Guide for Public Speaking and Presentations

Public speaking and presentation abilities is one of the things organizations are strongly putting into consideration before recruiting staffs into their organizations. this is because at points of trying to sell products and service to corporate bodies and bidding for a contract, a presentation may be needed to convince a panel to subscribe to the product or service. Some people have good communication skills but bad presentation skills. We are going to look at some things that can help us give good presentations;

1. Topic Research: Researching about the topic of presentation will help a speaker to have a great level of confidence while giving a talk.  Topical research will help a speaker to anticipate possible questions that could be asked by the audience.  It will also help to maintain a steady flow while speaking.
2. Focus: A hundred percent concentration is needed during public speaking.  Focus helps a speaker to constantly keep in touch with the knowledge of the topic previously acquired.  A brief distraction can cause the speaker to go off point.
3. Mastering Metaphors: Metaphors are figures of speech used to describe the likeness of a personality or certain circumstance. 
4. Start strong and close stranger: Starting a talk strong and closing it stronger gives the speech a lasting impression.  Such talk cannot be forgotten in a hurry.
5. Incorporate Humour: Speaker should be humorous and spell out the fulfilment of the given task through an encouraging countenance.
6. Analyze the Audience: Analyzing the audience will help a speaker to create the right atmosphere for interactivity. 
7. Obey time constraints
8. Organize logical ideas
9. Handle Unexpected Issues Smoothly: A speaker should handle unexpected issues in a professional way.  This can be made possible by gaining public speaking skills and expertise over a period of time.
10. Understand public speaking ethics: Keeping a message clear, adequate preparation, message simplicity, message concision and speakers naturality will help a speaker deliver a superb message and satisfy the expectations of the audience.

PREPARATION

While preparing to give a talk a speaker should be conscious of factors that will facilitate effective delivery of the talk.  The speaker should have professional awareness competency, professional relationship competency, topic development competency and platform mechanics competency.

DEVELOPING THE MATERIAL

Developing the material for the presentation involve getting up to date information of the topic, acknowledging previous information about the topic, analyzing the difference and strategically enumerating the advantages of the new scope.

The combination of this information will allow the speaker handle unexpected issues that could come up during the presentation.

It is important to use the structure of great speakers to prepare your own.  It will give a step by step guide on how what should be done.

The use of search engines like goggle and meta-crawler will help the speaker gather adequate information.  Text books on the topics could also be used in developing the material.

OPENING THE TALK

One of the most effective ways to get the attention of the audience is to start with an ante dote.  Starting a presentation with a short story sells out the attention of the audience to the speaker.  True and personal stories get people involved right away.  The funnier the story is the better.

Starting with a statistic will help to get the attention of the audience at the beginning of a talk.  Statistics about a speaker’s industry or company will help the audience to analyze his success and determine why they should listen to the him/her.

A presentation can be started by asking a question.  It is a very effective way to get people involved and interacting right away.

Using a quote like “When you become responsible you become an instrument of possibilities” help to get the attention of the audience.  This is also suitable to open a talk.  When the audience is captivated by a speaker’s first words, they get tuned to every other thing he has to say. 

Doing something outrageous and surprising will give a speaker the audience’s attention.  This can probably include making a call, trying to convince a broke client to buy a new product and doing it successfully.  The phone should be on speaker to get the audience carried along.  This will immediately guarantee that the person is a result oriented speaker.

CLOSING THE TALK

Closing a talk involves three stages the summary, a call to action and final words.  The summary includes the review of the main points given during the process of the talk.  The summary is an opportunity to re-sensitize the audience about points that could have skipped their minds.  It also helps those jotting to document the important points properly.

The call to action is a charge to implement the solutions recommended during the presentation.  The final words close the talk finally.  This could be a quote that would be easily memorized by the audience.

VISUAL AIDS

The goals of a speaker are to make listeners understand, remember and act on your ideas.  Visual aids help to get the audience interested and involved.

A visual aid is an item of illustrative matter such as film, slide or model designed to supplement written or spoken information to make it easily comprehendible.

An oral presentation that incorporates visual aids is more likely to be understood and retained than one lacking visual enhancement.

Visual aids make presenters appear more professional, better prepared and more persuasive.

Three most popular visuals used today are overhead transparencies, computer visuals and handouts.

USE OF NOTES

Notes are used to record the summary of the points to the spoken about in a presentation.

Some speakers who are unable to memorize the information they want to present use notes to guide themselves.

Speakers with high assimilation capacity are able to digest the information properly before the presentation.

Note are important to help speakers with low assimilation capacity.  Notes are collection of information about introduction of topic, body of topic, summary of topic and conclusion parts of the presentation.

PRACTICING THE TALK

Practicing the talk before a presentation will help speakers to take note of their mistakes and make necessary corrections.

Devices such as digital cameras, laptops with audio and video recording facilities and sound or voice recorders could be used while practicing.  The devices will capture and save the actions and speech of the speaker. The speaker will then playback to watch and listen to himself or herself.

This will help to analyze, fluency of speech, verbal and non-verbal communication effectiveness.

DELIVERY OF THE TALK

Delivery a talk involves defining the message, knowing the audience and adequate preparation.  The talk should proceed with an introduction of the speaker.  The topic to be considered is then introduced and exposed concisely and precisely.

The talk should be delivered loudly and clearly.  The speaker should implement body language while communicating the message to the audience.

The talk should be presented with confidence and humour.  Visual aids should be sued professionally to different segments of the presentation. 

Speaker should spend less time on jokes and stories as this will become unprofessional. 

The talk should be summarized by mentioning the introduction, touching important points and changing the audience to scale up their potentials to move the organization to greater heights.

Being a good speaker involves understanding the techniques and ethics of public speaking.  It involves adequate preparation and effective verbal and non-verbal communication skills to be a successful speaker.