How To Give An Effective Presentation Skills: Fill & Download for Free

Before the preparationWho: Understand the target. What does an average person sitting in the auditorium look like? Feel them, imagine them, draw them. What level of competency do they have in the subject you are going to present? Tailor the content to your audience. Never try to go over their heads or beneath their feet. Once you start visualizing the audience and get them into their heads, you can make an emotional bond with them.Why: Understand your motive. Why are you presenting? What are you planning to achieve after the presentation? Is it to attract investors? Is it to convince a scientific audience about the validity of your work? The presentation is just the marketing of your content and cannot be a replacement for your main content (a detailed deck & metrics in case of fund raising & a paper in case of a research presentation). The presentation is one of the weapons that should lead you to that strategic objective.What: Understand the context. What is the broad context of your presentation. Is it a part of a demo day? Is it part of an academic conference? Is it a company meeting? Is it a fund raising event for a charity? Is it a product demo? The context should drive your content and intent.Understand the Bikini rule of life - Reveal enough and conceal enough to spark interest. Most of us have the temptation to dump all the stuff we got into the poor little Powerpoint. That leads to intimidation and confusion. The goal of the presentation should be to spark that interest in your work so that your target comes towards you. In essence it is a conversation starter by gaining their attention.The Marketing MindsetWhen you are presenting, you are actually marketing [to eventually lead to a "sale" - of whatever you are attempting]. Get into that mindset. You can never sell someone an important idea through a single shot. You need go through a series of stages in the process of them buying your idea. First get them to be aware of your product, generate an interest and eventually lead them to process that leads them to "purchase". Your presentation should do the first two stages below.Preparing for your presentationThe powerpoint deck is not a handout. Don't be that guy handing out irrelevant printouts of your powerpoint. Prepare a document handout prepared through a document creator like MS Word or InDesign.The powerpoint deck should not be a readable one. Certainly not a printable one. [If they are reading, they are not listening to you]. It should be to connect. To get your audience to be interested in you. No more than 7-10 words. Once the audience like your idea, they should have the handout to read more and then come to you for a much detailed walk through.Prepare a script. Powerpoint deck is not your cheatsheet to read from. Don't rest on that. Have a strong script and use the projection to complement what you say. When you have finished rehearsing, rehearse hard. Whenever I present without rehearsing, the result shows immediately in the audience [boredom].Get to the empty stage. Before an important presentation, get to the stage when the whole place is empty. Pace the stage and let the physical world consume you. Feel at home and let the environment absorb you.Do a dry run. During one of my recent presentations, I didn't do a tech dry run. Not surprisingly the tech melted down and there was precious minutes lost. Make sure the technology doesn't fail you.Be very comfortable with the clothes you are going to wear. You should feel those clothes are an extension of your body. I have a favorite suit I bought 7 years ago and I don't wear any of my other suits for the most important presentations. I take it ceremonially and feel like a knight in his armor. That suit provides the cloak of invincibility. Once I'm in, I feel all the good omens from the past presentations come in and push me and give the confidence.When I'm in my favorite suit, I feel I can convince anyone in the world.During the presentationHave a good look at the audience and your preparation should have made you feel very close to that target. After you get to the stage and have setup your mike, don't start talking immediately. Pause a couple of seconds taking a good strong look with a strong smile [you can see that great leaders always do that before they start their speech]. That is when you are conveying you can be trusted. That brief 2-3 seconds can be very crucial.Disarm and charm the audience with mild self-deprecation. Get your first joke on yourself. Let the audience laugh. While I was once presenting to a group of rich southerners in Nashville, I made fun of my accent. The audience were smiling the whole time as I turned by weakness into an advantage [they were more attentive due to my accent, after that point].I opened with this slide on 2 different occassions [both very important] and on both occassions, the audience burst out laughing & remembered the presentation. A designer friend crafted this deck for me.Don't turn your back on the audience and look to move a bit. A body language expert once coached on the right way to move & make the audience trust. Coming forward conveys trust. So, when you are conveying your big idea or getting to the ask, move a few inches forward. That little movement forward can send a lot of subtle cues. Going back can send messages of dishonesty. Thus, avoid moving back [unless you are taking a joke on you] and always make a small movement forward - and make that movement so subtle that the audience doesn't even know you are walking towards them. Also avoid showing the back of your hand or the back of the body - those all increases distrust.Master your pauses. This is the hardest thing to do for non-professionals. Masters of drama know when to pause to give that impact. After your big idea got to the screen, wait a second or two to give that dramatic effect. Let the audience absorb the drama.Keep your basics correct - making eye contact with a chunk of the audience, changing your tones a bit.As a parting note, give the presentation its due importance. Give the audience their due respect. A presentation can change your whole life. Thus, take it seriously and do the homework.

