Developing the confidence and ability to deliver a professional and persuasive presentation is essential for success in today’s workplace.
It’s critical for a salesperson. The ability to clearly articulate benefits can make or break the deal. But it’s not just for salespeople. Project leaders, department heads and staff members are often required to give status reports and recommendations. Delivering information while achieving maximum impact is a skill that all business people need, yet many find difficult to master.
Focus your eyes on individual people in the audience
Most people don’t know where to look when giving a presentation. They rapidly move their eyes around the room and are distracted by faces, clothing, colors, shapes and all sorts of items on the floor or on the wall. As a result, they become over-stimulated, lose their train of thought, become nervous and start using non-words. Non-words are uh, and, so or and uh. These are all filler words. The presenter is stalling because he/she has lost a train of thought.
The solution is to look at and talk to one person at a time.
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- Make eye contact with one person and deliver one sentence or perhaps two short sentences to that person. While talking, focus only on that person, block out the rest of the room.
- When you complete your sentence, move your eyes and focus on another person. You want to keep working the entire audience, making contact and engaging the audience.
This approach provides many benefits. It keeps one’s mind focused. It reduces nervousness and it allows for two-way communications. As you are talking to individuals, you can observe their reactions. What are the facial expressions or body language telling you? Is the audience agreeing, disagreeing, questioning or has it lost interest? This is extremely helpful information and it allows you to modify your talk to reconnect with the audience.
Pause between sentences
Some presenters talk in compound sentences. Every one of their sentences is connected to the next sentence with a connector such as for, and, yet, so, or uh. Compound sentences are difficult for an audience to understand, so it frequently loses interest in the presentation. In addition, a presentation filled with “uhh” does not make the presenter appear very professional. In place of the connector words or the non-word, close each sentence with a period. Then insert a pause. When moving your eyes from one person to another, you should have a short one- or two-second pause.
The pause creates many advantages. The pause:
- Gives the presenter time to think of his/her next sentence
- Allows the audience to assimilate the information
- Increases the audience’s attention. It eliminates the non-words
- Makes the presenter look more confident and professional
Continue Building on Your Skills
We have touched on only two tips. There are many other tips and techniques that are useful in improving one’s ability to give effective presentations. Some other techniques involve understanding the audience’s needs and concerns, organizing and developing the presentation to meet the audience’s need, developing effective visual aids, projecting confidence through one’s voice and body language, and holding the audience’s attention.
However, the two tips discussed here are the foundation skills for effective presentations. Mastering them will allow for amazing improvement in your ability to make a professional and effective presentation.
Jim Cross is the founder and managing partner of the CrossGroup. He has been involved in training and business administration for 25 years. The CrossGroup serves clients using customized training solutions and management consultations, including employee hiring systems. Contact him at jim.cross@crossgroupinc.com