Transcripts
1. Welcome On Board- Introduction: Welcome to another,
another course. Note this course as a premium course that will
surely transform your journey. Whether you are a
professional student, someone who has a
presentation coming up, and they need to prepare
for that presentation with the best presentation
skills which are essential for your success in this
course is definitely for you. This course we're going
to be learning about key presentation skills that any successful
professional in the field, irrespective of the field, should be familiar with
whether you are a student, whether you are a
professional with a career, you are a sales rep or someone
pitching for your project. This course will
definitely equip you with core presentation
skills drawn from the modern world
that will surely add value to your career
growth and progression. So what are you waiting
for joining the course? And we'll see you in the class.
2. Objectives: Our objectives for the following
course are as follows. Now, the course is broken down
to three different phases. Phase number one, which
is the planning phase, phase number two, which
is the delivery phase. And phase number three, which is the fine tuning
or the feedback phase. In every single phase we are going to learn the key steps. And the key is central skills
in order to make sure that we are preparing for a
successful presentation. For phase number one, where we're going to deal
with the planning stage. Phase number two,
we're going to be dealing with the delivery stage. And phase number three, we're going to be
taking a look at the feedback stage and
the fine tuning stage, where every single thing, it has essential skills and unnecessary things that
you should take into account in order to make sure that your presentation
goes well. And in order to ensure the
success of the presentation, this mainly covers the flow of the course from
point a to point Z, where we're expecting a point a, you have, you have no idea
about the required skills. And you should be at point z. And towards the
end of the course, you should possess
the necessary skills and the mindset and the
awareness about what you should do and how to go about creating
and making successful, efficient, and
effective presentation. Whether we're taking a look at a business presentation,
corporate presentation, formal. You're presenting for a client, you're presenting at a
lecture, irrespectively, the skills that
you're going to be learning within the course are going to be very helpful. Whatever circumstance
during the walk of life, whether at educational level
or at a professional level, these skills are
necessary and every single professional out
there should possess a, learn these skills in order to climb the ladder and succeed and go from 1 in your career to
another point in your career. So make sure that you
focus on the course. You take some notes
and feel free to leave some questions in
case you do have doubts that you need to clarify. This mainly covers
our trajectory for the current course with a briefing on the
objectives that we're going to be covering during
the duration of the course.
3. Your Project: Your project for the
current course would be to actually apply what
you have learned, the skills acquired as
you go about vCores to a small sample group
of colleagues, friends, your choice, pick
three to four members and present a specific topic of your choosing to
that target audience. And apply what you are going to learn during the
duration of the course. And once you are done, feel free to share your
presentation with the rest of the community members
in order to get some direct feedback and to
enhance the learning process.
4. Why Presentation Skills are Important: We're going to start off with the importance of a
presentation skills and why do they matter? Why would it be an
essential skill specially nowadays in
today's modern world, to be familiar with
how to present. What are the key
steps that you should take in order to
present successfully? Are there some sort off or is
there a blueprint that you should apply that will help you ensure the success of
your presentation. The first segment,
we're going to just simply to go through the importance of
presentation skills and why do they matter? I started off with
the simplest reason which is conveying a message. If you want to convey a message properly for whatever
reason it fits. Think about it this way.
You do have a group of friends and you're
planning a trip, or you're planning a project. And you want to win them over. You want to pass the
information to them such that they are
able to understand it. They're able to receive
the information in the same way that you have intended to provide it
in the first place. Because you don't
want to explain something in one direction, then it wouldn't be understood in a completely
different direction. Why? Because that would be a waste of time and a waste of effort. In order to avoid this, you need to have key presentation skills that will ensure that
whatever you are thinking could be conveyed in a proper fashion that reflects exactly the true nature of the idea that
you want to pass. So this is a key important
thing because presentation is learning every single
part in your life. Whatever way, whatever
walk of life you should be familiar with
presentation, how to present, what you need to do
in order to present, in order to make sure that
you convey your message, clearly, avoiding any
misinterpretation. So this is key point number one, which is conveying
a message properly. Now, transitioning to
key point number two, why presentation
skills do matter? Career growth, simply put, if you want to grow within your job from a graduate level, the junior level,
lead a senior role. And manager as Senior
Manager of VP, as CEO, CFO, CTO
are respectively. For that growth to happen. At 1 in time. Your presentation skills
are going to be tested. Why? Because if you are a manager, you are going to be responsible
for leading a team. And in order to make sure that you're leading the
team properly, you should be able to
communicate properly. And for any project, as a project manager with lots of years of
experience in the field. Let me tell you something. Once you step into
the meeting room, you have a lot of expectations, especially from you in terms of delivering the core idea of the project and the main goals from the project to your team. And if you fail to do so, then this is a bottleneck
which will get in the way of your overall
growth as a professional. In order to progress, in order to grow, in order to have a
trajectory that leads to growth of positions, promotions, you should fine-tune and enhance your
presentation skills. Because let me tell you
something based on experience. Sometimes someone who's
very technically sound, Let's say you are an engineer or you are a web
developer or a code or whatever position that
requires technical knowledge, you could be very
tactically sound. However, you are poor with them. The communication aspect. You're afraid of
public speaking. You are afraid of presenting to the public that will
get in the way of your progression
compared to someone who literally has no
technical background. But they are able to stand
in front of the crowd and present as if they know
what they're talking about. Now you might be wondering, what does the word as if literally many people
they do present. And we have that conviction. The pass on their message. And you are going to
absorb the presentation, enjoyed the
presentation compared to someone who was literally, technically correct,
but is not able to communicate compared
to the other person. So it goes back to point
number one as well, conveying your message.
