A presentation helps convey an idea and draws additional attention to the speaker’s words.
A good presentation starts by asking yourself questions. You can simply do this by noting down your questions in a notebook without even turning on the computer.
First, you choose a topic, define a goal and then arrange the arguments in the correct order.
The choice of a quality template plays a vital role because this template will determine the appearance of the presentation. You can find ready-made PowerPoint presentation templates at Free Powerpoint Templates Designs.
Read all the tips and steps to prepare for creating a presentation in this article.
Preparing for a Presentation
The tricky part of the question “how to make a presentation?” includes doubts such as how to place text and illustrations on slides, set the size and shape of the font, and change the color of the text or background.
Some of the common questions that may arise are:
- What makes sense to put on slides, and what can just be said in words?
- How to distribute information between slides?
- What is more reasonable to use in each specific case – text or illustration?
- How to place information on the slides?
- How to place accents such as color, position and illustrations?
So, how can you prepare and present a good presentation? Here’s how.
The Objective
The objective is what you want to achieve by making a presentation. Think about the impression you want your audience to have after your presentation.
Always state the objective, even if it seems that everything is already evident. To find this objective, ask yourself questions. What will change after the presentation? How do you know if it was successful? What will the audience want to do after the presentation?
Defining an objective is just the first step for a presentation to be effective, but the objective is not enough: you need to study your audience, write a script, and work with visuals.
The Subject
It is not easy to listen to an interlocutor who jumps from one topic to another, so the presentation should have a single topic. Otherwise, you get a long story about nothing.
The topic should be brief enough to offer a solution to the problem at the end. Narrow the topic until you can no longer summarize the presentation in less than ten short paragraphs.
It is also essential to understand and be well versed in what you will be talking about. Even if you have beautifully structured slides available and an audience interested in the issue in question, it will leave a bad impression if you do not have a clear idea of what you want to convey.
Therefore, choose a topic that is understandable for you and your audience.
The Audience
To create a presentation, you need to determine your target audience. A common weakness among speakers is the tendency to think that the listener will be interested in what interests the speaker.
To be a good speaker, you need to consider the listener’s perspective. When preparing your speech, you need to ask yourself how you would feel if you were in the audience.
Before answering this question, you should know as much as possible about the listener. The more similar the listener and speaker are in terms of educational level, occupation, age, and social status, the easier it is to predict their attitude to a future presentation.
The Place
This is one of the main factors influencing the course and the result of the presentation. The atmosphere at the presentation is created primarily by the arrangement of the participants’ seats and the equipment. The location of the seats should:
- be comfortable for the public;
- serve the purposes of the presentation;
- be suitable for presenters.
The following factors influence the planning of arrangement of participants and equipment at the presentation site:
- the number of participants and equipment present;
- the composition of the audience;
- working space;
- interaction of listeners with each other;
- duration of the presentation;
- tables;
- passages;
- visibility;
- open spaces, etc.
The quality of the presentation is also influenced by external conditions such as:
- lighting;
- temperature;
- noises, etc.
The Time
You may be wondering, when is the best time to hold a presentation? Morning, afternoon, or evening? Well, it depends on what time of day your audience will perceive the information better.
Although cortisol levels can be higher in the morning, not all people can effectively listen early in the day. Whether you are a morning person or a night owl, these are decisive factors that determine the preparation of the body for the stress of the day shortly after waking up.
If a person needs to concentrate on a challenging task, he chooses a time when no one will bother him for sure. For a lark, this is dawn, when no one has woken up yet, but for an owl, on the contrary, it is late evening or night.
Work situations, such as presentations, are best left for the first half of the day. But in order to make that decision, is it better that you first research your audience.
Length of Talk
The length of the presentation is limited to factors like the goals of the presentation, the audience’s degree of interest, and the audience’s time preferences.
For the most common presentations, we recommend the following time frames:
- Self-presentation – no more than 10 minutes
- Presentation of a project – 15 – 20 minutes
Providing Information in Advance
It is essential to provide introductory information about the presentation beforehand. Each participant must clearly understand where and when the presentation will take place.
Also, everyone should understand the topic of the presentation and the purpose of conducting the presentation. Perhaps you need to summarize the future presentation in a couple of abstracts to keep your audience interested.
Final Words
It is always better to double-check everything. Consider possible technical problems in advance. It is also imperative to have a copy of your presentation in other possible formats.
In case of equipment failure – have a printed copy of the presentation. After you have created your presentation, check the text’s technical content, spelling, and punctuation.
For better results, you can evaluate your presentation according to the following criteria: visibility, readability of the font, highlighting the main points, the appropriateness of the colors and the animation, the synchronization of the presentation and the final message.
Correct the found inconsistencies and fearlessly go to the presentation of your brainchild!
About the Author
Liza Koenhoven is the CMO and copywriter of Masterbundles. She is passionate about black coffee, writing and Depeche Mode. She does her best to deliver you the most valuable deals on the web. Write to Liza if you want to talk or publish your article.