Page 104 - Today’s Business Communication; A How-to Guide for the Modern Professional

WhY MUST I gIvE A MEMORABLE PRESENTATION? 93

1. Remember that you are the presentation 6. Show your resilience
2. Look your best 7. Do not memorize
3. Put a smile on your face 8. Demonstrate your magnetism
4. Demonstrate your passion 9. Create potential
5. Explain your purpose, then repeat and 10. Empower your audience
repeat again 11. Believe in yourself
Figure 7.3 Tips for maximizing your impact

Consider how you can apply the 11 tips to improve your presentation
impact:

• Remember that YOU are the presentation. Slides, handouts,
leave-behinds, and other visual aids are awesome, but they
aren’t the presentation, YOU are.
• Look your best—your very best. People say don’t judge a
book by its cover, but we all do it to some degree. In fact,
some research suggests that “humans can categorize others in
less than 150 milliseconds.”
4
• Put a smile on your face. People who smile when they speak
automatically “sound” more cheerful, warm, and approach-
able. Emotions, after all, are contagious.
5
• Demonstrate your passion. If you don’t show a metaphorical
fire for your topic, your audience surely won’t be inspired to
listen and later recall your message.
• Explain your purpose, then repeat and repeat again. From
the get-go, tell your audience what you want them to remem-
ber from your presentation. In your main points, reinforce
what you want them to remember from your presentation.
Then, when concluding, remind them again what you want
them to remember.
• Show your resilience. Don’t let interruptions such as ques-
tions from the audience rattle your nerves. Know your
material well enough to answer questions. During a group
presentation, be able to answer generally a question that might
best be handled by someone else, and then hand off that ques-
tion to the appropriate teammate for a more detailed response.
Then, be prepared to pick back up where you left off.