At the same time. You want to develop
those skills, presentation skills to
make sure that you are able to grow within your career. And to have a career that
doesn't have any obstacles. And take it from someone who has taken managerial position. And as a CEO, let me tell you something. Whether you are going to
be presenting to your team or you are going to watch
your team present for you. At whatever part of the
equation presentation is core and essential for any part of your
career progression. That's very important. You can just simply say, Okay, I'll become technically
professional. I'll develop my skills as
per the job description. And then when it comes
to presentation, you have no idea what to do. Or you don't really care about public speaking or presenting to a crowd or two team members. That would be critical. So you have to
develop that part as well onto the final part, which is now, i've, I've written down
three different points like clearly this
pointer is just simply the main thing that comes to mind for the importance
of presentation skills. But definitely there are more. And you can add up to this
list at this perfectly okay. Now, the third would be no sales are made
without a presentation. That's for sure. Whatever product, whatever
service, whatever. Have you watched the series, let's say the Shark
Tank, for example. What are they doing? They are
pitching for the product. They are pitching
for their company, they are pitching
for their service. What are they doing in the
process they are presenting? So if you are going
to make a sale, if you are trying to
market for a product, you need to have the proper skills when
it comes to presenting. To make sure that your
presentation stands out, your service stands out, even your product stands out. So in order to do so, you need to find you in your presentation skills because without proper presentation, no one is going to be exploring the other
end of the spectrum. It all starts with
a presentation. It starts with the face that you provide
to your customer, your service, the company that you're going to
be presenting to, the product that
you're talking about, then the potential
customer is willing to explore the other parts
of your sales process. If you fail at the
presentation stage, you are not going to make
say definitely you want. And you'll notice many of the successful salesman,
marketing professionals, entrepreneurs, most of them, ninety-nine percent of them, they are somehow good
at presentation. And if they are not, they are going to be
learning about it. They will be taking
courses about it. They will have a coach that will actually be called as a public speaking coach
or a media coach. That will walk them through the acquired presentation
skills in order to make sure they are stepping up their game and presenting
the face of the product. They're presenting the
face of the company to its truest value to ensure that they have a proper
customer experience. The customers actually
seeing the quality and the value of such a product,
company or service. So these are the
key main points. And if there are not
enough, definitely the art, these presentation,
let's say categories. They are necessarily
at any walk of life. If you want to learn about or you want to
develop an annual, these categories that we have talked about conveying
your message, growth within your career. I'm making a sale, marketing
than presentation skills, they are definitely essential and necessary for your growth. Now, I wanted to dedicate
this section, but of course, just to emphasize the importance
of presentation skills, I see you and we just
simply something that you just simply
do and that's it. It is important. The same way you are
preparing for an interview. You want to fine tune
your interview skills. You should definitely
find you and your presentation skills because it will take you to places. Now, this mainly wraps it up for the current
segment in the course. In the upcoming
segments of the course, we're going to break down the objectives at the same time, the various phases which are going to be covered
within the course.
5. Understand The Audience: So phase number one, this is the first
segment of the course which is broken down to
three different phases. In phase number one, we're going to be talking
about the preparation before you actually get into
the presentation day. Now, within the first phase, you have to understand
the following. Now in front of us, we have the audience. This is a fundamental step. This is a fundamental task for the success of
your presentation. If you are able to
understand the audience, you're able to understand
who are you talking to? Who is the person
in front of you? Do not think of the crowd
as a batch of people. Think about it this way. You are talking to
a single person. What does this person expecting
from your presentation? What are they here for? What are they
expecting to learn, know, or become educated about
through your presentation? You have to assume that person
is completely clueless. When I say clueless, do not assume that the person is coming into the
presentation and they have an idea what you're
going to be talking about and base your
presentation on this. And I've seen this happen
in multiple times. Someone would come
into the presentation. They are going to be
presenting to people. And they start throwing
information at the audience, assuming that the audience have any idea what
they're talking about. So you have to assume
they are clueless. And it's your responsibility to just simply walk them through. You're going to be walking them through from 1 to the other. Now this is very important. If you have someone
in front of you, they are completely clueless about the nature of
the presentation. They are completely
clueless about the subject. It is your sole responsibility as a professional to
make sure that the walk, the presentation hall
or the meeting room, and they are very well-informed
about your presentation, the content of the presentation, the subject, and with details that they have acquired
through your presentation. Do not assume they have an idea. Do not assume they're
familiar with the subject. Do not assume that they're
going to interact. And most importantly, as you
can see on the final point, do not expect support. This is very important. Once you walk into
the presentation, assume that you are
going to be sitting with someone and that someone
you want to talk to, they are not going
to be supportive or not with you
on the same page. And you have to win them over
through your presentation. Now this is very,
very, very important. You have to keep this
in mind when you are dealing with a professional. Specifically, if you are
a sales representative, Let's say you are talking about pumps and you are going to be presenting your product to an engineering company and you walk into the meeting room, do not expect for a second that you are going
to be welcomed. You are going to be supported
during the presentation. On the contrary, many people, especially if you're
dealing with clients, they are going to try to tear you apart within
the presentation. How, by asking questions
related to the product. Especially if they are
technically sound, there will be testing
your knowledge, they will be testing
your information. There will be
testing the basis of your presentation
from the get-go. So you have to be well-prepared. You need to understand
the audience. This is the first part. This is a crucial part
for the first stage. Think about the audience. Who would it be? What is their knowledge level? What is their current position? What is the, let's say location? How does such an audience normally behave when it
comes to presentation? Now you don't have to
answer all these questions. At least tried to figure
out the key basic point. Who is the person or the group of people you're
going to present them. And how do you expect
their behavior would be or what is their knowledge
level of the subject? Based on that, assume they
are completely clueless. And it's up to you
to educate and inform such a person
or a group of people about the content and
the requirements of your presentations such that once the leave their
presentation hall, they are very well-informed. So the first step in the preparation phase
is as in front of us, we have, which is
the understanding of the audience mixture
that you sit down. Analyze your audience. It shouldn't be taking log given like five to ten minutes tops. Yes. Is that important but
it's that simple. Don't overthink it,
don't overdo it. Don't make it complicated. We're not aiming for
perfectionism error, just simply trying to
prepare ourselves for the presentation
based on sound steps. So step number one
would be understanding your audience as
per the key points that we have covered so far.
