A Good Presentation

A good presentation, and I am sure that we have all seen them, a good presentation is clear, simple and to the point, and includes the information that needs to be passed on to your audience. A good presentation will be focused on the audience, and it will be delivered in language that they will understand and be able to relate to. So when you are thinking about your elevator pitch, when you are thinking about any presentation, focus on your audience, who they are, what do they need to hear from you, what is going to help them to feel comfortable with you as a facilitator.

So considering some of those areas of your aims and objectives is an important part of designing your presentation that you are going to be delivering at the start of your facilitated session. Looking at your audience. There is nothing worse than having a presenter who is simply looking down at their notes. Making eye contact with as many areas of your audience as you possibly can. Remembering to take a breath is going to help you deliver a good presentation, and in a moment, we will give you some tips on dealing with those nerves.

The first part of your session is going to be the most nerve-wracking because it is the first time you have spoken to the group. So a good presenter will just take a moment, just to have a little look around their audience and say to themselves, "Yep, it is okay, I am going to be all right in this room with these individuals." So prepare, prepare, rehearse, rehearse is a really good tip for you to be able to make an effective presentation.

Some final tips for you to think about when you are making a presentation around managing those nerves, you will be nervous, and nerves are actually a good thing, they give you some energy. So how can you use those nerves? And one way to use those nerves is to use something called positive outcome thinking. So looking into the future and rather than saying to yourself, "Oh my goodness me, it is going to go horribly wrong. I am going to fall off the stage. I am going to knock over the flip chart." Whatever it is you are concerned about, have the conversation with yourself that says, "What will this look like if this goes well?"

That will help you to actually get into a physiological state, which is a much more positive state, and it will help you to be able to breathe much more effectively. It is a strange thing to think about learning how to breathe. When you are nervous, you tend to breathe at the top of your chest or your breath gets caught up at the top. When you are breathing well, you will breathe from your diaphragm. So you can watch some YouTube videos about breathing. You can watch some YouTube videos that singers will help you to learn diaphragmatic breathing. But fundamentally, when you are breathing properly, your stomach will be rising. You would not be holding yourself in. So taking a nice deep breath is a really good thing to do before you go into a presentation.

Remaining hydrated is also important. So drink some water. Do not be tempted to drink loads of coffee, do not be tempted to have a little tipple the night before if you are really nervous because those things will dehydrate you. So what you are aiming to do here is to relax, but have some energy behind your presentation. And the final tip is another little acronym that we are going to offer you and some of you will have heard it before, which is keep it short and simple. Sometimes you will hear that as keep it simple stupid, but none of you are stupid, so let us stick with keep it short and simple.