Brilliant presentations are vital to your business
Why? If you’re, say, a furniture polisher or a widget builder, why does it matter whether you can deliver a brilliant presentation or not?
The answer is simple: people buy people. You are your best ambassador for your goods and services providing, that is, you’re not a bumbling, mumbling, red-faced bundle of embarrassment when it comes to your turn to speak.
If networking plays an important part of your marketing strategy – and if it doesn’t, it really should! – every time you go to a new event your presentation skills are put to the test. Speak fluently and confidently about yourself or your business or both, even if for only sixty seconds, and you have a much better chance of winning new customers than if you’re tongue-tied or, worse, if your lack of confidence makes you sound stern or brusque.
Here are three simple ways to improve your presentation skills:
- Visualise yourself making a brilliant presentation. If you’re nervous your negative side has probably pictured a poor outcome hundreds of times; improve your chances of a positive outcome by consciously creating mind-movies showing you delivering an absolutely wonderful presentation. Picture the audience cheering at the end of it, picture yourself looking calm and confident, knowing you’ve done a great job.
- Check your material. All you need for a simple, brilliant presentation, is a beginning, a middle and an end. If what you say seems to have rather more elements than that, think again and remember that simple is good.
- Practise. Practise and practise some more. Practise in front of a mirror first, then in front of a friend or friends, listen to their feedback and ACT on it!
Check out Your One-Week Countdown to a Brilliant Presentation, here.