewpoint: – it also creates barriers to effective communication. It the receiver doesn’t clear the message and ignore without hearing, the message may create obstructions.  Defensiveness: – if the receiver receives the message as threat and interprets that message in the same way, it creates barriers to effective communication.
• 46. Semantic Barriers  The use of difficult and multiple use of languages, words, figures, symbols create semantic barriers.  Language: – A meaning sent by the sender can be quite different from the meaning understood by the receiver. Long and complex sentences create problem in communication process.  Jargons: – Technical or unfamiliar language creates barriers. The message should be simple and condensed as far as possible so that no confusion is created.
• 47. Organizational Barriers  It is raised from the organizational goals, regulations, structure and culture.  Poor planning: – Refers to the designing, encoding, channel selection and conflicting signals in the organization.  Structure complexities:- Difficult organizational structure is a barrier for free flow of information
• 48.  Status differences: – Superior provides information to the subordinate about plans and policies. Different information is provided by different subordinates who create barrier in communication.  Organizational distance:- Distance between sender and receiver.  Information overload: – If superior provides too much information to the subordinate in short period receiver suffers from information overload which creates barriers to effective communication.  Timing: – Communication can be obstructed if the information is not provided in time.
• 49. LSRW Skills
• 50. Listening Skills  Listening is an everyday affair.  We spend more time to listening than speaking  It is a skill which is often taken for granted  It is considered as a stressful task  Successful listening is challenging and requires a lot of practice  Effective listening is a dynamic activity that seeks out the meaning intended in the messages sent by the speaker.
• 51. Listening Vs Hearing  Hearing is an involuntary act that happens automatically. Eg. A truck rolling by on the road in front of our house.  Listening –  voluntary activity,  demands perfect coordination between the ears & the brain  very creative  Interactive and interpretive process.
• 52. Techniques for Effective Listening  You should have an open mind.  You should sit alert and look the speaker in the eye with a view to establish your interest in him/her.  Do not prejudge the speaker or his message.  Summarize what the speaker is saying  Take down notes  Link what you are listening to what you already know.  Do not interrupt the speaker unnecessarily.  Ask relevant questions to yourself for clarity in your understanding.
• 53. Reading Skills Skimming  Skimming is used to quickly gather the most important information, or 'gist'.  Run your eyes over the text, noting important information.  Use skimming to quickly get up to speed on a current business situation. Examples of Skimming:  The Newspaper (quickly to get the general news of the day)  Magazines (quickly to discover which articles you would like to read in more detail)  Business and Travel Brochures (quickly to get informed)
• 54. Reading Skills Scanning  Scanning is used to find a particular piece of information.  Run your eyes over the text looking for the specific piece of information you need.  Use scanning on schedules, meeting plans, etc. in order to find the specific details you require.  If you see words or phrases that you don't understand, don't worry when scanning. Examples of Scanning  The "What's on TV" section of your newspaper.  A train / airplane schedule  A conference guide
• 55. Reading Skills Extensive reading  Extensive reading is used to obtain a general understanding of a subject and includes reading longer texts for pleasure, as well as business books.  Use extensive reading skills to improve your general knowledge of business procedures.  Do not worry if you understand each word. Examples of Extensive Reading  The latest marketing strategy book  A novel you read before going to bed  Magazine articles that interest you
• 56. Intensive reading  Intensive reading is used on shorter texts in order to extract specific information.  It includes very close accurate reading for detail.  Use intensive reading skills to grasp the details of a specific situation.  In this case, it is important that you understand each word, number or fact. Examples of Intensive Reading  An insurance claim  A contract of employment Reading Skills
• 57. Critical reading  This is a form of language analysis that does not take the given text at face value, but involves a deeper examination of supporting points and possible counter arguments.  Critical readers thus recognize not only what a text says, but also how that text portrays the subject matter.  What a text means – interpretation — analyze the text and assert a meaning for the text as a whole Reading Skills
• 58. Speaking Skills Tone  The tone of voice we use is responsible for about 35- 40 percent of the message we are sending.  Tone involves the volume you use, the level and type of emotion that you communicate and the emphasis that you place on the words that you choose.
• 59. Pitch  Pitch refers to the rise and fall in human voice. It plays a crucial role in communication.  Questions, for example, should end on a higher note.  Affirmative statements should end in a level or slightly lower pitch. The ending of statements on a high pitch can create doubt in your listeners.  Vary your pitch throughout your presentation to establish and reinforce your message. Speaking Skills
• 60. Rhythm  Rhythm is the pattern of the sounds you produce.  Stressing and de-stressing syllables and words gives us rhythm in English.  Rhythm is the music of English Language – the ups and downs and the linking of words, which together, change how we say sentences.  Use rhythm to carry meaning.  Slow the pace to emphasize certain ideas.  Quicken the pace to show excitement or humor.  Pause to give listeners time to absorb a complex idea. Pause also when you're about to transition to another idea. Speaking Skills
• 61.  Stressing means to emphasize a sound and make certain syllables and words:  louder  longer  higher in pitch  Every word in English has at least one syllable with a primary stress or emphasis.  It is not only essential to stress certain syllables and words, but we must also de-stress other syllables and words. Examples:  English –> [ING glish] (1st syllable is stressed; 2nd syllable is slightly de-stressed) Speaking Skills
• 62. Intonation  Correct intonation and stress are the key to speaking English fluently with good pronunciation.  The entire variation of pitch while speaking is called intonation.  Words that are stressed are key to understanding and using the correct intonation brings out the meaning.  English spends more time on specific stressed words while quickly gliding over the other, less important, words. Speaking Skills
• 63.  A sentence can be spoken differently, depending on the speaker's intention.  Look at the following sentences. Speak them out loud and especially stress the word that is in bold writing.  I did not read anything about the disaster.  I did not read anything about the disaster.  I did not read anything about the disaster.  I did not read anything about the disaster.  I did not read anything about the disaster.  I did not read anything about the disaster. Speaking Skills
• 64.  Effective writing is not a gift that you’re born with, rather it is a skill that you cultivate. Clear writing means clear thinking.  Think before you write: Before you put pen to paper or hands to keyboard, consider what you want to say.  Ask yourself: What should my audience know or think after reading this email, proposal, or report? Writing Skills
• 65. Steps to Improve your Writing Skills Be direct  Make your point right up front.  By concisely presenting your main idea first, you save your reader time and sharpen your argument before diving into the bulk of your writing.  If your opener is no good, then the whole piece of writing will be no good.
• 66. Avoid jargons  Business writing is full of industry-specific buzzwords and acronyms.  And while these terms are sometimes unavoidable and can occasionally be helpful as shorthand, they often indicate lazy or cluttered thinking.  You should also avoid using grandiose words.  Writers often mistakenly believe in using a big word when a simple one will do.
• 67. Read what you write  Put yourself in your reader’s shoes.  Is your point clear and well structured?  Are the sentences straightforward and concise?  Don’t be afraid to ask a colleague or friend to edit your work.  Welcome their feedback; don’t resent it.
• 68. Practice every day  Writing is a skill, and skills improve with practice.  Read well-written material every day, and be attentive to word choice, sentence structure, and flow.  Most importantly, build time into your schedule for editing and revising.
• 69. Coherence  Coherence in writing is the "logical glue" that allows readers to move easily and clearly from one idea to the next.  Coherence in writing is much more difficult to sustain than coherent speech because writers have no nonverbal clues to inform them if their message is clear or not.