6. Research and More Research: Research, research, and
research some more. In order to make sure that your presentation is a success, you have to be clearly comfortable with the subject
that you're talking about. You should possess the
required information that would quantify you to actually stand in
front of the crowd and talk about such a topic. Now, you don't have to
be an expert to do so, but you should acquire the necessary knowledge
before actually stepping up and presenting to a crowd or to your colleagues
or your team members. When you are dealing
with the subject. First of all, put yourself in the position
of the audience, like what we have
covered so far. What would they want to learn
or know about this subject? Write down the
essential question that you're trying
to cover with them. The current presentation
mixture that you have acquired, all of the necessary knowledge
for such a presentation. Technically, learn
about the terms. Learn about the processes, let's say the procedures
that technicality get, which are beyond the norm, you should appear as someone who has more knowledge
than the audience. Otherwise, what's the point of them attending
your presentation? You should be presenting
in such a way that the audience is actually
learning something or acquiring something from you, or getting some value. Maybe the normal
you're talking about. But they shouldn't
be walking out of the presentation the same way they have walked
into the presentation. Their knowledge
level should go up. And it's your job to do the
sufficient research and preparation in
order to make sure that you are delivering. As per the expectations
of the research. How do you prepare
for the subject? You can start off by Googling the entire subject as a whole and acquire
some information, gets some books, ask
your colleagues, get some feedback from
acquaintances, work. What are they looking
forward to learn about such a subject or any key problems that they have faced with such a subject. Or what are the key
points that they would suggest for you
about in the presentation? And there's nothing
wrong with that. That's perfectly okay. Tried to acquire as
much information as you can in order to make sure that you have something to base
your presentation on. And this is what
you're trying to do. You are trying to base your presentation
on a solid ground. And the solid
grounds starts with proper research on this subject. Now, let me give
you some key points to keep in mind
when you're trying to research the subject. First of all, try to start off roughly
with your own knowledge. What do you know
about the subject? List? All of these points,
not build on that. Tried to Google and get
some books, articles. And the easiest way literally
would go to simply go on Google and try to find
all of this information. Relate it to what you know. Does your knowledge cover
all of these graphs? If not, you're going to add what you have learned
through presentation. That way, you have
reinforced what you know, you have reinforced,
what are you familiar with with
additional information? The second step would
be to take it further, add information which are
not clearly obvious to many. Such that if someone
would just simply type in the That's the
subject on Google, they would find while
you were talking about, but at the same time, they wouldn't find everything
that you're talking about. This is where research comes in, where you collect
information from multiple sources and
you are able to provide as much information as possible related to a specific subject. Research, research, and
do some more research. You started with
understanding the audience. Now you're tackling the subject. Do not expect to walk
into the presentation. I just simply wing it and
try to go with the flow. This is a catastrophe. It's a recipe for failure. Well, if you're a veteran
presenter and you have been presenting for years
on a specific subject. You would memorize
the subject by heart. Now that's a complete
different story. But starting from ground
0 from the first step, walking into a
presentation unexpected, just simply talk
about the subject as if you know what
you're talking about. You could set up
yourself for failure. Keeping in mind, not everything
is planned with them. The presentation as
we are going to be seeing during the
duration of the course. It's not like as if
it's a blueprint, someone would walk into the presentation room
and they go from a to Z. As expected. A presentation is like a
mini life version where you are trying to do
while you plan to do, but things might happen
along the way and in order to minimize the
impact you need to prepare. So start off by learning
about the audience. And as we have covered
in the second, you are going to do
some research on the subject and collect
as many information, as many sources of
information as possible.
