It is extremely rare that a meeting at some point doesn't have at least one person standing in front of everyone - actually and metaphorically - to speak or run a presentation. Since it's inevitable, it's always good to be able to give good presentations rather than mediocre ones.
First, let's look at some simple tips from Lisa Braithwaite for improving presentations. The first is obvious enough, but as we all know, it has been overlooked before: take your medications. How many times have you been in a meeting with a runny nose… yours or someone else's? It's noisy, distracting, and sometimes disgusting. Take the allergy or cold medicine well in advance of the meeting so you can at least appear to be feeling fine.
The next tip is again an often overlooked gem: start on time. It's disrespectful to the on-time participants if you wait for the latecomers. It also encourages and rewards the tardy participants as well. Starting on time also makes you look - and be - efficient. Enough said.
Start strong and end strong is your next guideline. You want to wake up your participants and transfer your energy and excitement at the beginning, but you also want to end on a high note, sending them out all fired up. It's simple to do as long as you pay attention to what you're doing.
Bill Lampton's entire article give us the next tip: good speakers tell good stories. A story engages your audience and can whisk away their imaginations. It helps to break up the monotony of figures, numbers, and diagrams. A personal story will endear them to you, helping to make a connection. Being known as a Raconteur, or storyteller, will make people want to be invited to your next meeting and look forward to it in the meantime.
Lampton also gives us some guidance on using gestures to improve your presentations. While gestures are confined to physical, face-to-face meetings, or video conferences, like a smile, they can still be noticed by your participants through your voice and tone. One of the main points to remember is to never plan a gesture for a certain part of your presentation as almost all of the time it looks unnatural.
Another good tip is to only use gestures that are appropriate or natural for you. Just because it looks good on someone else, does not mean it will look good on you. Finally, don't forget about your facial gestures. Let your face muscles relax and mimic the tone of your message. If your face is off, your other gestures, and quite possibly your message will be ineffective as well.
A presentation is the one moment where all of your planning and practice comes together in a short period of time to convince another group of people to agree with you. It's rare to get a second shot at something like that, so any preparation you can do in the meantime is crucial.
Oh, and don't forget to smile!