Editor's Notes

• Eg. Communication between management and staff.
• We live in an age of communication Ours is a society that moves on the wheels of communication.

If you still have questions or prefer to get help directly from an agent, please submit a request. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Please fill out the contact form below and we will reply as soon as possible.

• Business Management & Operations
• Business Communications & Negotiation

Communicating Through Business Presentations

How to Create a Business Presentation

Written by Jason Gordon

Updated at April 15th, 2022

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Table of Contents

What is a business presentation.

A Business presentation is a means of exchanging info for decision-making and policy developing, relating the benefits of the services offered and sharing our goals, values, and visions.

• Formal Presentations Allow time and planning. Ex. Presentation during a scheduled meeting.
• Informal Presentations (Oral Briefings) Less formal presentations that entails a short update on a current project. Ex. Update requested during a meeting with little or no notices. Ex. Informal update in the boss's office.

Back to:  Negotiations & Communications

Identify Your Purpose

Understanding the purpose you hope to achieve and conceptualizing your audience will enable you to organize the content in a way that is understood and accepted. Technique 1: At the end of my presentation, the audience will ________. Technique 2: What is my Message? Develop a phrase, single thought, or conclusion you want the audience to take away from the presentation. Imagine your audience summarizing your message what do you want to hear them describe as your central purpose.

Know Your Audience

Don't presume you know the audience find out about them. The audience wants to know, Whats in it for me. Determine what motivates your audience, how they think, and how they make decisions. Who is the audience, and who requested the presentation? Why is the topic important to the audience? (What will they do with the information). 

Helpful Info: Age, gender, occupations, education level, attitude, values, broad and specific interests, needs. Keep in mind the occasion or location of the presentation. Environmental factors affecting presentation will reveal whether the environment is intimate or remote; the audience is receptive and alert or non-receptive and tired; whether you will need additional motivation or persuasion tactics:

• # of people in the audience.
• Are there any other presenters?
• Where and at what time does my presentation fit into the agenda?
• How much time will I have?
• How will the audience be seated? And what is the layout? (Podium, microphone, seated.)

Organizing the Content

The standard format is:

Introduction

The dominant technique is:

• Tell the audience what you will tell them.
• Tell them what you told them.

Goals of the Introduction:

• Capture attention and involve the audience.
• Establish rapport.
• Present the purpose statement and preview the points that you will develop.

Capture attention and involve the audience. Choose an attention-getter that is relevant to the subject and appropriate for the audience. Techniques:

• A shocking statement or startling statistic. Ex. Lack of personnel management costs companies $200 Billion in the US every year, and is among the most wasteful aspects of any business.
• Quotation by an expert. Ex. Attracting quality people to your business is the life of any business - Sir Richard Branson.
• A rhetorical or open-ended question that generates discussion from the audience. Ex. Do you want to spend time building your business, or worrying about payroll administration?
• An appropriate joke or humor. Used to break the ice. Self-denigrating is often the best.
• A demonstration of dramatic presentation aid. Ex. If youre pushing social media optimization, you may want to do a Google search of the company up front to show their poor page rank.
• An anecdote or timely story from a business periodical. Malcolm Gladwell says that there is no such thing as innate talent.
• Involve the audience. Ex. Ask for a show of hands regarding an example.

Establish Rapport

Show concern that they benefit from the presentation. Share a personal story or share a part of your background that relates to the topic. 

Present the purpose statement and preview the points that will be developed. Once you have captured attention for the topic, present your purpose statement directly. 

Then, preview the major points you will discuss in the order that you'll discuss. This helps the audience understand how the parts of the body are tied together to support the purpose statement. 

If the presentation is long, you may want to use a visual to show the points covered.

In a short presentation (ex. 20 mins) limit your presentation to a few major points. Promote audience attention and absorption.

• Provide support for your points in a manner that is easy to understand. Use simple vocabulary and short sentences that the listener can understand easily and that sounds conversational and interesting. Avoid jargon or technical terms that the listeners may not understand. Use a familiar frame of reference. Draw analogies between new ideas and familiar ones. Use comparisons to past events or relevant stories.
• Provide relevant statistics. Use specific, quantitative measures available to lend authority and credibility to your points. Use techniques to make the statistics easy to remember. Ex. 34.2% of the students work full-time vs. 1/3 of the students work full-time.
• Use Quotes from prominent people. This helps build credibility, particularly if the audience is familiar with the source.
• Use interesting anecdotes. Audiences like and remember anecdotes or interesting stories that tie into the presentation and make strong emotional connections with audiences.
• Use Jokes and humor appropriately. Jokes and humor can build rapport, ease an approach to sensitive subjects, disarm a non-receptive audience, or make your message easier to understand and remember.
• Use presentation visuals. Try to enhance the audiences ability to see, hear, feel, and understand your presentation.
• Encourage audience participation. Reflective questioning, role-playing, directive audience-centered activities, incorporating current events and periodicals into the activity.

The Close provides unity to your presentation by Telling the audience what you have already told them. 

The conclusion should be your best line, your most dramatic point, your most profound thought, your most memorable bit of information, or your best anecdote. 

Develop the close so that it supports and refocuses the audiences attention on your purpose statement. Tips:

• Commit the time and energy needed to develop a creative, memorable conclusion. In an analytical presentation, state your conclusion and support it with the highlight from your supporting evidence. In a persuasive presentation, the close is often an urgent plea for the members of the audience to take some action or to look on the subject from a new point of view.
• Tie the close to the introduction to strengthen the unity of the presentation. Ex. Take an anecdote from the introduction and answer or build on it as your conclusion.
• Use transition words that clearly indicate you are moving from the body to the close. Practice your close until you can remember it without stumbling.
• Smile and Stand back to accept any audience applause.
• Show eagerness to answer questions if that is part of the presentation.

Designing Compelling Presentation Visuals

Presenter who uses visuals is considered more prepared and interesting. Tell me, Ill forget. Show me, Ill remember. Involve me, and Ill understand. Advantages:

• Clarifies and emphasizes important points
• Increases retention from 14 to 38 percent.
• Reduces the time required to present a concept.
• Speaker achieves goals 34% more often when visuals used.
• Increases group consensus by 21% when presentation visuals used in a meeting.

Types of Presentation Materials

• Boards and Flipcharts,
• Overhead transparencies,
• Electronic Presentations,
• 35mm Slides,
• Objects & models.