7. Planning Out the Delivery: Now, in this current
segment of the course, we are going to be tackling the delivery plan,
your delivery. What are you going to
use in order to pass on the information that you have acquired in the previous stage, you have conducted the research. You have acquired
knowledge from books, articles, people, online
research, offline research. Now, at this current point, we are going to
plan the delivery. What are we going
to use in order to deliver the information
that we have covered? We do have images. What kind of images are going
to be using in order to add value to the
presentation slides. What are you going to use to help you prepare your slides? Are you going to
showcase at paper which is highly recommended, you can use powerpoints, Google Slides, whatever format, whatever visuals that you have, which fall within the
category of slides, feel free to use them. How are you going
to add some video? Now, I would recommend
this for a short duration, maybe at the beginning of the presentation or halfway
through the presentation, just simply to give your
presentations some sort of afloat to avoid stagnation
during their presentation. I'm sure you have walked
into multiple presentations. I've seen people present, even at school level,
at university level, you would see them just
simply walk up the stage and just simply talk about or just
read from a set of slides. And just literally read whatever is on the slides and pass
it on to the audience. And the audience would wonder, what am I doing here? Because I can just
simply pick up those slides and read
them by myself and get the same quality
of information without the entire time waste. I've gone through such
a presentation, right? All of us we've been there,
all of us, we've seen it. There's nothing new about it, but you want to make sure that your presentation does not
fall in the same category. You want to make sure
that your presentation actually stands out. Your presentation. Nothing is better than
walking out of presentation. And you actually remember what has covered in
the presentation. Or you have a
memorable experience that you can recap from
such a presentation. Whether how they're
presented, presented, how the audience interacted, or a key part of that
presentation that drew your attention and
developed your knowledge base. These are the criteria for a successful presentation that you would like to be with it. So in order to plan a delivery, start off by
selecting the medium. If you want to go
for the slides, what kind of slides
are going to be using? A mixture that the
slides they cover. Bullet points. Do not put paragraphs, do not put all of the information that we have
acquired on the slides. On the contrary, less is more when it comes
to using the slides. Maximum go for four
to five bullet points per slide with a heading, a clear title, a couple of images from the
image that you have selected, and the rest is on you. You are going to be presenting the information that you have acquired in the
research stage verbally. In addition to what is displayed
visually on the slides. Do not read from the slides. Do not keep looking
at the slides. You can just simply glance at the slides if you
forgot something, but make sure that in the research and
the preparation phase, you have developed
a solid information that would definitely
prepare you to provide information in case you forgot something
during the presentation. So start off with
preparing your slides. Then add some images, incorporate a video
or two videos tops, that duration should be
maximum by one-to-two minutes. You don't want to spend the
entire presentation watching a video that they could
just simply watch without being in the
presentation with you. By adding all of these
elements together, they would provide a great supplement to
your presentation. Properly designed
slides, quality images, spot on videos, all of them related to the subject
that you're talking about. They would definitely provide some value to your presentation. So make sure when
you are planning the delivery do not
solely count on yourself. Visuals, they play
an important role in the presentation
for two reasons. Mainly first of all, they reflect preparation
that you have prepared well, nothing is worse than having a professional walk into the presentation and
get a flash drive. But the flash drive
and the PC and just simply have random slides, PowerPoint slides
made last minute. The fonts do not align, the color scheme doesn't match. The images are poor quality. What does that reflect? Lack of preparation,
last-minute preparation, which affects your
authenticity as a presenter, or your seriousness
as a presenter, or your credibility
as a presenter, because you don't really care
much to prepare beforehand. These details when it
comes to presentation, they play a role and
the best example, even though it might
seem off topic, it's like walking
into a restaurant. When you order a
dish off the menu. The menu is well-presented
with quality information, premium pictures of
the product that most of the time does not
look like the real product. But it was provided in a way that provided value to you,
which reflective quality. And this is what
you aim for within a presentation that
you should be taking seriously by your audience
such that they're willing to sit down and watch and listen to where you're
going to be talking about. So plan the delivery. Build your slides,
get bullet points from the research
you have acquired covering the main subjects. One, line, two line
stops per bullet point, and the rest of the message
Conveying should be done by yourself verbally at some
images and wanted to videos, I would recommend you
can start off from the beginning of
the presentation by adding one to two minutes video, which would provide, let's say, an intrigue for the audience. In order to learn more. It just sums should be something to provoke their thinking. Now as an educator, this is what we usually
do with students. You will provide a
video at the beginning of a session, a lecture, a class, in order for them to ask questions about
what they have watched. And you can build up your
presentation from there. And halfway through or towards the end of
the presentation, you can just simply add an another small video
to help you break down the stagnation in case you find that the audience
might lose interests. Specialty of the presentation
is more than an hour long. So this mainly wraps it up for the planning of the delivery. We have covered the
audience knowledge, we have covered
the research part. Now, we are planning the delivery by setting
up the required slides, images, and video to
convey what we have learned about during
the research phase.
8. How to Rehearse: Now in this current
segment of the course, we're going to talk
about rehearsing for your presentation day. Now, we are still in
phase number one, which is the preparation phase. We have talked about
understanding your audience. We have talked about
doing research. We have talked about
planning the delivery and the medium and the resources that you're going to be using. We have come up, we should be coming up
at this point where presentation learning should
have a couple of slides. You should have some
visuals added to it, something that you are able to use and present to the
public or to your audience, just to make sure that the information that you
have been talking about has been passed on clearly. Now, at this current stage, you are going to
visualize how would the presentation go from the moment you walk into
their presentation hall, from the moment you start
talking to your audience, from the moment you are going
to pass on the information, the sequencing of the
presentation, how would it go? How long would you spend on one subject compared to another? And all the way to wrapping
