Wednesday, March 07, 2012

What makes a good presenter

Most articles and blog entries provide us tips to make a good presentation. However, very few of the experts focus on the idea of being a good presenter. How much ever good your presentation, it will serve no purpose if you are not a good presenter. Here are some ideas that might help everyone to become a good presenter. To become a good presenter, you need to be focus on all these areas.

Expertise
First, you must be an expert in your field. Alright, you must at least be an expert in the topic. You must be able to face any questions related to the topic. A certain amount of research should help you gain the required expertise. Why should people attend your presentation? Why cannot they get this information from some book or some website? Your preparation should answer these questions. It means that you need to refer to a good amount of literature, statistics, and websites to gain the required expertise. While it may sound silly to do this for every small presentation, it helps you in the long run by increasing your overall knowledge.


Knowledge
It is good to be an expert in the field of your operation. However, you need to have more knowledge. You can add more value to your presentation if you have knowledge on diverse topics. All you need to do is understand the importance of all related fields and gather as much information as possible. In fact, knowing bits and pieces about other fields also helps you when you are on the stage. Using such knowledge, you can draw parallels and explain concepts to people in the way they can immediately relate. Having knowledge in wide and varied fields helps in boosting your communication skills and confidence levels.


Communication
You are an expert in your field and you are knowledgeable in wide and varied fields. Does this help in making you the best presenter. The answer is no. You need to have good communication skills. While most people say that you need to possess great communication skills to steal the show in every presentation, it is always advisable to begin focusing on simple communication skills and brushing up your skills from one presentation to the next. The other important thing is being able to communicate with the audience in their language. A little amount of audience analysis before every presentation will help you gain some insight into this and help you in gearing up for the presentation. If you find it difficult to know more about the audience, you need to stick the basic rule of "keeping it simple." You can avoid including any statements and ideas that might hurt the sentiments of any group or category of people.


Confidence
Confidence comes from knowledge, sound communication skills, and the ability to understand the audience. Rehearsals also help you in gaining confidence before the actual presentation. In fact, it is always helpful to program your presentations with a similar routine that include some amount of rehearsals. Some experts suggest going to the place a few hours before the presentation and examining the hall to gain some confidence with regard to the space and also helps in planning your act.


Creativity
Adding a tinge of creative ideas to the serious presentation on financial statistics, will help you in driving home the message. This applies to any kind of presentation. You can document the ideas as you get them and use them while you are planning for the presentation or preparing your slides. You can gain a good number of ideas from the people around you and anywhere and everywhere. You need to keep your eyes and ears wide open for ideas. Your research on the subject will also help in gaining some new insights. In fact, you need to understand that new ideas can come in many ways - a sudden spark, a combination of existing ideas, modification to an existing idea, and so on so forth. It is all left to your imagination abilities to utilize these ideas for your presentation.


Charisma
Finally, the single characteristic that differentiates great speakers from others is Charisma. In fact, even marketers have started appreciating the importance of charisma and are coming up with new brand charisma concepts. Charismatic speakers and sought after repeatedly and gain from each presentation. You need to build a charisma for the brand "You." According to Wikipedia, Charisma is a trait found in persons whose personalities are characterized by a personal charm and magnetism (attractiveness), along with innate and powerfully sophisticated abilities of interpersonal communication and persuasion. And, it is not built or gained in one day. You need to strategize and plan in building and maintaining your charisma.

Let your actions do the talking


You can now read this article at this new location on techitive.com
http://techitive.com/articles/management/productivity/let-your-actions-do-the-talking.
You can find this and many more articles related to workplace issues and personal development by Chakravarthy Tenneti and other writers on the website - techitive.com.