How To Do Presentations Well – Even at short notice

Includes free book extract! Over many years of presentation skills training I have noticed that the one biggest thing that makes the difference between a good or poor presenter is having a strong structure.

Well, other than having “real confidence” by Taming those Public Speaking Monkeys of course! It may not seem like the all enlightening answer you might be looking for but I’ve found it to be so for many reasons: Having a good structure and by using the 4MAT approach I suggest in my presentation skills training book means:

(For a FREE sample of the book covering the structure click here to download PDF)

You have thought through what the audience wants and how to package up your message
You know what your key points are and where you are going in the presentation so you won’t get lost or waffle
You could easily adapt your presentation to a 2 minute talk or 2 hour business presentation
You know how long each section will take and hence remain on time and allow sufficient time on the important elements
You have answered many of the different styles of audience questions before they even ask
By knowing your structure you gain confidence as you know what you want to say and where.
You can then focus on the delivery and audience.

With this in mind there are often last minute presentation requirements that this will be very useful for:

Interview presentations – In this situation you often only get a few minutes, up to say half an hour or so to prepare before you present. You must therefore allocate your prep time wisely and knowing the structure you’ll follow before you even get to the job interview is a helpful thing!

Updates to the board – You know how it is when the boss just asks you to give a quick project update to the board in a few minutes? Well, by knowing this simple 4 step approach you can easily scribble down your key thoughts in this structure moments before going in.

Unexpected conversations – For example by the water cooler! You may have been wanting to influence a key colleague for months but here’s your chance right now at the cooler – you’d better grab it and you don’t want to waffle on. You want to be clear and concise and using this structure will allow you to do that.

For a FREE extract from my book “Taming Your Public Speaking Monkeys : Building Confidence for Public Speaking & Presentations” sharing the structure I recommend you learn and practise now before you ever need it please click here to download the PDF sample…of course if you want to buy the whole book and learn loads more things that would be a great decision too!! Please go ahead and do so here.

You might want to read these blogs too: