The New Face of Presentation Skills

Some of you may have had this experience: You are standing back stage at your association's annual conference ready to walk out and deliver the opening speech to the general assembly. On cue, you walk out to face 1,200 people waiting to be entertained, informed and inspired. But not to worry, you've had plenty of training in the art of giving good speeches; so you smile at the audience and begin �

But more likely, you have had this experience: You're walking down the hall on your way to a meeting and your boss stops you long enough to tell you that the Board of Directors is meeting next week to consider the new building proposal. Since you are one of the leads in this project, you'll need to prepare and give a presentation to the Board.

Gone are the days when the need for good presentation skills applies only to the person standing in front of 1,200 people; rather, good presentation skills are required of the 1,200 people in the audience.

Consider the following:

Team Meetings: Your team can meet as a group only once week and it is your job to make sure the most relevant information is delivered in the most effective manner in the time you have to deliver it. Sure, you will meet with individuals and groups during the week, but this is your only chance to meet with the team together, and what you say and how you say it has to be good.

It's all about presentation skills.

Conferences: Your company holds a yearly conference. Keynotes are given by the executive staff and break out sessions are led by key employees. It's the one opportunity a year to connect face to face with customers and all sessions must be good.

It's all about presentation skills.

Meetings: You are a project lead and you serve at the will of the Joint Committee. At any time you can be called in to give a project report. You have only ten minutes to report on a project to which you and a staff of five devote their entire time. After (and usually during) the report, which is nearly impossible to deliver in ten minutes, you are peppered with questions.

It's all about presentation skills.

Professional Organizations: As a community volunteer you have been involved with the city's very expensive and very impressive park development and beautification project. Several professional organizations in the city are interested in this project and have asked you to present at their monthly meetings.

It's all about presentation skills.

In the situations described above, some people will be great, some will be good and yet others will muddle their way through. But why muddle when you can be good; and why be just good when you could be great? And is it really important to be a great presenter or speaker? What are the benefits of being great?

First, the ability to present or speak well creates an effective work group. People understand the information and direction and work gets done. Good presentation is directly related to accomplishment.

Second, good presentation saves time. When people understand information and direction, time is saved and thus created for additional accomplishment. You get more done in the time you have to do it.

The need for good presentation is everywhere; learn to present well, use it and benefit from it.

Published At: Isnare Free Articles Directory http://www.isnare.com

Paula Pace is an award winning speaker, trainer and consultant who has trained extensively across the US and Canada. She uses stories, examples and humor to engage and invite her audience into the learning experience. Be sure to look for her latest Presentation Skills Tips weekly for new ideas.

4 Myths You Need To Avoid About Public Speaking

No matter what profession you are in, you will have to face the fact that there will be advantages and disadvantages to working in the field. Not only will there be pros and cons, but there will also be false stories, untruths, or myths, depending on how you wish to describe it, that will be a part of the field as well. People will tell you reasons why you can't do that or why you shouldn't. Every one of those untruths or myths Is designed for one purpose: to scare you from getting into it, because the person Is jealous or envious of you. If you are planning on becoming a public speaker, you may as well know the myths and the real truth behind them.

Myth #1: You have to be educated to be a public speaker.

This is further from the truth. There are public speakers who make an average of 10 to 20 million dollars a year on public speaking and don't even have a college education. They may have graduated from high school. If they did go to college, it was just to get a BS in some chosen subject. otherwise, you do not need special skills to be a public speaker, other than the willingness, desire, and determination to speak in front of people.

Myth #2: You have to be a great speaker in order to stand up in front of people to speak.

This is an outright lie. You don't need to be great. All you need is a message and the willingness to deliver that message to your audience. It doesn't matter if you do outrageous things while on the podium. You can drink water, stand up on a chair, lean on the podium, or walk around the room. It doesn't matter what you do, as long as the content you deliver is what the audience came to hear, that really is what's important.

Myth #3: You have to change who you are to speak.

This is the most ridiculous myth to ever come out of any one person's mouth. The fact Is you do not have to change anything. So what you talk with a lisp or an accent. The audience will relate to you if you do have some kind of idiosyncrasy, for they will know you are a part of them. You are simply there to give a speech. You are there to help them, by delivering a message they came to hear.

