Presentation Training Skills

Presentations Skills Training

Presentations Skills Training Seminars are provided across the United States & Canada via public open enrollment seminars in most major metropolitan areas and can also be delivered on-site via private presentation workshops. Our presentation skills training courses can be provided as off-the-shelf presentations seminars, workshops, or classes. The classes are ready to be delivered to a diverse audience or can be customized to provide a tailored presentations and personalized approach based on client needs. All presentations skills classes are limited to a maximum of twelve participants so as to increase seminar effectiveness and provide the individual level of presentations coaching and interaction that is associated with the Presentations Skills Training Workshops Center.

For more information on our presentations skills training workshops please contact us.

Presentations Training - Creating Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Nowadays PowerPoint is a common tool used to assist in presentations. The slides should provide your audience with an at-a-glance understanding of the material to support your main points.

Good slides are:

Visible - with ideally three to four words per line and five lines per slide

Clear - each slide should only contain one idea

Simple - use words and phrases or pictures rather than sentences

Keeping these points in mind, let's look at the four steps to creating your presentation.

1. Create and structure your content

When creating your content, consider:

Who is your audience?

What is the objective of your presentation?

What do you want your audience to do as a result of your presentation?

Then order your main points into a logical format.

2. De-clutter

Presenters often fall into the trap of writing their whole presentation on their slides. When this happens, your audience will spend too much time trying to read the slide rather than listen to you.

Follow the KIS rule - Keep It Simple remembering that less is more.

Use pictures. Pictures are worth a thousand words. They are more interesting to look at and can help boost retention. At the same time, avoid the use of too much animation. This can be a major distracter for your audience. Use it only if it will add to your presentation.

3. Design the slides

Fonts

Use a font that is easy to read. San serif fonts such as Arial work better on a projected image.
PowerPoint comes with a default setting of 44 points for the title and 32 points for the body of a slide. If you'd prefer to use a smaller font size, ensure that it can still be read.

Capitalize only when necessary. Capitals imply shouting. It is also more difficult for the human eye to read.

Color

Use a color of font that contrasts with the background. Occasionally use color to emphasize a point.

Color can also be used to reinforce the logic of the structure of your slides. For example, a light blue title and a dark blue text.

Backgrounds

Keep your backgrounds simple and use the same one throughout your slide presentation. This ensures that the content of the slide is easy to read and your message is understood.

Graphs

Trends are easier to visualize in graphical form. In saying this, graphs need to be easily understood.

To ensure this, follow these steps:

Remove any unnecessary minor gridlines

Ensure that the font is easily read

Use colors that are logical. That is, if you're comparing the sale of blue and red balls using a column graph then the columns should be in the respective colors.

Avoid any unnecessary shading

Always title your slides

Proof read your slides

Proof read your slides for spelling and grammar. An incorrectly spelt word will be quickly picked up by audience members and will detract from your presentation.

4. Practice! Practice! Practice!

Once you've organized your slides, it's important to practice the presentation with the slideshow.

Remember that you are the most important visual. You should stand in a left to right orientation to the slideshow from the audience's perspective. This is because audiences in the western hemisphere read from left to right.

Will you be using the laptop keyboard or a remote to move from slide to slide? How will this affect where you stand when presenting?

To deliver effective PowerPoint presentations, your presentation needs to flow, so ensure you practice using whatever equipment you'll need. Make the slideshow part of your presentation to complement your message.

Keeping these points in mind, you'll be able to produce slides that will enhance your message and avoid the dreaded death by PowerPoint.

Source: Maria Pantalone link

Related: Presentations Training