4 Tips for a Successful Presentation

Hi, everybody.

Welcome to www.engvid.com.

I'm Adam.

In today's video, I want to share with you some tips for giving a presentation.

Now, I'm going to focus a little bit more with a mind to business, and I'm going to

think more about non-native English speakers.

However, all of these tips can generally apply

to any situation, in business or out of business,

and this applies to both non-native speakers

and native speakers, because a lot of the

tips you're going to see here are just fundamental to a good presentation.

Non-native English speakers will have to work

at it a little bit more to make sure that

they present something clear and enjoyable to the audience.

So, the first thing I'm going to mention is that you should know your material inside

out.

What does inside out mean?

It means completely.

There's nothing in your presentation or your

slides or anything that you're going to do

that you don't know about, that you're not familiar with or comfortable with.

So, the reason you want to make sure you know

everything, you're ready for anything is to

avoid surprises.

Don't look through your notes or slides and realize, "Oh wait, I made a mistake there.

It's too late to fix it in the meeting, in the presentation."

Make sure everything is taken care of before,

and you want to avoid gaffes, making a gaffe.

A gaffe essentially is a mistake, but a little

bit different from a mistake, a gaffe is an

embarrassing mistake.

So, if you say something and it's - everybody

understands that this is wrong information,

or if you say one thing and then two minutes

later you say the opposite thing, that could

be very embarrassing.

If you've prepared everything, if you know

every single word and every single slide and

every single statistic from beginning to end, you will avoid these kinds of gaffes.

Also, make sure that you practice your delivery -

oh, this is a good word, actually - a presentation

is delivered.

Make sure you practice your delivery a few times.

One reason is to get the nerves out, so you're not too nervous.

Another one is to make sure that it sounds as good as it looks on paper, because how

a presentation appears on paper and how it sounds spoken out might not necessarily be

the same.

So, make sure you practice saying it.

Also, the more you say it, the less you will

actually stand in front of your audience and

read your notes.

The key is not to read a presentation, the key is to deliver one, face to face, eye to

eye, which I'll talk about more in a moment.

If possible, get feedback.

Now, if you're giving a presentation in a company and you have co-workers, obviously

you have feedback.

If you're self-employed and you're making a sales pitch to a company, find somebody

who will come and listen to you give your presentation.

Make sure it's somebody you trust.

And make sure that the person who is listening

to you and giving you feedback is not too

nice to you.

You don't want a friend to come and say, "Oh

yeah, that was great, you're going to do great."

You want somebody to come and tell you, "Okay,

this was not so good, this was not so good,

you should try doing this and that."

You want real feedback, not nice feedback.

It doesn't help you to get nice feedback.

If you're...

Especially for non-native English speakers, identify trouble words or terms.

Sometimes you're going to have to use maybe

technical language or like a complicated word

that's specific to your topic.

Make sure you know how to say it properly.

Okay?

I've helped some people make...

Prepare for presentations, and there's always

one or two words that they just can't pronounce

properly.

So, I work with them a few times, get them to

say it properly, and then everything smoothens

out.

Now, the reason you do all of this, and the

reason you get feedback, the reason you practice

is because you want to build your confidence.

The most effective sales technique is to show up confident.

It doesn't matter what you say, it doesn't

matter what they see, it doesn't matter what

they think of the product.

They're looking at you, the person.

Be confident, and they will trust your product,

they will trust your ideas more because they

believe you.

But if you're nervous, if you're struggling,

well, maybe your product's nervous and struggling

too, right?

It all reflects one on the other.

Next, consider your audience.

Okay, so after all this, your audience is the most important thing you need to think

about.

And there's a few...

There are a few things to think about.

Are you giving a presentation to your peers?

So, people basically in the same field, in the same industry as you, or are you, like,

are they experts or are they laypersons?

So, an expert knows everything about this topic that you're going to present, which

means you need to know it even better, because they can...

They know right away whether you're making a mistake or not.

If you're giving a presentation to laypeople

or laypersons, a layperson is just an ordinary

person, somebody who is not a specialist, not

an expert, who doesn't know this particular

topic or this particular field very well.

So, you have to make it clear to this type of person.

So, knowing who you're speaking to will tell you what kind of tone to use.

Can you be a little bit more casual?