Myth #4: You have to work hard to be a public speaker.

You do not have to work harder. You have to work right first. You may think that working smart will get you to where you are going. This may be true, but if you are not working right first, you won't accomplish your goals no matter what you do. In order to be a great public speaker, you have to know what is involved and follow the steps the right way. This means providing the right type of delivery and performing all the steps related to proper public speaking.

If you are planning to go into public speaking, a word of advice. Do not listen to the myths and untruths from people who do not know what they are talking about. Instead, learn your art the right way, and do it right from the beginning. By so doing, everything else will fall into place.

http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com is where you can find over 100+ hours of downloadable audio and video lessons that will show you how to make $100,000 to $1,000,000 dollars PER YEAR as a professional speaker. James Malinchak, the author of this article can be your online business coach and mentor. Simply visit http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com to get started today with several FREE professional speaking audio recordings.

James Malinchak of www.GetSpeakingJobs.com has delivered over 2,200 motivational presentations at conferences and meetings worldwide. Currently, James owns three businesses, has authored eight books, and has read and researched over 1,500 books on personal and professional development, making him the top public speaking business coach in the world.

Making Yourself Memorable: Create A Stunning Powerpoint Presentation

id you know that using a PowerPoint presentation can be one of the most effective ways to address a large group of people? With such a variety of learning styles, using a visual presentation allows you to reach a large group of people � particularly those who need to see it to believe it. What better way than to create a stunning PowerPoint presentation?

Have the data, but lacking that polished finish? A good way to start is to look at templates to get an idea of which style suits you and your presentation. By accessing numerous templates at http://Microsoft.com you be able to create stunning presentations. Looking at an individual slide or downloading an entire sample presentation can inspire you to be more creative with the content that you include in your own presentation. There are many charts and diagrams in different templates that can really spark your creativity and give you additional ideas to give your presentation a professional look. While looking through the samples, consider that if you are wowed by the slides, graphics, or charts, your audience probably will be too.

What works? There is no magic formula, but there are amazing presentations. With the ability to create almost anything imaginable, there is no limit to what can be included in your presentations. Vibrant colours, sleek graphics and stylish photographs all contribute to making a great presentation even better.

What does not work? Avoid the overuse of clip-art. Although there is some good quality clip-art out there, too much in a presentation can be distracting and give it an unpolished, unprofessional look. That is not to say that there isn't a time and a place for a cleverly placed clip-art picture. Another thing to watch out for is wordiness � before adding a slide filled with text, consider adding the supplemental information in a handout.

Handouts are another great idea because you are providing your participants with additional information which adds value to your presentation. The added bonus of using handouts is that you are giving your participants additional information, which includes your contact information (a great instrument for making new connections and contacts).

Try to tie in visual cues that will help people remember and associate images with you or your company. The key is to make yourself, your presentation, and your information valuable and memorable.

Published At: Isnare Free Articles Directory http://www.isnare.com

Christina is the owner of Online Office Assistants, with specialties in PowerPoint presentations and many other areas. Working as a Virtual Assistant for over a year, Christina also has an extensive background in advertising, human resources, sales, and customer service. Visit Online Office Assistants website at http://www.officeassist.ca.

How to Search Text in Presentation in PowerPoint Without Opening the File

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Sam_Miller]Sam Miller

PowerPoint is a very useful program not only for students but also for professionals. This is one of the most used when it comes to offering the presentation for an upcoming project or for reports. This is why it is indeed very functional particularly because it has a lot of features that will enable a person to make his presentations even more respectable and meaningful. Now, if you have a lot of slides in a single presentation it can be quite a challenge to search text in presentation. Sure, you can manually go over the slides yourself and find the texts that you are looking for. However, this is obviously something that is really time consuming not to mention difficult. What if you have hundreds of slides in that single presentation? You cannot go over each and every one of them just to find a solitary text. In addition, what if you need to find several texts? You will have to repeat the same process again and again.