up the presentation and people to people just simply Thank you Are
our plot to you. At the end of the presentation, you have to rehearse. And one of the
important aspects of rehearsal as having an
idea about the pace. This is very important. You have to understand
that you shouldn't be spending more than two
minutes tops for a slide. And transition to
the other slide, and transition to
the other slide. Two minutes is more than enough to just simply pass on whatever has been presented on the
slide in front of you. Now, keep this in mind. Now. Yes, I understand
some subjects they require more information, but it depends on how the audience is actually
absorbing the information. Because you don't want to end
up as someone who is just simply talking rather than
engaging with the audience. In order to just
keep these things in mind during the rehearsal stage. One of the best things
that actually can help you prepare for the rehearsal part that I've personally
tried myself. Work literally they do. The best way to sample
or try to mock up. The presentation process is simply presenting
to a small group. And I would suggest
that you presented to your close friends why. First of all, they're going
to definitely criticize you, which has gone to thicken up your skin before the
presentation day. At the same time, they're
going to be providing authentic review because
you are no stranger. And basically they would provide whatever feedback that they have acquired from
the presentation, its face value,
no sugar coating. On the contrary,
they might try to actually upon you or
give you a hard time. That would be great
because when it comes to the real
life presentation, it wouldn't be that bad. It will be way easier
compared to being in that spotlight,
being criticized. Having some negative
feedback or comments and that specific category when
it comes to the presentation, would prepare you in two ways. First of all, it would
help you develop the thick skin when it comes to receiving criticism
from the audience. To now, there's nothing
to be afraid off. You're not going
to be criticized as part of their presentation, but you should be prepared for that incase something or you
have one of those clients, let's say who would
criticize their presentation or we might find some
mistake in the presentation. And that shouldn't bring down the presentation,
on the contrary, is simply receive it with a welcoming smile and just simply move on and transition during
their presentation. Second part would be to
present in front of a mirror. This is very important. Many professionals, I've
seen this hands-on. They would walk into the presentation,
they would present, and they would visualize themselves as if they are
presenting in a specific way. But in real life, they are acting the
complete opposite. They have a, they
have, let's say, an imaginary image about
how they are standing, how they are talking, how
they are communicating. But if you show them a
recording of the presentation, they wouldn't be surprised because they had no idea
that it was that bad. So if you present in
front of a mirror, you are going to see
how the world sees you. Now this is very important. If you see how the world
sees you, you are, you will be able
to fine tune and adjust certain things
that you would not like to be presented or conveyed
during a presentation. One of them is
facial expressions. Definitely work on
your expressions. Sometimes you present in the same fashion that you
talk to your friends, which is completely
not productive when it comes to a
professional presentation. Also your facial expressions. You don t want to walk into the presentation
and literally have. No expression whatsoever to reflect some sort of movement or motion
within the presentation. Like I'm presenting the lesson, I'm doing the course right now. I'm applying the skills that I'm teaching you within the course. When you are presenting, you should make sure
that the student who is watching or the audience
who's watching, or the client who is watching is actually able to
communicate with you, is able to understand and absorb the information
provided by you. With that being corrected
by expressions, behavior during the presentation that would draw their attention from the value that
you are providing. Now, a great example would be the current process in which the courses being
presented to you. You can analyze the way the presentation is
being conducted or how the message delivery
apart is being made. And that will help
you develop and base your presentation
strategy on that as well. Because you don't want to
sound non-professional. At the same time. You don't want to sound
overly professional such that it comes across as acting, which shouldn't be the case. If you are very
well prepared and you are very comfortable
with your knowledge set, you should be able to
present with comfort, with ease, with minimal
complications as possible. In order to do so, you need to rehearse, you need to prepare. So let's summarize
the entire process for the rehearsal stage. Start off by
presenting in front of a mirror and take some notes. What have you done wrong? What would you like to adjust? What kind of expressions
would you like to portray in front
of the audience. Then? Take that and bring
in small group, whether your friends
or your colleagues. Three to four would be great. And ask them from the beginning, provide authentic feedback. I don't want your explicit
support that let's say masks, the poor quality of
their presentation, or some key stuff that
you would like to highlight within
the presentation, be as authentic as possible. Take their feedback, fine
tune your presentation, and rehearse one more time. Usually two to three times. This is more than enough to
crush down your presentation. It might take you five
times at the beginning, let's say if you're not
comfortable with presenting, but it's a skill
that you acquire. It becomes easier with time. So if you learn how
to present later on, you would rehearse once
or twice and that's it. You are good to go for
your presentation. So the current stage
that we need to be familiar with
is the rehearsal. We are still in
phase number one, which is the preparation
we have covered. Learning about the audience, doing the research, planning the delivery,
and rehearsing.
9. The Art of Storytelling: Once upon a time, there was a prisoner
who wanted to present a great presentation
and they wanted to learn about their skills. And at 1 in time, Presentation fell
through and they had to get some support
to make sure that their presentation
pieces are picked up and collected in a form to recap the content of the presentation and delivered
to the audience optimally. Now, the presenter
actually failed miserably. But guess what? By the end
of their presentation, he has gotten a
great job offer that managed to change his
perspective on presentation and cat to pull it
to the person to become the CEO of XYZ company. Now, most probably you are
still watching right now. And you're wondering
what am I talking about? But guess what? You're
still listening. And this is the power
of storytelling. When you tell a story, it doesn't have to
be a fake story. It's an actual, authentic
story that resonates with you, whether related to the
subject or you can use it to break the
ice with the audience. Storytelling is very
important and we, as humans, even when we're
kids, we loved stories. If you take whatever kids book and take a look at the
story, you would enjoy it. You would definitely
enjoy the story. Why? Because it provides narration. It provides some sort of value provided in a fashion that would help you paint a mental
image about the presenter, about the content of
the presentation, about this subject as a whole. And it would provide
some sort of entertainment and a
very sophisticated way. That's why stories, they are