If you have some spare time before starting the PGP course at a B-school, you could utilize that to pep up your resume and acquire some useful skills for the course.#1: Making an effective presentation: You are going to be doing this a lot. And I actually mean a lot. Like literally everyday.So know your way around MS Powerpoint, Prezi and other similar software. Know how to make a business presentation - the structure, which fonts to use and which ones to not, how to make the most impact, and other DOs and DONTs.Read: 10 Tips for More Effective PowerPoint Presentations#2: Managing, scheduling and prioritizing activities: Unless you are a vampire that does not need sleep, you will be short of time for the next 2 years. Know how to optimize what time you have.#3: Email management: Use filters, labels, priority inbox, archive etc to maintain a clean mailbox that is not an eyesore and only highlights the really important stuff. When you get hundreds of mails each day, its very likely that you miss out on something critical. Don't let that happen.Read:How To Filter Your Gmail Like a ProGmail Guide: Mail Filters and the Star System#4: Networking: How to make a good first impression, asking the right questions, making an 'elevator pitch', keeping in touch.#5: Some basic technical skills like MS Excel, VBA, Data Visualization, Statistical Analysis: Will come in handy in most of the courses.#6: Soft skills: Try and become a better orator. Start practicing speeches. Know how to control you intonation, when to take pauses for dramatic effect, how to break the ice with a humorous anecdote etc.Develop leadership skills. Join an NGO and take up the responsibility for a decently sized team task.You could also take up some beginner/intermediate courses on various MOOC sites to lay down a sturdy foundation in that particular subject and give yourself a head-start.1. Business and management (mostly beginner courses)Basics of supply chain management (SCM)Basics of MarketingBasics of OperationsBasics of digital marketing2. Economics and financeFinancial markets: A must take. The course is being taught by the renowned Nobel-laureate and Yale Prof, Robert Shiller and will cover a lot of concepts of Financial markets and their machinations. Apart from the basics, it will also cover certain aspects of behavioral finance and financial crises and the role of regulations.Microeconomics: Will cover the basics of Microeconomics from supply-demand, market efficiency, types of competitions, market power and public goods and externalities.Introduction to finance: Basics - time value of money and valuations3. Statistics and data analysisRegression models: The course looks at the various regression models and special cases like ANOVA. All of which is taught in the 1st year.In this course students will learn how to fit regression models, how to interpret coefficients, how to investigate residuals and variability. Students will further learn special cases of regression models including use of dummy variables and multivariable adjustment. Extensions to generalized linear models, especially considering Poisson and logistic regression will be reviewed.Data analysis and statistical inference: Estimation, confidence intervals, decision making based on data analysis etc.Data visualization: Will be helpful both during and after the MBA. How to present the data in the most impactful manner, use software to make complex designs etc.Other useful courses:Social EntrepreneurshipIntroduction to Probability

Yes, quite easily, as long as you know what you are talking about. I teach classes on effective presentations four or five times a year. As with any presentation, you have to decide what your story is about. What is it you want to say about “how to give presentations”? Do you want to talk about the process of development? Do you want to talk about best practices? Do you want to talk about delivery skills? Do you want to talk about using PowerPoint properly? Do you want to talk about audience engagement? “How to give presentations” is a rather large topic. You will either have to stay very high level or you will need to pick an aspect.For example, just on the process of constructing a presentation, I teach a one hour lesson on “Message, Story, and Structure”, a one hour lesson on “Text, Color, and Templates”, and a one hour lesson on “Images, Graphs, and Animation”.The more specific you make your focus, the easier it will be.