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If you have to make presentations but feel like you are held back by a lack of confidence, an upcoming IMechE training course could be for you. Confident Presenting (6-7 November) will help you understand the principles of presenting and engaging an audience, including preparation and the use of visual aids.
The course is led by leadership trainer and coach Andy Webber. Here, he gives five tips to help you present confidently.
Focus on your objective
Do you have a logical structure that makes sense, that begins at the beginning and ends at the end? Have you got a clear objective that you have thought about, and is the entire presentation structured around that objective? You need to be ruthless – rip out anything that is not about the objective, and leave in only the things that help you achieve your objective.
Deliver what the audience needs
Hopefully your objective and the audience need are pretty similar, but they might be slightly different. Think about what the needs of the audience are, and add or strip out content from the presentation based on that.
Something that people get wrong when they're making a presentation is that they include ‘nice little things’ that they like – if its’s not part of the objective or the audience need, get rid of it.
Make it flow
Once you have a structure that works, there are small verbal techniques you can use to make it flow for the audience. One example is signposting, things like “We've covered X, Y and Z, so now we're going to move on to A, B and C.”
It’s like using mini-summaries, which give you a chance to pause for breath – “This is where we've been, this is where we're going.” So people feel like they're on a journey, and they know where they are on that journey.
‘Fake it to make it’
On the course, there are lots of chances to practise and receive feedback. We video it so you can watch yourself back and see your own little ticks and habits that you get into. Then you can start to refine it.
Even if you're feeling a bit nervous, you can remove the body language that makes you appear nervous, so that you look less nervous to others. This will actually make you feel less nervous as well.
Practise – and look for opportunities to present
Like anything on this planet, the more you do it, the more comfortable you feel doing it. If you have got a presentation to deliver, practise in front of a mirror, practise in front of people that will give you feedback – ideally with someone who tells it like it is, and tells you the truth in a nice way.
Equally, it's about looking for opportunities to present more often. The more you do it, the more comfortable it will feel when you’ve got a new presentation to do.
IMechE’s Confident Presenting course runs in London on 6-7 November. Find out more and book on the IMechE training page.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.