very powerful because they provoke the imagination
within the brain. You know, Brian's, we have
different kinds of intellect. Imagination is one of them. And stories, they
definitely help give that imagination part
of the brain and extra push to engage
with the delivery. And that's part of education. How do you educate kids? How do you educate
professionals? How do you educate students? Imagination and creativity
is very important. Storytelling would
be a great tool that you should keep in mind as you rehearse and prepare for your presentation during
the preparation phase. Now, if you replay the
previous segment of the course where we have
talked about rehearsal. During the rehearsal, try to add the element storytelling. Now what does that
mean? First of all, you can get a briefing
about yourself. What are your qualifications? You, what are you the person to present
such a presentation? Or you can provide a story about the
current subject that you're talking about, some background
information or the story that led to the current subject which you are talking about. Let me give you an example. If you are talking about
cars, for example, you would give a story about the first core invention and how it happened
out of the blue. For example, like one
to two minutes stops. That will help you win
over the audience. At the same time, it will
help you set expectations of the presentation such that when they
listened to his story, they are able to
understand what you're going to be talking about. Next. Let's say, let me give
you another example. Let's say you are
a design agency. You're going to pitch a presentation to get a
contract with a client. And you're going to be handling their marketing
campaigns, for example. You could just
simply start off by providing a small story about how your agency came to life. Let's say you were just simply dealing with
one of the customers at 1 in time or you were
working a full-time job. And then you realize
that you had the passion for
marketing and you help one of your friends to market
for a product and it was a success and that led to
the creation of your agency. This is simply an
example for how storytelling could provide
some sort of authenticity. At the same time,
it will help you communicate and connect
with the audience. And it will pave the way. And we'll create some sort of
foundation for you to build your presentation on and
to take that into account. Since humans in general, we love stories, you will be able to win over the audience. They will be, they will be
able to focus with you on the presentation compared
to just simply clicking on the slides today we'll be
talking about so on, so on. You just simply begin, well, that's doable, that's
perfectly fine. But if you want to
step up your game, try having a brief
story whatsoever, whether it's about you, it's about the subject, or it's about the company, or it's about the reason
why you are going to present today or why are you the person
presenting such a subject? Just simply two. Start off the flow of the
presentation at the same time, winning over the Aryans. Because humans, we love stories. So definitely
incorporate storytelling as part of the
preparation phase. At the same time, once
you are rehearsing in front of the group, in
front of the mirror. And you are controlling and less enlisting
those expressions that you want to convey
to the audience. Make sure to incorporate a
sprinkle of storytelling. And this should be done at the beginning of
the presentation. Obviously, you're not
going to be telling a story towards the end
of the presentation. Now, you could do
so halfway through. You are, if you have a presentation which
is over an hour long, you could just simply
incorporate as Side Story related to you, to your own experience with the subject that you're talking about to help re-ignite
the audience. But it's very helpful, very powerful at the beginning
of the presentation. Even if you are at the
interview stage at a company, if you are interviewing, you are sitting with
the HR professional. This is considered to be an important part of
that phase as well. Because you're
presenting yourself to the HR professional, you presenting yourself
to the company. And if you add some storytelling aspect to your journey as a professional, resonate properly
with the person or the company in front of you. So keep this in mind. Storytelling is very powerful. Now, storytelling is
a subject by itself that we might cover on later on a specific in a
different course. But keep this in mind. Try to tell a story
within your presentation and you will see the value of that during the course
of the presentation.
10. Be the First One There: We have furnished
phages number one, which is the preparation phase. Now we are ready to transition
to phase number two, which is the delivery day. This is the time we're going to present the subject
of interests. And we do have a couple of
points that we wouldn't be covering during
the delivery day. Just make sure that you cover
them as much as possible in order to make sure that you ensure the success of
your presentation. And the first key
point would be, be the first one there. On the day of the presentation,
at the end earlier. Let's say one hour before your presentation
is do be there. The reason is, first of all, it will help you to
prepare your setup. If you need to align
your computer, you need to test the connection. You make sure the
Wi-Fi is connected, the cables are said
the projector is made and the slides
are working on, they're reflecting
properly on the board, the screen, whatever it is. You don't want to have any
technical issues which pop-up last minute and you're
not able to resolve them. So you have to
prepare your setup. Be sure to be there at least one hour before your presentation is do have everything in check, everything quite aligned, the setup is ready and
everything is perfectly fine and there are no
technical issues and you can just simply
focus on your work. Second thing would be to
analyze the environment. Take a look at the ceiling, how the audience
would be seated. Take a look at the access doors from where your
audience will be coming into the presentation room. Where would the
set-up be located? What is the venue break down? How does it look like? Why? The main reason would this, as we, as humans,
psychologically as well. If you are familiar
with your environment, it reduces your stress level. It's reduces stressors. What
are you most restaurants, if you walk into a new area
and use on your brain, will try to pick up on whatever stimulus that comes
along from this environment. So the lack of familiarity
creates stress, and if it creates stress
affects performance. So in order to minimize this, you should make sure that you're comfortable
with the environment. Everything is quite
clear for you. The seating arrangement,
the exit doors, the pantry is the words location for the washroom and
all that sort of stuff. Just walk around the venue in order for you to
feel comfortable with the venue and to reduce
that source of stress. And finally, would be too well once you
are in the venue and once you are analyzing
the venue and you have your setup ready and
everything in check. Make sure that you have
something just to simply to rehearse with whether
a small piece of paper or just simply
skim the slides, go through them just once
before the presentation is due, just to freshen up with the
information and stay in the bubble of presentation mode that you are preparing
for the presentation. You are rehearsing
for the presentation. And you are just simply browsing through the material
that you have just to make sure that everything
is fine and the material is flowing smoothly before the
time of the presentation. So the first thing that you should be doing on
delivery date is B, the first one there.
