Tips To Make Your Presentations Impactful
Got a business presentation to make? Looking for ways to add energy, enthusiasm, passion or just variation in your content delivery so that the audience finds your content interesting and engaging?
Body language during presentations is not just limited to looking confident while speaking. There are different ways in which you use effective body language techniques to connect with the audience, evoke a range of emotions or even emphasize key points. Here are a few techniques to get you started:
TIP 1. HAND GESTURES:
Communicating effectively is the key to a successful presentation. This does not mean that the focus is only on content but on body language as well. The use of good and correct hand gestures can help you drive your point home to the audience, and in a manner that helps them remember key points of your content much later on. So if you think keeping your hands locked behind your hands or in your pockets makes you look calm and composed, think again. Just start using your hands when you are explaining and you will be able to see a lot of more interest coming in from your audience. Just ensure that your gestures are not without purpose or too haphazard else they can be distracting. There are different hand gestures meaning differently in different contexts so learn how to use which gesture when and where to create an impact on your audience.
TIP 2. INVOLVE YOUR FEET:
Two quick tips:
One: Ensure that you don’t shift your weight around too much while standing. With practice, you will be able to achieve this, if you are someone who is habituated to shifting because that can be distracting. And second, Crossing your feet on the stage is not a clue that you are closed off to your audience. Can you think about what this really means and whether you can use crossed feet on the stage?
TIP 3. WALKING THE STAGE:
Do you stand at one place and present? Do you move around? Here is the CEO of Hubspot Brian Halligan who uses stage in an efficient way with the help of body language techniques. Use the stage to your advantage, especially when you are speaking for a long duration. You don’t necessarily need to restrict yourself behind the dias, or on one side of your ppt or projector. The only thing to remember when you do decide to walk around is to keep it methodical and smooth.
TIP 4. PLAYING WITH VOICE:
Modulating your voice effectively can send your message very well to your audience. There are a lot of leaders who have played with their voice to sound effective, one of them is Hillary Clinton. She has used voice very well as a presenter to create an impact on her audience and tweak this as per the situation in which she is facing the audience. While business presentations demand that voice modulation not be as dramatic as what politicians use for their speeches, there are still a lot of ways to ensure that your voice does not remain even and drab. If you don’t know how to modulate, just try playing around with different variations and recording yourself to discover what works best for you. Do you want to go soft or loud? Fast or slow? Dramatic or smooth?
TIP 5. TWEAKING STYLE:
You may have seen presenters tweak their presentation style depending on the audience, place or nature of presentation. Tim Cook varies his presentation style very smoothly depending on audience, topic or even place. And this is important, because no one style suits each occasion, each personality, each topic. Learning to experiment is the best way to discover what works best for you in which situation, but remember to experiment in safe place where it is ok to make mistakes and not go experimental in settings where a lot is at stake for you.
LEARN MORE:
If you like the idea of tweaking your style, learning to experiment, adapting strategies from different business leaders, don’t forget to check out our online course Deliver High Impact Presentations where we go into detail about each of these tips and more so that the next time you present, you have your audience hanging on to every word that you say.