Design of Presentation Visuals

The purpose of each visual aid should be clear, and almost speak for itself. A visual aid can provide emphasis, effectively highlighting keywords, ideas, or relationships for the audience. Visual aids can also provide the necessary support for your position. Visual aids accomplish several goals:

• Make your speech more interesting
• Enhance your credibility as a speaker
• Serve as guides to transitions, helping the audience stay on track
• Communicate complex or intriguing information in a short period of time
• Reinforce your verbal message
• Help the audience use and retain the information

Create an appealing, easy-to-read design that supports your main point without overwhelming the audience. Techniques:

• # of Visual Aids. Limit the number of visual aids used in a single presentation. The visuals should direct the audiences attention to major points and clarify or illustrate complex information.
• Slide Content . Limit slide content to key ideas presented in as few words as possible. Remember, you should enhance the audiences ability to grasp your message NOT state the entire message.
• Singular Idea . Develop only one major idea using targeted keywords that the audience can scan quickly, understand, and remember. Use words, not whole sentences. Eliminate (a, an, the , we, you, your, are, to). If you have to put text use no more than 7 words per line, 7 lines per slide.
• Use an effective template that enlivens boring content . Choose an effective color scheme. Limit color to no more than 3 per slide. Background color should reflect formality and tone. Cooler shades for more formal. Lighter shades for former. Use complementary foreground (text) colors that have high contrast the background to ensure readability.
• Use of Type : Use capital letters sparingly- only at begining of a sentence, important words, and property nouns. Choose an appealing font that can be read onscreen easily.

Types of Delivery

After you have organized your message, you must identify the appropriate delivery method, refine your vocal qualities, and practice your delivery. There are Four general business presentation methods:

• Memorized - Written out ahead of time, memorized, and recited verbatim. Benefits: Well planned in content and organization. Lends itself well to ceremonies. Negatives: Limited ability to react to feedback. Forgetting a point (mental block) can damage entire presentation. Can appear monotone.
• Manuscript or Scripted - Writing speech word for word and delivering to the audience. Benefits: Beneficial at technical conference presentations or when accuracy is absolutely critical. Beneficial when several presentations have to be given close together or you dont have as much time to prepare. Negatives: Limit speaker-audience rapport (particularly when the speaker fails to look up from the Manuscript). May use teleprompter to appear that you are speaking extemporaneously.
• Impromptu - Called on without prior notice (off-the-cuff). Benefits: It is a fundamental skill where you can demonstrate your knowledge at key or critical moments. If you can foresee the question arising, you may be able to prepare ahead of time and be very impressive in the presentation. Negatives: Often requires an experienced speak to analyze the request, organize supporting points from memory, and present a simple, logical response.
• Extemporaneous - Presentations are planned, prepared, and rehearsed but not written in detail. Brief words prompt the speaker on the next point, but words are chosen spontaneously as the speaker interacts with the audience and anticipates their needs. Includes body gestures, sounding conversational. Benefits: Can be delivered with great conviction, because the speaking is speaking with rather than to the audience. Negatives: Requires the most preparation. Most difficult type of presentation for teams difficult to coordinate for a uniform presentation style.

Preparation and Practice

Tips for effective preparation and practice include:

• Prepare Thoroughl. It is the best manner to control speech anxiety.
• Prepare Effective Presentation Support Tools . Follow the steps in the graphics chapter to develop a design that works for the presentation. Have a contingency plan in the event something goes wrong (technical glitches).
• Practice, Rather than Rehearse . You are working to deliver the presentation in a style that allows you to talk to the audience. Rehearsing can make the presentation sound mechanical, where practicing makes it more fluid.
• Spend additional time practicing the introduction and conclusion . Remember the conclusion is often the strongest and most memorable portion.
• Practice displaying the presentation visuals . This is very helpful and important in making certain the presentation is effortless and seamless. . Remember, these are just in support of your presentation they are not the presentation.
• Seek feedback from others . This will allow you to polish your performance and improve organization. You can also practice by presenting in front of a mirror.
• Arrive Early . This allows you to become familiar with the setup of the room and to check the equipment.
• Communicate confidence, warmth, and enthusiasm . Confident appearance with alert posture. Smile genuinely throughout the presentation. Maintain steady eye contact with the audience in random places throughout the room. Refine gestures to portray a relaxed, approachable appearance. Move from behind the lectern and toward the audience to reduce the barrier created between you and the audience.
• Exercise Strong Vocal Qualities - To maximize vocal strengths, focus on three important qualities of speech: Phonation, Articulation, and Pronunciation. Phonation The production and variation of the speakers vocal tone. (3 Primary Factors). Pitch The highness of lowness of the voice. The pitch should rise and fall to reflect emotions. Lower pitches are perceived to sound more authoritative. Higher pitches convey less confidence are can be perceived as whining. Volume Loudness of tones in your voice. Vary loudness to hold the audiences attention, emphasize words or idea, and create a desired atmosphere (energetic, excited, solemn, serious, etc.) Rate The Speed at which words are spoken. Vary the rate of speech with the demands of the situation. Speak at a lower rate when emphasizing an idea that is complex or a process. Use pauses to add emphasis to key points. Articulation Smooth, fluent, and pleasant speech resulting from the way a speak produces and joins sounds. Faulty articulation results from not carefully forming individual sounds. Dropping word endings, Running words together, Imprecise enunciation. This is not dialect (accent) which is a variation on pronunciation, usually of vowels. Techniques to improve clarity in your voice, educe strain and voice distortion, and increase your expressiveness with the following guidelines: Stand up straight, shoulders back, speak from diaphragm rather than head voice. Focus on completing the endings of all words, not running words together, and enunciating words correctly. Pronunciation - Use principles of phonetics to create accurate sounds, rhythm, stress, and intonation. A well-articulated word can still be mispronounced. There is often a preferable and acceptable pronunciation for lots of words. The key is choosing word pronunciation that is acceptable to the audience.
• Watch Your Audience - Read your audience to view the interest level.
• Use Your Visuals Effectively . Step to one side of the visual when you intend for the audience to see it. Paraphrase the visual rather than reading the text from it.
• Handle questions  form  the Audience . Be prepared to field questions that arise when you are giving the presentation. Keep Within the Time Limit. Be prepared for a question and answer period. Answer questions in a calm and non-combative manner. If you have a team, always have a moderator.
• Distribute handouts - Only when needed in the presentation. Try not to give out at beginning it distracts audience. Use to provide additional information at the end of the lecture.
• Culturally Diverse Audiences - Focus on the individual, rather than stereotyping a specific culture. Speak simply. Avoid words that trigger negative emotional responses. Enunciate each word precisely. Use jokes or humor cautiously. Learn cultures preference for a direct or indirect presentation. Adapt to subtle differences in nonverbal communication. Seek feedback to determine whether the audience is understanding our message.
• Team Presentations - Selecting your team members who are complimentary in skill and ability and have a social fit with other members. Agree on the Purpose and Schedule. Avoids lack of coordination. Submitting off-topic material. Practice ahead of time - Preparing an entire team is much for difficult than preparing oneself. Decide who will deliver what portion of the presentation. Work on transitions between segments of each presenter. Deliver as a team and field questions as a team.

