The pressure is on and presentation time is sneaking up on you. A thousand thoughts are raging like wild fire through your head right about now. “I should have started this earlier.” “I CAN do this…I think.” “Making a presentation can’t be THAT hard.” “I really wish I knew what I was doing.” Each thought acting like gasoline to the ever hungry fires of self doubt. So before you get to your real work you conveniently stumble upon this article—coincidence? I think not! You CAN make that presentation! And here is what you’ll need:
The Diverse Skills You Need
While making a presentation may seem like an effortless process of picking the perfect background with the perfect font to go with your topic, it as an art to amalgamate all that needs to be said in a way that will keep your audience engaged while conveying your message across them. Here’s what you’ll need:
Storytelling
Remember how Grandma used to tell you bedtime stories to put you to sleep, but you never actually fell asleep until after the story was finished? And how sometimes you’d find yourself wanting to hear the same story over and over again, or catch yourself wondering whatever happened in the end?
Isn’t it funny how you never forget how “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” taught you why it was important not to lie? It is scientifically proven that human brains tend to remember information by associating them with incidents such as shared journeys or personal accounts. Your presentation is the same as Grandma’s stories: a way for you to hold your viewer’s interest, and inspire them, through the right proportion of facts, layered with just enough distractions in the middle so as to not make your audience nod off to sleep.
Never been on the storytelling end? Don’t worry, there are plenty of techniques that can be incorporated with your own personal style and that fit well with the topic under discussion which will help you emotionally stimulate your audience and get them listening to you more attentively. This will require you to have a command over the art of being relatable and descriptive, which brings us to the next ingredient in making your killer presentation.
Scripting
A good presentation goes hand in hand with a good public speaker and a good public speaker weaves a tale with a mastery of words. Most people would dismiss the idea of a prepared script for a presentation, or a presentation with long sentences which end up boring the audience, who would much rather hear you than read along. Here is where Presentation skills come in. A single word or short sentence should ideally be enough to give you direction with your chain of thoughts while making the audience curious.
A script will also help you not to waver off topic and to remember important “big” or technical words, while giving you enough leeway to carry on the presentation without using language that may bore or confuse your audience. So if you were thinking of scripting your presentation word for word, that’s a big no!
Copy-writing
Not to be mistaken with “copyrighting,” copy-writing is defined by Wikipedia as “written content conveyed through online media and print materials.” Copy in this sense means “the content primarily used for the purpose of advertising or marketing. This type of written material is often used to persuade a person or group as well as raise brand awareness.” This means your presentations need to have that “mass appeal” effect that would incline your audience to the matter at hand: your topic.
Designing
In a sea of fonts and colored backgrounds, a good presentation requires the perfect visual stimulation that goes far beyond just those two aspects. Colors and fonts are just the half of it.
There are a variety of online and offline presentation tools available to aid you in making your presentation interactive and eye-catching. A few of them are:
1-Prezi:
With elaborate zoom and transition features a presentation can be changed from a monotonous one slide to the next- kind of presentation to a cinematic experience!
2-Haiku deck:
For those who are challenged with trials of aesthetic options, Haiku Deck offers pre-formed templates that can spare you the trouble of finding the perfect font color for your presentation.
3-Slidedog:
Software that helps you utilize your videos and picture in your presentation that are stored on your device while also allowing them to be shared on different media. Note that this software does not help you create a new presentation, but allows you to transition between multiple presentations, creating a more dynamic and convenient transition for the viewers as well as the presenter.
4- Slide Bureau:
For all you Ipad users, Slide Bureau provides a user-friendly app to create presentations categorized in pre-formed templates according to the type of presentation you want to make.
5-Powtoon:
Software that gives presenters a creative way to present their slides via animations.
Psychology of Cognition
Cognition is the higher mental function of the brain that deals with attention, memory, language interpretation, creativity and thinking. A subcategory of cognition is “Spatial” cognition which relates to the space around us and how we engage with it. How is this relevant to the presentation you are going to make? Well, neurologists have linked spatial cognition with human behavior, which means your presentation has the power to alter the way a person thinks! With great presentations comes great spatial cognitive behavior. So it is important to take into consideration what your presentation is really saying to the people you address and what impact it will have on them and the society in which they live.
“Don’t have all these skills ? Presentation Agencies Do!” Yes, I used one !
In a world of rapidly increasing demands of presentation skills, a Presentation Agency has your back. A presentation agency is team of people which include skilled marketers, storytellers, template designers, project researchers, advertisers and other qualified individuals. They use their in-depth experience of manipulating the psychology of the human mind, and they can guide you through the complicated world of engaging slideshows, helping you to make your presentation make an impression.
And that tight deadline that has you up till 2AM, hyperventilating with anxiety? You no longer have to worry about it. While your brain will only be able to apply itself to individual aspects of making the presentation in a given time, a group of professional brains will work simultaneously to create that masterpiece presentation you hoped for! On average, a presentation would take you at least an entire day or more to plan out, provided you haven’t procrastinated and have done all your homework before hand. Your Presentation Agency can narrow that time down by a few hours, guaranteeing you satisfaction and hours to spare. Can you ask for more? After all, time is money.
No worries
All this pressure set on your shoulders. All these skills you never thought you needed for making just a simple presentation has suddenly piled up on you and may seem overwhelming. YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Where self-assurance fails, a Presentation Agency is just what the doctor prescribed for a stress filled day of presentation making.
Looking for professional presentations? We at wOw specialize in bringing in spark and life to your boring presentations. Share your experiences with us relating to the previous presentation helping team, we assure that your perception will be changed.
At wOw Prezi, we rebel against PowerPoint’s status quo and are in a mission to save the world from deadly PPTs, helping sales teams to transform stiff, slide-based presentations into fruitful, revenue-generating conversations.
Get in touch with our team of Prezi Experts to find how we can help your salespeople thrive with Conversational Presenting and the Power of Storytelling in Sales.
