Do’s and Don’ts Tips for an Effective Presentation

Good presentation skills are vital to your success at work, both individual success and the company success. With poor presentation skills you cannot inspire and retain your employees, sell your products, attract the funding you need for your new venture, nor evolve in your career.

Improve your presentation skills with the following tips:

DO’S

• Know your audience.
• Make an outline of what you will present with 3 or 4 main points.
• Familiarize yourself with the location and equipment before presenting.
• Use simple sentences.
• Use examples to illustrate your ideas.
• Practice your presentation.
• Breathe deeply, relax and smile at your audience before presenting.
• Use body language to reflect the content of the presentation.
• Make eye contact at random with audience.
• Talk to audience, don’t talk about them.
• Give the audience chances to join in your presentation.
• Use humor, when appropriate.

DON’T’S

• Use too much jargon or specialized words/expressions.
• Turn your back to the audience.
• Have no eye contact during your presentation or fix your eye contact on one person.
• Talk and do something else at the same time.
• Move constantly in front of the audience.
• Distract your audience by doing something like jingling any metal objects in your pocket.
• Move your hands too much.
• Fold your arms either on your front or your back.
• Keep your hands in your pockets during your presenting.
• Dress yourself gaudily or wear too many ornaments.
• Imitate someone’s style.

For more resources:

• Find out how to close successfully your sales by honing your sales presentation skills
• Explore ‘How to get what you want through effective communication’
• Learn how to run an effective meeting
• Save time and money with those tips about better managing your time