Related Topics

• Communicating via Memoranda or Letter
• Electronic Communications
• Writing Business Reports
• Writing Business Proposals
• Business Presentations

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• Digital Divide - Explained
• Determining Ethical Behavior in Negotiations - Explained
• Persuasive Tactics in a Negotiation - Explained
• Distributive Negotiation - Explained

Business Presentation: Definition, Steps to Create & Tips to Remember!

At some point in your life, you must have given a presentation or at least done some sort of public speaking. If you haven’t, then at some point you will have to, especially if you’re an entrepreneur.

When it comes to giving presentations, it doesn’t matter that you are a seasoned speaker or an amateur as long as you are able to convey your message or achieve your goal in the most engaging way.

And truth be told, even though each presentation has its own subtle differences, there are a few universal guidelines or steps that make it effective.

But the fact of the matter is that giving presentations, especially business presentations, is not exactly a walk in the park and not everyone can easily pull it off.

But don’t worry, that’s why we have got your back! In this blog, we will provide you with the steps involved in creating a killer business presentation and making it stand out!

Before we get to the steps involved, let’s understand what a business presentation is and why it is important to create one!

Ready? Let’s go!

What is a Business Presentation? (Definition)

A presentation is simply an introduction, demonstration, or speech given by an individual or group of individuals to an audience in order to inform, inspire, convince, or motivate them.

So a business presentation can be defined as a formal introduction or information about new business products, ideas, or practices. It is usually carried out using audio-visual materials, such as projectors, documents, presentation software, whiteboards, charts, and more.

Business presentations are often done with the aim to educate or train the audience, sell a product or an idea to them or simply convey or share your vision with them.

Now that we have explained what business presentations are, let’s help you understand the importance of creating one!

Importance of Creating a Business Presentation

More often than not, a business presentation is the first document or introduction about your organization or your organization’s products and services that your clients get to see.

So when somebody sits through such a presentation, they expect to get gain some information from it without dozing off halfway through it. That’s why it is important that you have a well-crafted, visually appealing, and engaging business presentation .

A good business presentation offers many benefits, such as:

1. Helps Create Connections

A business presentation focuses on communication, interaction, and bonding between you and your audience. It allows you to build a good impression and brand image. This not only helps you convey messages and convince your audience but also establishes relationships and creates better connections.

2. Provides Information

A good presentation is highly informative and eye-opening. It’s a great opportunity to give out nuggets of details, facts, trivia, and statistics-backed data. It provides the listener with information in the most engaging way, which means that they walk out a better-informed and educated person.

Read more:  6 Awesome Video Presentation Software & Tips to Follow!

3. Offers Inspiration

The impact a good business presentation can have on an individual is far more than you can imagine. Since most business presentations involve the use of audio-visual materials, stories or anecdotes, handouts/pamphlets, or demonstrations, it tends to stick in the minds of the listeners. It keeps them engaged, offers inspiration, and helps influence their decisions.

Clearly, business presentations are an effective way to get across your message and build your brand. They are definitely rewarding and crucial for your business.

And since we don’t want to keep you waiting, let’s jump straight into the nitty-gritty of creating a business presentation!

How to Create a Business Presentation in 9 Simple Steps!

Step 1. create a plan.

The first step in creating an excellent business presentation is to make a plan about what you want to do and how exactly you want to do it. For this, it is always good to set a goal that you seek to achieve through your presentation and then create a roadmap of how you want to achieve it.

In a business presentation plan, you create an outline of your presentation and decide what message you want to convey and the main points and arguments you want to include.

Divide your presentation into an introduction, the main section, and a conclusion, and further incorporate sub-points within each section. This will allow you to easily split your content into a consumable format.

With a plan ready in hand, your presentation will sail through smoothly!

Step 2. Spend Some Time on Your Presentation Slides

Is your presentation even a presentation without visual slides projected in the background? It is a must-have in every business presentation and that’s why you need to invest a little time in how they look.

Choose a professional-looking slide deck that matches the tone of your presentation. Go for colors that suit your brand’s or product’s colors, and avoid too many flashy colors. Also, try to pick a font and font size that aligns with your brand or organization.

Make sure that you select your presentation slide decks based on the content that you are dealing with, such as using professional or neutral slide decks for financial data or research topics and colorful slide decks for informal topics.

Step 3. Establish Your Credibility with a Story

Whenever you start a presentation, it is extremely crucial that you establish your credibility right up front, because people are more likely to listen to you if they are convinced about your authenticity.

No, this doesn’t mean that your drone on about your career highlights, instead you lead your business presentation with a compelling story. This could be anything about the background of your topic, an experience, a relatable story, an anecdote, or any other references that support your subject and make it more interesting.

Here is where you can also add a little humor to get a laugh out of them and put them at ease by setting a positive tone.

Doing so will help you engage with the audience, build a personal connection, and serve as a memorable foundation for your presentation.

Step 4. Support Your Claims

You may have established your credibility with a story or an anecdote, but if you really want to create an authentic image, then you need to back up all your claims during your presentation.

So do not hesitate to use supporting materials liberally. This means that you provide statistics and numbers, reference research, or offer proof supporting your claims. This will cement your credibility and authenticity.

Read more:  15 Best Presentation Blogs and Websites to Follow!

Step 5. Use Visual Elements Liberally

Business presentations can get boring if your slides just have texts, numbers, and tables. Not just that it makes it difficult for your audience to simultaneously read and listen to your presentation. That’s why you need to use visual elements like images, charts, graphics, GIFs, and more.

Adding powerful quotes, full-screen images, and videos will stick in the mind of your audience and will help maintain their attention throughout. Not to mention, it simply makes your presentation visually appealing!

Step 6. Add Animations to Your Presentation Slides

Obviously your format and content matter more, and if they are the cake, then adding a little animation or cinematic style to your slides is like the cherry on top. It simply makes your presentation a little more appealing!

Include fun animation, add smooth transitions, move around your slides horizontally or vertically, and let your content appear on the screen creatively. This will allow you to tell your story effortlessly.

Just try not to go overboard with the animation and make sure to strike a balance while maintaining consistency throughout.

Step 7. Be Prepared for Questions

No presentation is ever complete with a round of question-and-answer sessions towards the end, so it’s always best to be prepared for any difficult question that might be asked.

Your job is to anticipate all the possible questions or concerns that your audience might have and consider all the possible objections and arguments that might arise during a discussion, and prepare answers for them.

You can even get a colleague to listen to your presentation and have a practice session for this.

Step 8. Prepare Questions

It’s crucial to remember that sometimes your audience might not have any questions for you. This can obviously create an awkward moment for you when you open the floor to questions.

For that reason, it is important that you prepare your own set of questions in advance. Here, you can incorporate audience interaction by asking questions to your audience, quizzing them, asking them to vote, making them participate in simple activities, and more.

Doing this will help you avoid awkward pauses and silences while also creating an open environment of active participation and discussion.

Step 9. Wrap Up with a Closing Statement

Once all the questions have been asked and when all the discussions come to an end, you need to include a short closing statement for your presentation. Be sure to prepare a summarized statement that includes your main message, key points, and final call to action.

