It was hectic day for me. I was taking presentation examinations of trainees. They were given topic for presentations before around 3 months and they have been told to make power point presentation on these topics for duration of 7 minutes. We made arrangements of video shooting (Sony Handycam and LED lights) to get understanding to trainees where actually they are making mistakes.
After exhaustive exercise of 4.5 hours of shooting, I felt that I should make them aware about where they are making mistakes. This is purpose of writing this article.
Ground rule for any presentation is understanding your audience. Style of presentation differs when you are making presentation of any product or service for your company, or making presentation for public or for trainees.
Here are six mistakes that people usually do while presentation.
1. Not following the standard presentation template
Many times when we are working with organization, they have their own template for power point. Templates in Microsoft power point are different type of file which has font, font size, design and many such settings included in it. Whenever, we are making our presentation, we must go to design menu of program and add this template so that your slides will automatically get formatting of that template. Many people make mistakes here. They change font, font size and many such things. Generally, if you are making presentation then your font size should be ideally 18 and above. Fonts such as Arial, or Sans Serif or Verdana work well here,
2. Adding too much data in presentation
Many people don’t understand difference between presentation and writing a book or article. They put or just do copy paste of all data from book or articles and even do not do bullet list of these points. Ideally, a viewer or your audience has capacity to read around 5-7 points on slide and that too not full length sentences. If you overcrowd the slides, they become tedious exercise to audience. They have to listen you and also read the screen. This makes them tired.
3. Wrong pronunciation
This occurs due to less practice or even when you copied presentation from elsewhere on internet or to be precise slideshare.com Remember, presentations on the net are copyrighted and copying without permission and using them will incur copyright infrigement lawsuit. If you have prepared slideset of your own then do practice of reading slides louder at least three times to get right pronunciation. Even some people do mistake of cutting sentences or taking pauses at wrong intervals. This indicates that your understanding of English is worst.
4. Lack of content
Lack of content makes ruins the show. If you do not have enough data to present, then it will not meet the timeline and it will give feeling to audience, that you are just a time passer guy.
5. Lack of non verbal communication (poor body language)
Many people are not serious of presentation. They move their heads or body continuously while presentation is going on. Some of them, do play with ornaments or accessories they are wearing or even some do play with shirt cuffs. This indicates lack of confidence and diverts audience to look at that act. Not paying attention at audience and just reading slides from the screen also makes audience noise. Non verbal communication also includes gestures and postures. Right gestures and postures increase quality presentation. Sometimes, you go in audience to ask questions. Many people grade the answers of audience by Great, Good or Better. Such grading may create bad impact on others who have not answered well. Instead of this, use of "Thank You" is sufficient.
6. Improper grooming
Improper grooming can create blunders in presentation. We will see how grooming helps both men and women.
In case of men, grooming starts right from suitable haircut, beard, clothing, shoes, and other accessories. Finding a right haircut for you is difficult task. Generally, people with curly hairs need to make hair cut that is not too long in length and appropriately managed. For straight / silky hairs, cutting them with slightly less on the back and sides and more on the top will give good look. Whereas, for those with wavy hairs, having undercut with sides and back trimmed and more hairs on the top gives excellent look. "Beard is the new sexy" now a days. Having right beard is also the key. You need to experiment for both hair cut and beard. Beard must be properly groomed. For men with oblong or box cut face, beard gives excellent look to personality. If you have chiseled jawline, then beard is the best option for you. Of course, if you do not get beard at all or get stubble kind of beard, maintain clean shaved appearance.
In case of women, proper hairstyle that suits your face is important. If you are not comfortable in the look that straightening of hair provides you or even you cannot manage straightened hairs; don’t go for it. Maintain natural hairs as it is.
Piercing in ear or nose might be issue in certain cultures. However, in Indian culture, wearing diamond or gold studs for men and wearing earrings or Zumka for women is quite common. It is your choice to take decision of go or no go.
Now it comes for the dressing sense. Men need to have either of three basic suits in their wardrobe, they are black, grey and blue. With these suits, you can make different combinations.
Tie is needed of course. Remember, colour of the tie should be darker than that of your shirt colour. Sometimes, contrasts also pair well.
You need to have black and brown shoes and matching belt as well to pair with them.
For women, wearing formal dress (suit and formal dresses) could be fine only if you are able to manage them. Many Indian women can not manage these and look uncomfortable while doing presentation. Hence, wear Salwar Kameez or even Saree while performing presentation. Here, you need to remember matching or pairing of proper accessories. Long necklaces like stone necklaces do not give good looks at least at the time of presentation.
Watches, although many people do not prefer to use (as we have smart phones and health bands on the wrist), but they are essential part of grooming. Wearing a professional watch (especially, Titan or Timex) can add value to your look. Wearing Casio kind of sports watches deteriorate your personality.
Conclusion
To conclude, presentation is art and science. For making best presentation, you need to follow principle, "Practice ! Practice and Practice !" Also mentoring from people will also help. I do take such sessions for personal grooming and presentation skills which has helped hundreds of people to achieve success in lives. Even due to this, many of students are working as trainers in their organisation.
Following principles outlined above will definitely help you to achieve success using presentation skills.
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