Do you have to be very formal?

Can you use jargon or technical language?

Technical language is language that's very specific to the thing you're talking about.

So, if you're trying to sell somebody computer

components, you need to know the, you know,

the different words, like "SSD", you need

to explain what an SSD is inside a computer.

It's a type of disk drive, for example.

I'm not a computer expert, so I'm not going to

talk about SSDs, just giving you an example.

Jargon is a little bit different.

Jargon is like...

It's almost like a dialect within an industry.

So, lawyers have certain words that only lawyers use.

They have technical language that's part of the legal system, and then there's lawyer

language that they use amongst themselves, and only they know what it means.

A layperson will not know the jargon.

So, if you're giving a presentation to laypeople,

don't confuse them with words they don't know.

And again, laypeople might be a bit more casual,

experts might be a little bit more serious.

Again, it depends on the industry.

As much as possible, try to predict the questions

that your audience will have during and after

the presentation.

And there's two approaches to this.

One, once you predict the questions, once

you have a list of questions that they should

ask or might ask, either integrate the answers

right into your presentation so they don't

even need to ask you, or if you're going to

leave some time at the end of the presentation

for Q&A, be prepared for those questions, right?

So, you don't want to talk too much, you want to give them a chance to speak.

A lot of the details you can leave to the Q&A, because you know they're going to ask

you anyway.

If they're going to ask you, then give them the information.

Don't automatically put it in the presentation,

because then it might get too long, it might

get a bit boring as well.

And make sure that they are interested.

If you're going to give a presentation and

everybody's, you know, going to start falling

asleep, you're not giving a very good presentation.

Don't overwhelm the audience.

If they're coming just for a quick sales pitch, don't get into technical details.

If you're giving a presentation about why

something should be done, stick to that point,

make sure you don't go too far away from it so they don't get bored.

Maintain their interest at all times, because

interest is what gets you results, not statistics.

Okay?

So, some few details here, now we're going to look at a few more technical things.

Okay, so we've got a couple more things to look at.

The first one is "kiss".

"Kiss" is an acronym.

Some people say "keep it simple stupid", but

we don't like that one, so we're going to

say "keep it short and simple".

K-I-S-S, "kiss", remember that.

Short and simple.

So, what you should do, you should basically

worry about the core message that you want

to express, that you want to deliver.

The people who are coming to the presentation

are not coming to be lectured at, they're

not coming to be taught something.

They're coming to get information so they can make a decision.

Give them the information they need to make the decision, which means avoid minutiae.

Now, technically it should be minutiae for

the plural, but most people just say minutiae.

Minutiae are the tiny, tiny little details of something, right?

It could be a contract, it could be an agreement, like terms of agreement.

So, think about when you get a new application

on your computer, they say "read the terms

of agreement and check if you agree", and

then it's so many words, so many paragraphs,

nobody actually reads all the little details,

all the minutiae, they just say "okay, I agree".

So, avoid that because they don't need that information.

If they do need that information, they will ask for it.

They may ask for it at the Q&A time, or they'll

just ask you to send them all the statistics

and other information.

Make sure, and this is very important, stay on topic.

Don't go off on a tangent.

Don't start talking about things that have nothing to do with what it is you're doing

in the presentation.

Very important, stay focused.

Don't bombard them with visuals.

Bombard means throw at a lot, very quickly.

Technically, it comes from military.

When an airplane bombards the villages with bombs, that's where the word usually comes.

We use it now to overload with information.

Visuals are visual aids, things that will make it seem more like you're giving them

more information.

Slides, videos, pictures, pamphlets.

Have a few, so they get something to look at, something to hold on to, but don't give

too many.

Not too many slides, and make sure that your slides are not very, very busy.

The slides should also have a core message each, because you don't want your audience

to sit there and read the slide and not listen to you.

You want them to listen to you.

You want the slides just to help them follow

you, not to be the focus of their attention,

not to be the presentation itself.

Fewer slides, not too busy, speak.

Get the message across.

Don't forget to summarize all the information.

Again, technically, your whole presentation is one big summary, but make sure that at

the end of the presentation, you just give them a summary, a quick review of the key

points that you want them to take away.

They're not going to remember everything you said.

Make sure that what they do remember is what

you want them to remember, so summarize at

the end.

