Giving a Presentation In a Day For Dummies

By Marty Brounstein and Malcolm Kushner

Get the know-how to give a knockout presentation—in a day!

Giving a Presentation In a Day For Dummies gives you a quick and easy rundown of the key points of presenting to an audience, including defining a purpose, organizing a message, using humor and body language, and overcoming anxiety.

• Fast and proven tips for delivering an effective presentation
• Shows you how to communicate your vision to an audience
• A more focused and readable resource than a bulky book

The e-book also links to an online component at dummies.com that extends the topic into step-by-step tutorials and other "beyond the book" content.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Nov 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781118491072

Book preview

Introduction

Whether you’re dealing with one person or a thousand, the ability to transmit ideas in a coherent and compelling fashion is one of the most important skills you can ever develop. It’s a basic survival skill, and it always has been. From the earliest caveman who yelled Fire! to the latest blogger who flamed someone on the Internet, people have given presentations to motivate, persuade, and influence each other.

Want to get a good job? Want to get promoted? Want to command the respect of your peers? The key to success is what you say. To get what you want in life, you have to present yourself assertively, credibly, and convincingly. Sure, you can speak softly and carry a big stick, but the real winner is the person who talks you out of the stick.

In the information age, presentation skills are more important than ever before. We live in a society of sound bites. Communication is the currency of the realm. In survey after survey, presentation skills are cited as a key factor in hiring and promotion decisions. The days when you could rise to the top just by being good at your job are over. Boards of directors, executive committees, and customers want more. You have to know how to get your message across.

What You Can Do In A Day

If you want to improve the full range of your presentation skills in about a day’s time, then reading this entire book will give you all the tools you need in order to prepare for and practice a great presentation. Too busy to read a whole book in one sitting? Don’t worry. Giving a Presentation In A Day For Dummies is designed with your time constraints in mind. The book is divided into easy-to-read segments that cover very specific topics, so you can dip in and out whenever you have a spare moment. Choose an area of interest, such as overcoming stage fright, using body language, handling the audience, or fielding questions, and turn directly to it.

Foolish Assumptions

We assume that at least one of these descriptions applies to you and your knowledge of giving a presentation:

check.png You’re fretting about your next presentation because you don’t understand how to engage the audience.

check.png You know nothing about presentations but would like to be prepared in case you’re ever asked to give one.

check.png You know quite a bit about presentations and have a lot of experience, but you want to polish your presentation development and delivery.

check.png You know that you shouldn’t fear giving a presentation, but you fear it anyway — and you want to know how to overcome your anxiety.

Icons Used in This Book

Key information in this book is marked with little pictures (or icons) in the margins. Here’s what the icons tell you:

tip_4c.eps This icon signals important advice about how to maximize the effectiveness of your presentation.

warning_4c.eps This icon indicates potential problems.

remember_4c.eps An elephant never forgets, but people do. This icon alerts you to information you want to remember.

5minuteexercise.eps This icon highlights a basic presentation skill that you can practice a couple of times in a few minutes. Of course, you’ll ultimately want to spend more than five minutes on all of the exercises in this book.

exploresomemore.eps When you see this icon, head to this book’s companion website at www.dummies.com/inaday/givingapresentation. Online, you’ll find more-detailed information about topics that we cover in the book.

Chapter 1

Preparing to Deliver a Great Presentation

In This Chapter

arrow Recognizing the factors that lead to effective presentations

arrow Prepping your presentation

arrow Timing your talk

For many people, one of the most frightening and nerve-racking experiences they encounter is being asked to give a formal presentation: speaking in front of a group of people and conveying some kind of important message for a period of time in an organized and interesting way. If you’re part of this crowd, you can probably think of 100 other things you’d rather do than take on an assignment involving public speaking.

Try as you may to get out of it, if you’ve been asked once to give a speech to a group, you’re likely to be asked again. So instead of fighting it, a better tack is to discover how to give good presentations so that you impress your listeners and live to tell about it. Even if you’re one of those rare types of people who doesn’t mind speaking in front of groups or even enjoys it, giving an effective presentation is no small feat.

The emphasis of this chapter is taking one of the greatest challenges of communication — giving formal presentations — and helping you prepare for them.

Hitting the Essentials of Effective Presentations

You’ve probably seen many formal presentations at business meetings within your organization, as well as at various events outside your organization, such as seminars, conferences, and professional association meetings. From observing these various meetings and events, you can find out a great deal about how to give an effective presentation.

You’ve probably noticed that some presenters are organized and confident and, as a result, really engage your attention. You’ve probably seen others who were a chore to listen to and didn’t seem to know what they were doing. You may have even seen professional speakers — people who get paid to talk to audiences — who ranged from highly effective to totally useless.

Learning from other people’s successes and mistakes puts you on the fast track to giving effective presentations, so in the following sections, we explain not only what to do but also what not to do. You’ll come to recognize the importance of preparation and the steps that go into it, which increase your likelihood for success.

What makes a presentation

tip_4c.eps What are the characteristics that effective speakers display? Consider these tips:

check.png Being well organized: Presentations should flow in a logical sequence. The points expressed connect in an orderly fashion. Thus the presentation is easy to follow.

check.png Getting to the point: The speaker should be direct, clear, and, most important, concise. The audience will walk away understanding and remembering the key points if they are stated succinctly and in language that makes sense.

check.png Displaying confidence: A good speaker sounds authoritative as opposed to authoritarian, knowledgeable but not know-it-all, and definitive rather than hesitant. In both voice and demeanor, the speaker should express his points with certainty and credibility.

check.png Showing sincerity: A sincere presenter’s tone and language come across with care