Follow these steps and you will have prepared a fantastic business presentation for your audience! But the fact is that no matter how good you are at public speaking, there is always room for improvement.

What you need are some simple tips to make your killer presentation even better . And for that, we have compiled for you a list that you can follow!

Scroll down to find out!

Tips for Creating An Awesome Business Presentation

Here are some simple tips that you must follow during your business presentation:

• Keep your presentation crisp and try not to include too many slides for your presentation.
• Avoid using too many colors and fonts. Instead, stick to a color palette and font that matches your attire and your brand image.
• Do not hesitate to seek the help of presentation tools and software
• Focus on your narration and story-telling style.
• Ask rhetorical questions to reinforce your key points and primary message.
• Prepare some business-appropriate jokes, one-liners, and puns to make your presentation fun and engaging.
• Dress in formal business attire and groom yourself to look appealing and presentable.
• Maintain a defining tone and style for your presentation – be it formal, casual, or humorous – and try to be consistent with it throughout.
• Be enthusiastic, and expressive, focus on your body language, and most importantly, maintain eye contact throughout.

With that, we can guarantee that you will put on one heck of a presentation and give your audience a memorable and enriching experience!

Our team at  bit.ai  has created a few awesome business templates to make your business processes more efficient. Make sure to check them out before you go, y our team might need them!

• SWOT Analysis Template
• Business Proposal Template
• Business Plan Template
• Competitor Research Template
• Project Proposal Template
• Company Fact Sheet
• Executive Summary Template
• Operational Plan Template
• Pitch Deck Template

Presentations are all about communication. So it doesn’t matter if it is your first presentation or your hundredth one, if you’re not able to communicate information in an engaging way, then you end up wasting your time and your listeners’ time.

Whether you are trying to sell something to an audience or simply sharing your vision with them, create a business presentation that will not only educate your listeners but also squeeze a laugh out of them.

We only hope that the steps and tips we have provided you will help you along the way in creating a killer business presentation for your audience!

Adios and Happy presenting!

Further reads: 

9 Most Successful Business Models You Should Know About! (With Examples)

10 Business Drivers to Grow Your Business!

Business Markets: Definition, 5 Types (with Examples) & Characteristics!

13 Types of Plans Your Business Must Have!

9 Best Presentation Ideas and Tips You Must Explore!

Brand Voice: What is it & How to Define it for your Business!

Company Profile: What is it & How to Create it?

Sponsorship Proposal: What is it & How to Create it?

3 Project Proposal Examples You Must Check Out!

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About Bit.ai

Bit.ai is the essential next-gen workplace and document collaboration platform. that helps teams share knowledge by connecting any type of digital content. With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, anyone can work visually and collaborate in real-time while creating internal notes, team projects, knowledge bases, client-facing content, and more.

The smartest online Google Docs and Word alternative, Bit.ai is used in over 100 countries by professionals everywhere, from IT teams creating internal documentation and knowledge bases, to sales and marketing teams sharing client materials and client portals.

👉👉Click Here to Check out Bit.ai.

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Home Blog Presentation Ideas The Power of Audience Engagement: Strategies and Examples

The Power of Audience Engagement: Strategies and Examples

Engaging your audience is vital to effective presentations, business interactions, and media communication. It’s a powerful tool that fosters connection, enhances knowledge retention, and drives action. Research conducted on audience engagement informs us that physiological factors like cardiac synchrony can be appreciated when the spectators feel a deep emotional connection to the event they are attending. 

This article explores the importance of audience engagement in presentations, offering practical strategies, rules, and tools to captivate your audience with real-life examples and methods to measure engagement. 

Table of Contents

What is Audience Engagement?

Strategies for audience engagement in presentations, rules of audience engagement, real-life examples of audience engagement, tools for boosting audience engagement in presentations.

We can define audience engagement as the degree of interaction and involvement of individuals in a particular activity or event. It’s not merely about having an audience but cultivating a dynamic relationship with them. This engagement is gauged by the level of attention, interest, and emotional connection an audience has towards the content they are consuming. 

Audience engagement is not a one-size-fits-all concept. It varies based on the nature of the audience, the platform used, and the goals of the engagement. However, at its core, it’s about creating a two-way communication that values the audience’s input and encourages them to interact, participate, and connect – a point of particular interest in motivational presentations. This engagement is beneficial and essential in today’s digital age, where attention is scarce . A high level of audience engagement signifies that your message resonates with your audience and that they are invested in your content or cause.

The Role of Audience Engagement in Business, Education, and Social Media

Audience engagement is pivotal in various sectors, including business, education, and social media. For business professionals, it translates as the cornerstone of customer relationship management. Engaging customers is not just about making sales; it’s about building relationships, cultivating loyalty, and creating brand advocates. Businesses prioritizing audience engagement tailoring their advertising efforts to attend to the customer’s driving factors , often enjoy increased customer retention rates and higher profits. 

Engaging the audience in business environments also involves high-level meetings between organizations and potential investors, as the closer the speaker connects with the audience, the better impact tools like a business pitch may have. 

Moving on to academics, educators strive to captivate their students’ attention, stimulate their curiosity, and encourage active participation in the learning process. Engaging students leads to improved comprehension , better retention of information, and a more enjoyable learning experience. It’s not just about imparting knowledge; it’s about inspiring a love for learning and nurturing critical thinking skills.

We can guarantee that audience engagement is the key to visibility and influence on social media platforms, as experience does tell. The algorithms of most social media platforms prioritize content with high engagement rates, making it more likely to appear in users’ feeds. Therefore, influencers, brands, and individuals wishing to maximize their reach must create content encouraging likes, comments, shares, and other forms of engagement. 

First Impressions and Relevance

The relevance of your content to your audience’s interests or needs determines their level of engagement. To achieve this, understand your audience’s demographics and preferences, then tailor your content to match these. This strategy not only grabs attention but also fosters a lasting connection.

Presenters should research techniques for how to start a presentation to ensure a great first impression with the audience. Our expertise tells us that over 60% of the success rate of the presentation is granted during that first introductory minute, so don’t neglect the first opportunity to connect with your attendees.

Utilizing Practical Information

To engage your audience effectively, provide practical, actionable information. This boosts your credibility and empowers your audience, making them more likely to interact and relate with your content. Remember, the more value you offer, the greater the engagement rate you’ll receive.

Applying Tools to Raise the Impact of Your Speech

To amplify your speech’s impact, leverage tools like visual aids, storytelling , and rhetorical devices. Visual aids such as infographics can simplify complex ideas , while storytelling can evoke emotions and make your message more memorable. Rhetorical devices like repetition can emphasize key points, ensuring they resonate with your audience.

The Power of a Familiar Environment

To enhance presentation performance, create a familiar environment. Use common language, relatable examples, and shared experiences to establish comfort. This strategy nourishes connection, encourages participation, and promotes audience engagement, thereby boosting the impact of your presentation.