However, there is always an easier way. In order to search text in presentation, you can do this simply in PowerPoint. First, find the Edit menu in the Standard toolbar. Then, you can click on "Find." A dialogue box will appear wherein you should fill it up. First in the Find what box, you should enter the texts that you want to look for. After that, you can press the button for "Find Next" If you change your mind, you can stop the search by simply pressing the ESC key in your keyboard. As an alternative, you can click on the close button from the dialogue box. Now, you can just repeat the process when you want to search for another text again.

What is great about this is that you do not have to download or purchase another program just to find text in your PowerPoint presentation. It does not matter how many slides you have since you can easily perform the task of searching the characters you need. You also do not have to worry about how long the texts are that you are searching for due to the fact that there is no limit in the number of characters that you can type in the "Find what" box. You can also customize the way you find the strings according toy our preferences. Indeed, finding the texts inside the presentation has never been this easy.

Aside from finding the characters that you need, you can also make a replacement automatically without having to go through the whole presentation itself. To do this, you can click on the Edit menu where you will find the Replace option. In the Find what box, type the text that you want to look for. Here, you will also see the "Replace with" box where you should enter the characters that you want to substitute for those that are in the other box. You can choose to replace one by one or everything that is applicable. Now, you can find and also replace the texts in your presentation easily.

If you are interested in Search text in presentation, check this web-site to learn more about PowerPoint presentation.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Search-Text-in-Presentation-in-PowerPoint-Without-Opening-the-File&id=3449932] How to Search Text in Presentation in PowerPoint Without Opening the File

Presentation Skills - Making Sure That You Don't Lose 'em at the Turn

Sneak into a business meeting or a presentation of any kind and observe the audience. If the person on stage has excellent presentation skills, the audience will be held in rapt attention, possibly leaning forward and waiting for the next salient point to be given and expounded on. They are bright-eyed and possibly flushed faced, as if they have just finished having a great laugh. Or, they are almost holding their breath, waiting for the punch line to be delivered to whatever amusing set-up the presenter is leading them to.

You should know that as a presenter you are taking the people in front of you on a journey that they may not have wanted to go on in the first place but at the end are glad they did. Your goal is to get most of the people you are looking at to the same place without losing anyone at the first turn in the presentation. Excellent presentation skills are like the road map, the presentation is the journey, and you, my friend, are the driver.

Everyone who has had to speak in front of two strangers, twenty, a hundred of them, knows the old adage that you ease them into the conversation with a joke. It is like the bait that you are using to lure them in; the golden ticket you wave that promises more fun and adventure for the rest of the journey. Knowing that to be true, keep in mind that you can lose your audience, if you don't present your joke tastefully!

Make sure that you consider the tone of the message you will be presenting, the type of people who will make up the majority of your audience and what your message is going to accomplish. Making a joke about the economy just before the president of a company comes up to tell everyone that they are losing their job is in poor taste. So is making a rather blue joke, to a room full of nuns. Know the underlying message and know your audience. Remember the analogy of the destination: Make sure that you know where you are going and who you will be taking with you along the way.

Another thought to keep in mind while working on your presentation is the way that you come across, no matter what your lips are saying. A crowd of people come out of an auditorium all with the same comment-the presenter seemed nice enough but gee, what a creepy guy. Talk about an oxymoron. So, either the people thought you were a nice guy but a little creepy or the general consensus is that you are creepy but the people are too nice to just say that outright. Make sure that the message you are conveying with your facial expressions and body language is directly related to the message you are speaking out loud.

Practice keeping your presentation flowing.

Set a time for the speech, setting aside a few minutes for questions or comments unless you are expressly asked not to do so. Time the speech several times, making sure that you hold for applause or laughter at the relevant spots (whether you get these validations for real, will depend on your presentation expertise when you are on stage) and then look at the final time. Are you over or under the estimated time by very much? If you are, do you think that your estimation was the cause or do you think you need to work on delivery? Practice your presentation several times, making sure that you pay careful attention to the way you sound. If you sound like you are rushing things, then slow down. If you sound like you have just been tranquilized, then pick up the pace. The key is a nice even flow, and smooth travel so that your passengers travel in first class, all the way and look forward to the next trip they get to take with you and your presentation.

This article has been provided by David Folkman. If you found the article beneficial please visit YourPresentationSkills.com for further presentation skills help and a complementary eBook to help you become a fantastic presenter.