11. The Science of Body Language: This segment of the course
is very, very important, not just at the presentation, preparation at any walk of life. Body language is very important. We, as humans, we tend to
receive some sort of cues or information from the person
in front of us based on their body language before
even they say anything. Now, the key things
that you should keep in mind as a presenter, take a look at the image
that we have right now. You should have a power stance. Now, this is psychologically proven at power
stance would be to stand upright with your legs
about the shoulder width. And you are standing with
your spine aligned properly, your head held up. And you are just simply
positioning yourself. In the presentation. You don't want to be putting
your hands in your pocket. You don't want to be hunched. Just simply moving
around with, let's say, in an uncomfortable manner that reflects that you are not comfortable being in
the presentation, even if you're not comfortable, nor does now
psychologically it has been proven if you apply
the power stance, your hormones go up to enhance the confidence
that you have hands, the good feelings and the
good vibes that you're going to be feeling just simply
by acting in a certain way. By actually standing upright, positioning your legs about the shoulder width
slightly more, and maintaining an
elevated head posture, I'll just simply looking
downwards or where the hands in the pocket or frowning,
all that sort of stuff. So the first thing to
maintain as the power stance. Second of all, the
hand gestures, you don't want to just put
your hands in the pockets, in your pocket or you
don't want to just simply moving your
hands just randomly. Make sure that your
hands are moving in a controlled fashion, right? The same way that
I'm doing right now. You don't want just to
simply have your hands go left and right
without any control, which actually would tense up the audience as if
something's wrong. Do not cross your arms
or do not put your hands inside your pockets and walk around as if you
really don't care. Maintain a natural flow, maintain a natural movement, but be conscious about the
movements that you're doing. Eye contact. Always, always, always. Do
not look at the ground. Do not look random dude, you don't have to engage and look every single
person of the eye, but you can transition from
one person to the other. You can look at one person, then look at the other person, or just simply through a
browse through the audience. Just as if you are
aware or move from left to right or right to left. But don't look away
from the audience. And try to look at the
front row audience. And as you talk, along with the hand
gestures, look at them. Look at the back audience. Even if you have no idea, where are you looking. But if you look in the
direction of the audience, it makes sure that
the audience is engaging with you and they
are paying attention to you. At the same time. It shows the audience that you aren't confident
about your subject. Your subject is important. Your subject matters to you and they should
take it seriously. This is very crucial. And your facial
expressions along the way. If you're standing upright, the power stance, you're
controlling your hand gestures. You're taking and
looking at the audience. At the same time, your
facial expressions, they convey the proper message. You are not just simply giggling or frowning or unexplainable, smiling, Just your being. And you are being serious about their presentation in
a friendly fashion. You don't want to be
intimidating to the audience. We come across as someone
who's very vulgar. Let's say you want to portray the presenter as someone who's authentic,
who's confident. At the same time, he's
serious about his job, he's serious about
that presentation. And they are just
simply presenting it. That's it. So all of these things,
they do matter. The body language
is very important, goes a long way when it comes to developing your
presentation skills.
12. Properly Introduce Yourself: As you start the presentation
and you are going to engage with the audience
and start presenting the subject of concern. You need to properly
introduce yourself, dedicate a minute or two
to introduce yourself, your background,
your qualifications. Why are you the person
to go to when it comes to talking about such a subject? What are you using based on
your current background? Let's say you are presenting about an engineering project. You have a background
in engineering or project management along
with masters and so on. So you work with this current company in
the following position, and you are going
to present today the following subject,
simple as that. This will help
you, first of all, to develop knowledge with the audience that they
know who is this person, and where do they work, what their background,
and why are they qualified to talk
about the current subject? At the same time, it
would allow you to set the pace and the expectations
of their presentation. At that specific part
of the presentation, as you introduce yourself, you want to dictate the
flow of that presentation. What is the audience
going to expect? Let's say to this presentation, we're going to be covering the following three
points, four points. We will be talking about this
and this and this and this. You can have a slide which shows the key milestones
of the presentation. And the last part would be, let's say the questions
and the Q and a session. Let's say by the end
of the presentation, this will ensure that, first of all, the audience knows the trajectory of
their presentation. Where are we going to start? Where are we going to finish? At the same time, it will avoid
unnecessary interruption. What I mean by this,
this current phase, once you set the pace, you will tell your audience that in case of any questions, We have a dedicated time slot towards the end of
the presentation for questions such that if midway
or MIT the presentation, someone asked a question
out of the blue, you can just simply tell them. Thank you for the question. Keep it in mind. We're going to be addressing
your question in the Q and a segment of
the presentation. This will make sure that you don't lose your
train of thought. At the same time, it doesn't
interrupt your presentation. Also, it does not waste time
from your presentation, from this current segment
where you have to rush through in other,
another segment. So this is very important. At the beginning of
the presentation. This will allow
you to kick-start your presentation in the way that you would like it to go. You want to avoid just simply starting by talking
about the subject. Because once you do so, the ball is rolling
and you might expect randomness within
the presentation. Someone might ask
a question out of the blue because they
think that's okay. Someone might comment
on something because they think that is
okay as well as someone might lose interest in the subject because they have no idea why is the
person in front of them. Why they should listen to you? Why are you the source of a credible source
of the information? Or what do you do? Well, who are you to
present such as subject. From the beginning, It's your responsibility as a
presenter to set the pace. Introduce yourself,
your background, a small briefing about you. And maybe you can add in just
some sort of humor to it, to an overdose audience by mentioning your
hobbyist, so on. So maybe that's perfectly fine. It depends on the nature
of the presentation. But for professional contexts
you want to avoid doing so. Then have a slide, where on the slide you are
going to tell the audience. This is the course of the presentation in which we're going to start
with the intro. We're going to talk
about this point, this point, this
point, this point. Then we're going to have a Q&A session for you to
ask all of your questions. Make sure that you note
your questions down for the Q&A session to avoid any inconvenient interruption
during that presentation. Simple as that. And you kick start
your presentation. That way, you have clearly
set the expectations. You have clearly said that
trajectory and the pace. And that way you have
minimize the chances of interruption during the
course of the presentation.
13. Tone and Delivery Management: Now the presentation
has started. You are presenting, these are the key points
you should keep in mind as you go about the
delivery of the presentation. Let's go through
them one at a time. First of all, you want to
avoid monotonic behavior. So what I say, what I mean
by a monotonic behavior, maintaining the same tone, just same tone of voice, same pace, where it gets boring. The best way to think about it, take a look at the
latest presentation that you have or the
latest movie I've seen, you will be able to understand
that part where you have the same tone,
the same behavior, the same pace, or someone
falls asleep and the audience, you want to avoid that. In order to do so, try to fluctuate
your voice stone in order to wake up your audience. Right? Second would be to engage
with the audience. Don't be afraid to have one
of the audience members, someone in the audience
to actually talk to you. You can ask a question actually that will
take some stress off. You put the will give you some breathing room.