Understanding Audience Needs

There are techniques you can apply prior to your presentation to ensure your content is tailored for the target audience. Conduct demographic research to understand their age, gender, occupation, and interests. Next, engage with them through surveys (via email if they signed up for the event online) or social media to grasp their desires and pain points. 

Analyzing their behavior, such as purchasing habits, can also provide valuable information. Consider their cultural and social context to understand their perspectives. Remember always to be open to feedback: this will not only show your audience that you value their opinion but also help you tailor your approach to meet their needs.

Maintaining Authenticity and Consistency

Presenters are often blamed for trying to emulate successful examples rather than using their own voices. First, be genuine. Authenticity resonates with audiences, making your message more compelling. Avoid pretense and remain true to your character, values, and beliefs. Second, maintain consistency. Your message should be coherent and consistent throughout. This includes your speech, visuals, and body language (and yes, this can be pretty evident in your interest in the topic you present). Inconsistencies can confuse your audience and weaken your message. 

Consistency also extends to your brand or personal image. Ensure that your presentation aligns with your established image. This will reinforce your credibility and build trust with your audience. Lastly, practice regularly to maintain a consistent pace and tone. This will help you avoid sudden changes in speech that can disrupt the flow of your presentation.

A compelling example of audience engagement in the IT sector is the transformation of Microsoft under the leadership of Satya Nadella . Before Nadella’s tenure, Microsoft was losing its grip on the market, with dwindling audience engagement. The company was perceived as outdated and unresponsive to customer needs. However, Nadella implemented strategies to reinvigorate the brand and boost audience engagement. He prioritized open communication, encouraging employees to listen to customer feedback and respond promptly. He also championed using social media platforms to interact with customers, providing quick solutions to their problems. This strategy increased audience engagement and improved the company’s reputation. 

The impact of these strategies was measured using social media traffic and lead generation results. Microsoft saw a significant increase in followers on their social media platforms, and the lead generation rate also improved. The positive customer feedback and the measurable results motivated the team to continue pursuing excellence. They realized that their efforts were not in vain and that they were making a difference in the company’s performance. This example reveals the power of audience engagement in transforming a brand’s performance. It also highlights the importance of measuring results to motivate the team and ensure the effectiveness of the strategies implemented.

PowerPoint Presentation Templates by SlideModel

SlideModel PowerPoint and Google Slides templates are a game-changer for presenters, offering a comprehensive solution to design dilemmas. These templates simplify the process of creating visually appealing presentations, allowing presenters to focus on delivering their message effectively. The beauty of these templates lies in their complete editability. Presenters can customize each element to suit their unique needs, ensuring their presentation aligns with their brand and message. Moreover, SlideModel offers a vast selection of templates designed to cater to various business tools. Below you can find some examples of what these templates can do for you.

1. 5W1H Framework PowerPoint Diagram

This framework counting with 5 why(s) and 1 how question is ideal to encourage team members to look for solutions as a group, as it requires a deep understanding of the causes behind a problem, plus an iterative technique of cause-and-effect analysis to reach for an answer.

Use This Template

2. Scale of 1 to 10 Graphic for PowerPoint

We can imagine meetings where we need to evaluate the conditions created after the impact of some of our choices. This scale of 1 to 10 PPT template helps teams to give a visible score and give the reasons behind their scoring to address the importance of certain topics. Ideal for in-team meetings where we have to determine the priorities for future work sessions.

3. Pros & Cons PowerPoint Template

Present the pros and cons of situations in a format filled with visual aids. By implementing the weighting scale metaphor, the audience can quickly understand why some decisions may have a bigger impact than others, or in case of products, why certain choices shape out the market performance of a product or service.

Whether you’re presenting a SWOT analysis , a business plan , or a marketing strategy , there’s a template tailored to your needs. This variety enables presenters to choose a design that resonates with their topic, enhancing audience engagement. In a nutshell, SlideModel’s PowerPoint and Google Slides templates are indispensable tools for presenters, allowing presenters to use powerful graphics without requiring knowledge of graphic design.

The Power of Storytelling

Storytelling is a potent tool for audience engagement. It captivates listeners, stimulates their imagination, and fosters an emotional connection. By weaving a compelling narrative, you can effectively convey your message and make it memorable. Stories resonate with people personally, making them more receptive to your ideas. They also encourage active participation, as audiences often see themselves in the narratives, leading to a deeper understanding of your message. Whether you’re presenting a business proposal or educating a class, harness the power of storytelling to captivate your audience and leave a lasting impression.

Open-ended Questions

Open-ended questions stimulate thought, spark conversation, and encourage active participation. Unlike closed-ended questions, which limit responses to specific options, open-ended questions invite a wide range of answers, allowing audiences to express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas freely. This fosters a deeper connection and provides valuable insights into your audience’s perspectives, needs, and preferences. Whether you deliver a business presentation, teach a class, or host a live social media session, incorporating open-ended questions can significantly enhance your audience engagement strategy.

Polls and Surveys

These tools provide a platform for your audience to express their opinions, cultivating a sense of involvement and importance. They also offer valuable insights into your audience’s preferences, enabling you to tailor your content to their interests. 

Real-time poll results can create a dynamic, interactive experience, keeping your audience engaged and eager for more. Remember, the key to successful audience engagement is making your audience feel heard and valued; polls and surveys are excellent tools.

Group Activities 

Group activities promote collaboration and stimulate critical thinking. You can facilitate in-depth discussions, problem-solving tasks, or brainstorming sessions by dividing your audience into smaller groups. This not only keeps your audience actively involved but also encourages them to share their ideas and perspectives. 

Furthermore, group activities can be designed to be entertaining, adding an element of enjoyment to the engagement process. Remember, an engaged audience is more likely to absorb and retain the information you present, making your event or presentation a resounding success.

Wrapping up, the power to captivate your audience lies in your hands. The techniques shared in this article are not just theories but practical strategies proven to boost audience engagement. From understanding your audience’s needs to maintaining authenticity, the impact of these strategies is undeniable. So, don’t just read and forget. Take action. Implement these strategies in your next presentation or event. Remember, the more engaged your audience, the more successful your message delivery. So, get started today and see the transformation in the lasting impact of your talk.

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Effective communication management is proven to be one of the most important skills and competencies of managers, managers and managers. Important content and messages are being distributed today via new digital channels, websites, social media or PowerPoint presentations. 

But not only the media and distribution channels have changed, nowadays all communication is moving much more closely together with fields of work such as marketing, sales or personnel. Ideally, communication and activities in all areas of the company can be coordinated and interlinked. We have therefore put together presentations for various communication topics to help you plan and implement your communication strategies.

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More From Forbes

The 10 Most In-Demand Skills In 2024

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In my book Future Skills: The 20 skills and competencies everyone needs to succeed in a digital world , I look at the skills everyone will need over the next 5-10 years. So, here, I want to look at the more immediate future. Businesses are moving toward skills-based recruitment and workforce development, driven by a need to unlock the transformative potential of new technologies.

