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If making presentations isn't your favorite activity, maybe you could benefit from a few pointers on how to keep your audience engaged. Just improve the structure of your presentation, your visual aids, and your platform skills.
We have all sat through far too many bad presentations: slides you couldn't read with the Mount Palomar telescope; speakers who waste our time while they fiddle with papers, pointers, and remote controls; and the speaker who, as the song says, "just goes on and on and on." Yet managers who give effective presentations are much more likely to get the resources they need, be promoted, and have influence. You can become a power presenter by improving the three parts of any effective presentation: structure, visual aids, and platform skills.
Structure
Successful presentations have effective beginnings, middles, and endings. Effective beginnings accomplish three things. First, they grab the audience's attention with a question, fact, or story that makes them want to listen. Second, they tell the audience what the overall point or message is- what they will know, think, or do after listening. Third, effective beginnings give the audience a road map by telling them how many major points you have and what they are. The beginning is the most important part of your presentation because it's where most speakers lose the audience for good.
Effective middles are divided into three to five points that build to or support your overall message. Your points will be more persuasive and more easily understood if you illustrate them with an anecdote, story, or analogy. Factual evidence will buttress your points as will quotations from those your audience esteems.
Effective endings mirror the beginning. First, they summarize the...