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Selling Your Ideas with Confident Presentations
By Marjorie Brody, Brody Communications Ltd.
Here You'll Find
 Visual presentations are an indispensable part of selling
your
ideas and
services, no matter what size your business. Yet most people say they'd
almost rather die than get up in front of an audience. One of the
biggest fears, experiencing stage fright, is closely followed by the
fear of losing the audience's attention.
In fact, many people in business use presentation tools to help them,
such as overheads and software products like the Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation graphics
program, which are becoming almost as common as word processing and
accounting products in many offices.
Fear no more! There are several good ways to manage stage fright, plus
keep your presentations focused and effective to sell your message and
project a professional image.
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Purpose and Practice
Think about what your audience wants.
They want to know,
"what's in it for me?" (WIIFM). They really aren't as focused on
you, personally, as you fear. If you stay audience-centered you
don't have to be as concerned about yourself.
Pick a purpose and stick with it. If
you can't state the
purpose of your presentation in one sentence, your presentation may
be too unfocused. Speaker notes, such as those you can create with the
Microsoft PowerPoint Notes function, can keep you on track.
Prepare and Practice. Organize your
thoughts and practice how
you will deliver them. Use a clear outline, one that's reflected in
your overheads or slides, to keep on track. If you need help, look
at the Microsoft PowerPoint Outlining features, or consider using the
AutoContent Wizard to provide a pre-packaged structure for your
presentation.
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Confident delivery
Project your image. Keep your voice
naturally paced, conversational
and soft, yet "big" enough to embrace a room-sized audience.
Productive pauses. Transitional
slides
can give you valuable pauses.
You get to compose your thoughts, and the audience considers what
you've said so far. PowerPoint's transition effects let you build
"space" into your presentation, automatically.
And the more you practice, the more confident you'll feel.
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Keep It Visual
Once your purpose is clear in your own head and you're focused on your
audience, you're halfway there. To further assure success, plan how
your presentation will look, too.
Think visually. Many people think best
with
pictures.
Use pie charts, flow charts, bar graphs and
visual depictions
of data whenever possible, keeping them simple and uncluttered.
Microsoft PowerPoint can help you create your own
visuals or
give you a choice of ready-made graphics from its Clip Art
Gallery.
You can also import tables, graphs, or
spreadsheet data from
other applications in Microsoft Office, such as Microsoft Word
or Microsoft Excel, simply by dragging the information over and
dropping it into a PowerPoint slide.
Keep text brief.
Don't drown the audience in dense sentences
-
save heavy data
as a handout. A good guideline is the "4 x 4" rule: no more than four bullets
per slide, no more than 4 words per bullet.
The PowerPoint "Hide Slide" feature also
allows you to
temporarily hide slides from your audience to use if needed as
support during your presentation.
Make it readable. Make sure text is
large, at least 18 points. Use
color for impact, to help organize information, and consistently
identify and link related topics. Use light backgrounds and color
contrasts to boost readability. PowerPoint comes with a selection of
templates and formats that follow effective design rules.
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Pacing and Reinforcement
Don't overdo. Keep the number of
slides manageable so your audience
has time to comprehend each one. Ten slides with focused, supportive
text and visuals can be more effective than 100 slides flying by your
audience.
Pace Yourself. Give yourself 3 to 5
minutes minimum to deliver each
slide. You can use the PowerPoint Slide Meter feature to actually time
how long it takes you to talk through each slide. You can then
decide if you're cramming too many slides into your allotted time and
overwhelming your audience.
Leave Your Message Behind! Even the
best presentation can benefit
from audience leave-behinds that reinforce and summarize your
message. PowerPoint's Notes feature automatically creates handouts
based on your slides.
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Convincing Presentations are Easier than You Think
Microsoft PowerPoint makes it easy to create
professional-looking slides
that support your image. AutoLayouts, Pick-a-Look Wizards, a Clip Art
Gallery, and more than 100 artist-created templates ensure a consistent,
professional look throughout your presentation, even if you're not a
graphic artist. A helpful Answer Wizard takes you through each process,
using understandable language and logical steps.
Use PowerPoint to brainstorm your ideas, build a slide show, or create
speaker notes and handouts too. The outlining feature lets you see your
ideas in an orderly procession, and Slide Meter lets you rehearse and
fine-tune. The new, free Internet Assistant for Microsoft PowerPoint
even lets you translate your presentations to a Web format (HTML code)
so you can post them to your Web site.
Using these tips and Microsoft PowerPoint will help you sell with more
confident presentations!
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Microsoft PowerPoint Demo
If you would like to see how Microsoft PowerPoint can help you create
professional presentations, download (1.7m)
the free Powerpoint Viewer and Marjorie Brody's PowerPoint slide
presentation.
If you already have Microsoft PowerPoint and would like to see Brody's slide
presentation click here
(400kb) to get it.
About the Author:
Marjorie Brody, CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) is president of Brody
Communications Ltd., a communication skills training company located in Elkins
Park, PA.
She has been a professional speaker, coach, and writer for more than twenty
five years and is the author of Power Presentations: How To Connect With Your
Audience & Sell Your Ideas (Wiley), Climbing The Corporate Ladder (SkillPath),
and three books on business etiquette. She has also released a video Present
Like A Pro. To reach her company or order Brody products call (215)886-1688,
fax (215)886-1699, or e-mail BC8868@aol.com.
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