Present like a Champ - 3 changes you can make to improve your presentation skills

Whether you are a student, a working professional, a parent or a retired professional, the topic we will cover today aims to help you navigate one of the biggest challenges that we all face - the art of delivering a powerful and engaging presentation!

In our day to day lives, there are so many instances where we present our ideas/products and solutions to people with whom we interact. But let’s admit it - public speaking or working on presentations is not an easy task; it can be nerve-wracking for many of us. So, here are some insights, tips and examples from Swati Gupta, Senior Campaign Manager and Soft Skills Guru at Google, that will ease this journey and enable you to deliver presentations in a more dynamic, flexible style.

Did you know? Based on a study done by Albert Mehrabian in the 1970s, there are three important components to any presentation:

1. Content (Verbal)
2. Body Language (Visual)
3. Voice/Tone (Vocal)

Can you guess which matters the most when you present?
It’s all about your body language!

Wait.. What?!
Yes, it does sound counterintuitive, doesn’t it?

We surely spend more than 90% of the time actually working on the content in the presentation, right? The study points out that we should be spending more time rehearsing and practicing our presentation using the voice and the body. Let’s break this down further:

1. Use your Body Language to your advantage.

• Your facial expressions, hand movements and gestures are key to conveying your confidence.

• Say it like you mean it. Show your enthusiasm when you start your conversation: Say ‘Good evening, good to see you all’ as if you mean it (use upbeat voice, open body language with good eye contact).

2. Use your voice effectively - establish intent, pace yourself well.

Your voice is the second most powerful item in your communication toolkit. Remember to adjust your tone based on your topic.

• Use your voice to establish the right pace, pause at the right time.
  • Pace yourself - Go slow
  • Enunciate better - helps the audience to understand you
  • Allow yourself to breathe
  • Pause - Your message is not simply conveyed by your words, but also by your pauses. Remembering to pause also helps you to use less filler words.

• Use your voice to establish intent and connect with the audience on an emotional level. When we focus on our intent, we naturally change our tone of voice. Your pitch, energy, volume, tonality, etc. change with your intent. To draw an analogy, think about making a cake - If you took just ‘logical’ ingredients for a cake (flour, eggs) it would still be a cake - but a plain one. Add in some emotional elements (chocolate, marshmallows) and you have a delicious one! Think of your intentions as cake ingredients.
• Practice makes you perfect. Communicate often, use everyday interactions to help improve your communications. Some ideas to accomplish this:
  • Share a personal story to build a tighter connection with the listener.
  • Reassure someone, make them feel safe and protected.
  • Practice storytelling. Try telling a story to kids, and try to keep them engaged until the end.

3. Content that is structured, lucid and uses simple language wins the crowd. Creating a structure is always important, so focus on the core messages that you want to deliver. Here are some ways to bring structure to your presentation:

• Have a mental map of the 2-3 main points that you are going to talk about, and move from one point to the other during the presentation. You can use visual cues (like your fingers) when moving from one point to the other.
• Briefly preview to the audience what you'll be discussing, then proceed with your main presentation, and share the key takeaways at the end of the presentation.
• Presenting with slides: If you’re using slides, here are some tips to make your content engaging:
  • Use white space
  • 1 idea per slide, unlimited number of slides
  • Size matters, make it big if it’s important
  • Use steps to show complex concepts or to advance through your narrative
  • Hide or Fade out what is not currently being discussed
  • You don’t need a template
  • Use metaphors and illustrations to simplify ideas
  • When using GIFs, use an empty slide afterwards to keep the audience's attention

• Use weekend language to simplify your content. When we’re with family and friends our language tends to be simple, clear, interesting and conversational. We use examples, anecdotes and analogies But our weekday, business language is typically full of technical terms, acronyms and jargon

We hope that these practical fundamentals of presentation tips from Swati Gupta will assist you as much as they have helped us in our day-to-day meetings. Our community members who attended the live session told us that the session helped them structure their thoughts better and be more confident while presenting in front of large audiences.

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On Air with Crowdsource is a series of virtual learning sessions with Googlers about a variety of topics. These sessions help our influencers and top contributors from around the world to build their knowledge and skill sets through practical learning. Due to the overwhelming positive response that these sessions have received, we’re super excited to now make this content available to all of our readers.