This raises the critical question: if you're a jobseeker or an employer looking to ensure success in 2024, what are the skills you should be developing?

Anyone can see that we're clearly living through the early stages of the AI age. But the technology isn’t quite there yet to realize the utopian vision of a world without work . And most of us aren’t ready to surrender to being completely redundant just yet.

This means the skills that will be most in demand fall into one of two categories. They either involve enabling organizations to unlock the huge potential of frontier technology and tools. Alternatively, they are about maximizing the value of our human qualities and abilities that machines can’t hope to match.

In other words, some are technology skills, and some are "soft skills." But what they often have in common is that they allow us to leverage particular skills in a world where machines are becoming more capable by the day.

So, let's take a look at 10 skill sets that I think will be truly valuable for the next 12 months and probably far beyond.

Generative AI

Best high-yield savings accounts of september 2023, best 5% interest savings accounts of september 2023.

The advent of generative AIs like ChatGPT has been described as an “iPhone moment” for AI. Almost overnight, just about anyone can use it to create, automate and save time across their professional and everyday lives. However, qualities and abilities are needed to spot opportunities, develop efficient solutions, manage change, and address ethical implications. These will be among the most valuable and in-demand skills throughout 2024.

Sustainability Skills

Businesses are recognizing the grave importance of ensuring they’re operating in a way that’s sustainable and causes minimum impact on the environment. Net zero targets are increasingly seen as strategic business priorities, and a commitment to sustainability is often required by smaller businesses looking to partner or work with enterprises and government bodies. This means that skills around identifying and implementing green solutions are highly prized.

Project Management

Whether you are managing humans or machines, there’s a growing need for individuals with the skills to pull together people, technology and problem-solving skills. Taking high-level oversight, setting strategic objectives and prioritizing work and resources is still beyond the capabilities of business AI tools. Those working in these roles, though, have unprecedented opportunities to harness AI to assist in everything from prototyping to research, scheduling, testing and compliance.

Communication Skills

Effective communication is a crucial element of the business skill set. Now more than ever, there's a need for those who can identify messaging opportunities and bridge communication gaps across organizations. There will be more roles for those able to interpret insights of data analytics and communicate them in human language to whoever needs to take action. And as communicating with machines in natural language becomes the norm, organizations need humans with the ability to talk to them in the way that gets the best results.

Clinical Healthcare Skills

The world faces a shortage of healthcare professionals, and many tasks on the frontline of healthcare are a long way off being fully automated—if they ever can be.

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals are increasingly able to augment their skills with AI tools. But human qualities like emotional intelligence and empathy will always be critical to their roles. In developed economies, healthcare jobs are also often relatively well-paid—reflecting the specialist skills, qualities and experience needed to do the job well. Working in this field has always been seen as a way for hard-working individuals from any background to build a stable career with security and prospects, and this will still be true in 2024.

Data Skills

The AI revolution is built on data, and understanding how to transform it into value is becoming increasingly important to business success. To be ethical and trustworthy for important tasks like improving healthcare and furthering scientific research, AI also needs to be transparent and explainable. Data science skills are essential here to help us ensure machines use data we can trust to make decisions we can understand.

Interpersonal Networking

Those with the ability to make friends with the right people will always go far. Building a network of others who can help us achieve our aims as well as assist with our personal development is a critical skill. This means developing the ability to build bonds based on trust and common goals will be as valuable as ever in 2024, as technology opens up new opportunities for growth and innovation for those who are ready to act on them.

Cloud Computing Skills

Between 2022 and 2030, the global market for cloud computing is expected to grow from $570 billion to close to $2.5 trillion . This means there will be a growing demand for those with the technical skills to assist businesses large and small with their migration to the cloud. Professionals skilled in the tools and platforms of cloud computing will remain relevant and competitive throughout 2024 and beyond.

Machine Learning Engineering

Of course, powering the AI revolution means there will be a growing demand for humans with the technical skills to implement it. The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs 2023 report states that “AI and machine learning specialists top the list of fast-growing jobs.” In 2024, despite advancements in generative AI that mean even the technically unskilled can build AI apps, and in self-replicating AI that creates itself (AutoML being one example), human ML engineers will still be in high demand.

Cybersecurity Skills

Data breaches, cyber attacks and hacking attempts are all increasing in frequency and severity. So, too, are the penalties for businesses that fail to adequately protect their customers' data. Cybersecurity is an arms race, with ill-intentioned individuals, groups and even state-sponsored actors competing with security specialists to deploy faster, more powerful and more intelligent technology against its opposition. All these factors mean that skills around building security and resilience will be some of the most in demand in 2024.

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BUS-2261-04W (Fall 2023) Business Communications II In your new...

BUS-2261-04W (Fall 2023) Business Communications II

In your new role as the manager of your department, you have noticed your employees have poor writing skills. You have been tasked by management to hold a training program on effective business writing skills

Prepare a presentation with seven to ten (7-10) slides in a PowerPoint (or Prezi) presentation in which you:

• Include cover, agenda, conclusion, and reference list slides, all of which may count toward total slide count.
• Provide a 1-2 slide overview of business communication based on information found in your text and discussed throughout the class.
• Narrate the slides either using voice-over in the slide presentation or use another type of software where you can voice over your presentation.

Important Notes : (1) Total number of words in the bullet points is not more important than the quality of the information. (2) More detailed information should be included in the footnotes or through the use of voice over in the presentation. (3) Presentations must have a business-like professional look.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Text font size for headings and titles in the presentation must not exceed 36 pt. For all other text, the font ideally should not exceed 24 pt. Check with your professor for additional details.
• Presentation text must be properly aligned throughout the presentation and maintain the same line spacing and font size.
• Professional presentation templates will be used.
• If images found at websites or other sources are placed in the presentation, credit must be given to the sources with citations and references in APA format.

Answer & Explanation

"In this presentation, we're going to learn about effective business writing. We'll start by understanding why business communication is important and how it impacts our professional success. Then, we'll explore four crucial principles: clarity (making sure our message is clear), conciseness (saying more with fewer words), tone (using the right tone for our audience), and purpose (knowing why we're writing). We'll also discover common writing mistakes to avoid, like using too much jargon or having long, confusing sentences. To become better writers, we'll learn techniques such as planning, using active voice, and editing. Practical exercises, peer reviews, and workshops will help us practice. Plus, we'll find resources to keep improving. Finally, remember that learning is continuous, and we encourage questions and feedback."

Slide 1: Effective Business Writing Skills

• The opening slide for our presentation, "Effective Business Writing Skills," is the cover slide. The major objective of this presentation is to captivate the audience and communicate the key idea, which is enhancing business writing abilities. In keeping with the corporate environment of our talk, the slide has a neat and polished look.
• The topic of the presentation is introduced to the audience right away with the presentation title, "Effective Business Writing Skills," displayed prominently.
• Our journey into the realm of successful written communication in the corporate setting begins with the visually captivating cover slide, which also establishes the tone for the presentation.
• This slide doesn't have a lot of information on it, but it makes a good first impression and is sure to spark interest in the audience because of its visual presence.
• During the presentation, we will offer insightful analysis and useful recommendations for improving business writing abilities to promote career advancement.