And then, lastly, remember, when you have an

audience looking at you, giving a presentation,

you are the focus, not the product, not the

information, not the decision that they need

to make.

You, for those few minutes, you are the focus.

So, make sure that you are alive.

Now, what does this mean?

Obviously, you're alive, you're not dead, but it also means don't stand like this and

talk like this the whole way through the presentation,

because nobody will be able to follow what

you're saying and nobody will really care what you're saying either.

Don't stand still, use your hands, use body

language, use facial gestures, don't be monotone.

Don't have all your words coming at the same tone, the same level.

Make sure you're up, you're down, you're stressing

words sometimes, you're unstressing words

sometimes.

Make sure that there's a little bit of - there's

a ghost inside the shell, as they say, that's

the expression.

Make sure you're moving.

But at the same time, you don't always want to

be moving like this, because then it becomes

very distracting, too.

Move enough so that their eyes don't get bored and red.

Don't move enough that they're, like, trying

to figure out where you are, like a video

game.

Oh, sorry, I forgot a letter here.

Make sure that you appear interested.

Make sure that it seems like you want to be there.

You're professional, you're knowledgeable, and you're prepared.

That's what they want to see.

And make sure that you are interesting.

So, you are interested in what you're doing,

make sure that your audience is - that you

are interesting to your audience, that they are interested in you.

Now, one of the things that you have to consider is having a hook, okay?

A hook is very important, especially if you're

giving a lot of technical information, it

can get a little bit boring.

So, once in a while, you want to give them

something a little bit - I don't want to say

entertaining, but something that'll perk them

up, that'll get them a little bit awake and

listening again.

Start your presentation with a hook, grab their attention, and then take them on the

journey towards whatever goal you set for the presentation.

Make sure you don't bore them, essentially.

Then, in terms of technical appearance and things like that, make sure you have a very

strong voice, make sure that you maintain eye contact.

Now, if you have people sitting in a table, around the table, there's ten people, make

sure that you look at everybody.

Don't look at one person, don't look at the back wall.

Don't look at your notes all the time.

Make sure that you make contact with each

person at least once, ideally more than that.

Don't forget to smile, very important.

And most important, breathe.

Not, like, don't stand and go...

But just remember inside your head, just breathe, relax, stay calm, stay confident.

Of course, I forgot to mention, make sure you dress appropriately for the situation.

If everybody's in a suit, make sure you're

not wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but I think

that's a little bit obvious.

But here, breathe.

Basically, it means relaxed, stay relaxed, be relaxed.

If you are relaxed and confident, they will listen to you regardless of what you have

to say.

If you're nervous, if you're struggling, the

things you're saying are not that important.

So, I've personally seen people give presentations and it's very, very clear.

They have no idea what they're talking about,

but they had my attention and I wanted to

believe them because they spoke so confidently, they spoke so well.

On the other hand, I've seen people who obviously

were very knowledgeable, very expert in their

topic, but they were so nervous, they were, like, shaking and, like, they're not really

sure what to do, they don't know where to look, they're looking all over.

Again, very nice that you know what you're

talking about, but I felt very uncomfortable

listening to that person.

And if I'm uncomfortable, maybe I'm not really

interested in doing business with this company.

So, presentation of yourself is very, very important.

Now, all of this information, some of it should be pretty obvious.

Some of it might be new to you, some new vocabulary and such.

You have to know yourself.

Some people are just not good public speakers,

and if you're not, that's fine, there's nothing

wrong with that.

It's a skill and it's something that you can

work on, but if you're not comfortable speaking

publicly in front of people, maybe consider passing this task on to somebody else.

Or, maybe get yourself a counselor or a coach

to teach you how to do it, to stay relaxed,

to present the information, and to be effective.

It's actually a very strong idea.

Anyway, so that's it for today.

If you have any questions about any of this information, please go to www.engvid.com.

You can ask me anything in the comments section there, I'll be happy to help.

I also put up a quiz just to test your comprehension

and your listening skills for this video,

so you can take that.

And that's it.

I hope this was a beneficial video, I hope you liked it.

Please give me a like if you did.

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videos, and come back soon.

I'll have some more business English lessons

for you, some regular English lessons, etc.

See you again soon.

Bye bye.