That's what we call it. Where you have one of the audience members
deal with the stress. Where you tell them. Can you please answer the
following question? Or what do you know
about the subject, or what do you think of
the following subject? This way you will ensure that your audience is
awake and yogurt. They are going to keep up with you in the
presentation to avoid being called out and being in a position where they have no idea what they're
talking about. Confidence and humor
goes a long way. Even if you slip, even if you make a mistake in
the presentation. If you are competent and you
take it light heartedly, the audience is going to be engaging with you at
a very friendly way. And it will be a positive thing because they will be able to connect with you as
an authentic person, knowledgeable person
who is very authentic. And you guys just simply doing your job, doing
a presentation. You're not faking it. You are not trying to
impose something which is beyond comfortable for
the audience to be absorbing in the form of knowledge, behavior,
communication. On the contrary, you
are confident if something goes wrong in the presentation,
the slides slips, or let's say you trip, you're walking in the venue, and you haven't been in
the venue for the past. Like we have mentioned, where
you take a look and analyze the environment and you
tripped on a wire or a cable. If you're just simply take
it as if it's something catastrophic that will create turbulence and
your presentation. But if you deal with it, with humor, that will reduce
the impact of the incident. That way, your audience will be reciprocating or
they are friendly, where they are
appreciating the gesture, appreciating the sense of authenticity you are
doing as a presenter. At the same time. When you are presenting. This is a very important point. You won't express superior
knowledge and the subject. You don't want to come across
as just someone presenting. You want to come
across as someone who knows what they're
talking about, someone who knows what they are presenting such that incase anyone of the potential
customers, potential clients, the audience, they
have a question they want to shoot way that you would think twice because they know that this guy knows
what he's talking about. So this is very important
and this is the part where you build in the research
and the preparation phase. Don't be afraid to improvise. Don't be afraid to
go with the flow. Sometimes even if you
plan, things could change. Things do happen and you
have to adjust on the spot. Do not be so stuck within your ways such that you
are not able to adjust. That will break
your presentation. Sometimes you will be planning, you want to rehearse and
something would happen, let's say for some reason, you have a client who was very picky on many details,
try to adjust. You would have some port
connectivity in the venue. Try to adjust. That's perfectly okay. That would show how resilient
are you as a presenter, which goes a long way in your career growth
and development. So these are very
important points that fall under
tone and delivery. Now the list goes on, but I wanted to highlight these important points because I applied them at many
presentations during my career. As a presenter at the
same time as someone, on the other hand, taking
a look at presentations, these are the things that I
would pick on for sure when it comes to someone presenting
their monotonic behavior, how are they engaging
with the audience, the conveyed
confidence and humor, the level of knowledge, and how are they resilient if something goes wrong within their presentation? So try to recap these current
points and use them as you go about your tone and your delivery for
the presentation.
14. Fine tune and the feedback Loop: Now we have concluded
our presentation. This is where people start to applaud and they start
to engage with you. And this is the part where
you want to collect feedback. It doesn't have to be
within the presentation. It doesn't have to be right
after their presentation. But once the presentation
has been done, you can talk to one of
the audience members. You can just talk to
one of the colleagues, your team members,
and try to find tune. As you can see, fine-tuning will help you build up for the
upcoming presentation. You do not expect perfection. There's nothing
called as perfect. Just simply get better. So you have to do the feedback collection part for the adjusting for the
upcoming presentations. Embrace criticism. You can send up flyers or
forms that the audience can fill at the end of
the presentation where you can collect
their feedback. Or you can just simply
have their e-mails collected and send them
a form through email. And we can just simply
write down their feedback on an anonymous
feedback to ensure that it's an authentic
and credible feedback. And you want to analyze based
on your own perspective, the unforeseen within
the presentation, what are the areas that
you would have done better and what you
could have enhanced, or what are some of the things that you wouldn't
have done or you shouldn't have done during
their presentation that you want to avoid in the
upcoming presentation. Keep in mind, perfection
gets you nowhere. If you get stuck in
being a perfectionist. Perfectionism, which is an area that many of us tend
to struggle with. Perfectionism. It puts the brakes on progress. So try to learn and
avoid being perfect. Get to as close to perfect as possible
by either you can't achieve perfection and master the trade. This is
the final part. Now, at this current
point, you are developing, you are growing,
your presentations get better with
practice and overtime. Every single
presentation is special, unique, depends on
variable circumstances, has different nature and
requires different tailoring in order to provide premium
quality presentation. You can expect one
presentation to fit all projects to fit
all of the clients. You keep on fine
tuning the delivery. You keep more fine
tuning the content. You keep on fine-tuning the rehearsal, fine-tuning
the engagement. You find tuning
the communication, facial expressions, all
that sort of stuff. You keep on building up to you get to a point where
he can just simply walk into any meeting room
unexpectedly and just simply start presenting as if
you have been preparing for that presentation over
the course of 100 years. Literally, once you become a veteran presenter,
It's that easy, but it's a skill that
requires development and requires growth at
it requires mastery. And this course will
surely, surely, surely equip you with the
essentials that you need.
15. Final Words: And I truly hope that you found the course beneficial
mixture that you leave a feedback in order
for us to take it into account as we develop
the future of courses. And do not forget to follow
the profile and follow us and other social media platforms including LinkedIn and YouTube, where we provide premium
quality content as well to facilitate the
development process for professionals
just like yourself. In the meanwhile, if discourse added some
sort of value to your knowledge base
or added some sort of incremental increase
in your skill set. For us that's considered to be a success as per our standards. And we're looking forward
to having you and more future upcoming courses. So stay tuned and we'll see
you in the upcoming course.
Engr. Hussein Attié, Entrepreneur I Engineer I Educator