Slide 2: Agenda

• Our goal in this presentation is to give you the tools you need to write business letters that are effective. We'll talk about the following: Let's start by discussing the importance of corporate communication in the workplace. It affects our ability to succeed professionally; it's not simply words. After that, we'll explore the fundamental ideas that guide successful writing. These guidelines include of intent, tone, clarity, and conciseness.
• We'll discuss typical writing errors that we should be aware of and steer clear of when communicating.
• Next, in order to improve as writers, we'll examine a variety of writing methods and approaches.
• We'll work on honing our writing skills through real-world writing activities to put theory into practise.
• We'll also go over some resources you may use to keep improving as a writer.
• We'll wrap off by summarising our main conclusions and inviting any further questions or discussions.

Slide 3: Overview of Business Communication

• Effective business communication is essential for success in the workplace; it goes beyond simple message delivery. It affects our capacity to accomplish our objectives and how other people see us.
• We'll concentrate on the four key elements of purposeful, clear, succinct, and business-oriented communication. These components function as the building blocks for messages that are impactful and clear.

Slide 4: Key Principles of Effective Writing

• The following guidelines are essential to effective writing: Maintaining clarity guarantees that our message is comprehended with ease. Any uncertainty or confusion should be avoided. Being succinct while delivering all pertinent information is what is meant by conciseness. It all comes down to using fewer words to communicate more.
• Tone describes the way we communicate. It must be suitable for our message's target audience and goal.
• Our communication is motivated by purpose. It is important to be specific about the goals we have for our writing.

Slide 5: Common Writing Mistakes

• It's critical to recognise and avoid frequent faults in order to enhance our writing: For some readers, our message may become unintelligible if we use excessive jargon or technical language. Extended and intricate sentences can be confusing and difficult to understand.
• We risk our message not being understood or reaching its intended goal if we don't pay attention to the demands of the reader.
• It may be challenging for the reader to understand our major ideas and steps if we have a disorganised and poorly structured text.

Slide 6: Writing Techniques and Strategies

• Effective writing requires the application of useful strategies: We can better arrange our ideas and craft a message by outlining our writing before we start. Our writing is clearer and more interesting when we use the active voice.
• Logical content organisation improves readability and clarity.
• Remember the value of editing and proofreading to identify mistakes and raise the standard of work.

Slide 7: Practical Writing Exercises

• Any skill, including writing, can be improved with practise: Writing assignments that follow scenarios will test your ability to apply what you've learned to actual circumstances. Peer review meetings provide an opportunity to receive helpful criticism and pick up knowledge from others.
• Workshops on interactive writing offer practical experience and expert coaching.

Slide 8: Resources for Continuous Improvement

• Developing your writing skills is a lifelong process. To learn more, check out books, webinars, and online courses on business writing. In order to assist with your continuous development and progress, our company provides internal training programmes.

Slide 9: Conclusion

• Let's review the main ideas from our presentation to conclude: Professional success requires effective business writing. Recall that practise makes perfect, and learning is an ongoing process.
• I'm available to answer any queries, provide input, or start a new conversation.

Slide 10: References

• The textbook and course materials are among our sources; they have given us important knowledge about corporate communication. To continue honing your abilities and expertise in business writing, you can also look at a multitude of other resources.  

The following are the APA-formatted references:

• Khan, S. (2019, January 24). Business Writing Tips for Professionals. American Management Association. Retrieved from https://www.amanet.org/articles/business-writing-tips-for-professionals/. Modified March 25, 2020.
• Insights Success. (2020). Importance of Writing Skills in Business. Retrieved from https://insightssuccess.com/importance-of-writing-skills-in-business/.

Please feel free to send clarification request if you require additional information.

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33 episodes

Welcome to the best community of international professionals who want to master corporate communication and accelerate career success. This podcast is meticulously crafted to guide you through the challenges you may face in the corporate world as a non-native speaker. Here, you will learn effective strategies to build your executive presence in order to excel in leadership positions, have impactful communication, and establish meaningful connections with clients and colleagues. Get your free guide to American Business Expressions here 👉 https://tanniasuarez.com/sign-up. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/businessenglishwithtannia/support

Business English with Tannia Suárez Tannia Suárez

• 4.7 • 3 Ratings
• OCT 23, 2023

Ep 33 Do You Speak English Too Fast?

In Part 1 of this episode, you will learn how to slow down and speak English clearly. In Part 2, you will learn pronunciation tips and how to use the expression "run with it." For 1:1 coaching with me, click here. To join my Advanced Pronunciation Accelerator Program, click here. CLIENT RESULTS “After investing in several pieces of training, books, private classes, I’m glad to have started sessions with Tannia because she could fix the primary issue that I could not see by myself.As a non-native English speaker, my goal has always been to have an American accent, but Tannia taught me that the better goal for a non-native English speaker is to focus on connecting with the audience and communicating clearly.” — Juliano F. | Brazil --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/businessenglishwithtannia/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/businessenglishwithtannia/support

• APR 17, 2023

Ep 32 Use These 10 Popular Business Expressions

Get the notes from this episode here. For more communication tips, business English and 1:1 coaching programs, go to TanniaSuarez.com. Learn more about the Advanced Pronunciation Masterclass Membership here. “I’ve been practicing my English with Tannia for about a year and she’s the best coach I’ve ever met. She’s always fun, enthusiastic and extremely supportive. It’s hard to put into words how much Tannia has done for my English journey and it definitely goes beyond just English.Beside our awesome and fun lessons, she taught me great techniques on how to be more relaxed while talking and how to keep the conversation going. I just recommend you to give it a shot and you will see that Tannia is the best! ” — Ilia N. | Russia --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/businessenglishwithtannia/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/businessenglishwithtannia/support

• APR 4, 2023

Ep 31 Communicate Directly and Diplomatically

Get the notes from this episode here. For more communication tips, business English and 1:1 coaching programs, go to TanniaSuarez.com. “I have no words to describe how much Tannia is a great guide for life and for my English Journey. I’m learning so many impressive professional techniques that are not only advancing my English level but also opening many doors to my career and future." — Eve P. | Italy --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/businessenglishwithtannia/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/businessenglishwithtannia/support

• MAR 28, 2023

Ep 30 Use Popular American Expressions

Get the notes for this episode here. For more communication tips, business English and 1:1 coaching programs, go to TanniaSuarez.com. “I have been learning English with Tannia for almost six months. She definitely has her own teaching style. She’s proficient, very flexible, and detail-oriented. She also pays attention a lot to your emotional condition during a class. And I never considered it before how important it is. Now, I’m sure it works really well. Any purpose you have in English, Tannia will definitely help you.” — Alex E. | Russia --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/businessenglishwithtannia/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/businessenglishwithtannia/support

• MAR 21, 2023

Ep 29 Deal with Difficult Colleagues Effectively

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• © Tannia Suárez

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May 4, 2021

by Clair Gray