Presentation and Public Speaking Skills: 10 Tips on How to Design and Prepare for a Presentation

Top 10 tips to help you plan, design and prepare your presentation

The next time you’re faced with the daunting prospect of having to write a presentation, try these tips from Skillstudio and you’ll be amazed at how effective they can be in helping you design and prepare a presentation.

1. Prepare Prepare Prepare – The more time you spend preparing your presentation in advance, the more confident you will be on the day.
2. Know your audience. Put yourself in his shoes. What’s in it for them? What understanding do you currently have? Do they want a detailed or strategic level talk from you?
3. What is the key objective you want to achieve by giving this presentation? Make sure this is clear to your audience at the beginning and end of the presentation.
4. Divide your presentation into a beginning, a middle, and an end. Use the middle section to develop your ideas.
5. Remember the power of three. Whenever possible, think of things in threes. for example, three key points to do at the beginning, three key points to develop further in the middle, and three key points to do at the end. Your center can further extend the three points with three additional points each. etc.
6. Brainstorm possible questions your audience will ask you. Prepare responses using the Power of Three.
7. Try using a mind map to help you organize your ideas into logical parts. The clearer your thinking, the easier it should be to understand when you are presenting.
8. Avoid the trap of preparing your presentation at the last possible minute. It will only mean that you lose a night of sleep, the night before the presentation!
9. Guide your audience through your presentation using banners. Summarize what you just covered, and then use rhetorical questions to move on to the next section. Always summarize your main points just before the end of your presentation.
10. Plan to end your presentation with a call to action, a request for a decision, or whatever you think is the most appropriate means of achieving your overall goal.