To most of us the very idea of public speaking fills us with dread, particularly if we are making a business presentation to fellow experts in a particular field. The best way to prepare is to research your subject and practise your presentation before you have to present to peers.
Business presentations are not all about the slides that you create, these are great visual aids and prompts, but people actually want to hear what you have to say. It is a certainty that you have a great wealth of knowledge to draw from on the topic that your business presentation is about; trying to read from slides could distract you and disturb the flow of your speech.
When preparing your presentation think about your audience, do they already know the basics of what you are going to present or are you speaking to people with little if any knowledge on your chosen subject. Cater your presentation accordingly.
In your opening slide summarise what your presentation is about in a few punchy bullet points.
Use the rest of your slides for visual aids such as graphs, pie charts, pictures and close with a similar summary to cover what has been discussed.
Ask a friend or colleague to listen to your presentation and give you some honest feedback, is the presentation snappy throughout or is there too much detail? A trusted friend will help to identify parts of your presentation that need to reworked.
When the day of your presentation arrives, you will doubtless be very nervous but remember take some deep breaths and be confident – you know this subject and by preparing will have covered all the bases.
In your introduction you may want to advise your audience that you’ll have a question and answer session at the end. In doing so you can get through your business presentation in it’s entirety as most of people’s question tend to be covered off in subsequent slides.
Public speaking and presenting is nerve racking there’s no doubt about it but remember the key things;
Research your subject
Practise your presentation
Be confident
Be Natural
Relax and enjoy it!