Presentation skills training course

It is often said that public speaking is the number one fear among most people, beating flying, snakes, insects, and even death. I believe that being able to design and deliver a presentation that people will remember, for the right reasons, is a skill that can make or break a person’s career. As with leadership, some people say, “Oh, Bill’s just a natural born presenter”. I’m not sure that anyone is a ‘natural born’ presenter. But I do believe that anyone can learn to be a masterful presenter. That’s why my colleagues and I designed the Presentation Mastery programme.

This can vary a lot from one presentation skills training to another and the level of the delegates. Some training focuses on what you might call the ‘hard’ side; for example, how to use PowerPoint. Other programmes, like our Presentation Mastery programme focuses more on the presenter themselves and having them feeling absolutely comfortable and congruent when they step up to speak.

Whether delegates like it or not, presentations are now a big part of life; in business, education or personal. Most presentations are remembered. Sadly, few are remembered for the right reasons; where the speaker really makes an impression on their audience, inspiring them to take a certain course of action! Too many of them are boring and dull.

Being able to present your ideas and, critically, yourself in an engaging and entertaining way will mark you out from the usual in many situations, including sales, motivating your team and communicating your vision.

So, one of the major benefits of a presentation skills training programme is that it can enhance delegates’ value, their reputation, their self-confidence and have a big impact on their career whereas a lack of this skill can potentially hold them back.

We have designed our Presentation Mastery programme to have our delegates being comfortable being themselves when they stand up to speak to any audience of any size. We believe that being authentic is an important factor in delivering a talk that people will take notice of and remember.

Part of this involves exploring their beliefs about making presentations, audiences and themselves as a presenter. Over the years we have found that most people have beliefs that limit themselves rather than make them more resourceful.

There are many answers to this particular question. Effective presentation skills include managing your state, being authentic, using a variety of tonality, building rapport, mastering movement and reading the audience.

Again, there are many techniques. During our Presentation Mastery programme we introduce various ways of structuring a presentation to meet the needs and preferences of the audience members. Two of the techniques we introduce our delegates to are the 4MAT system and the IPB (incident, point, benefit) structure.

The 4MAT model explores the need to sell why the audience should pay attention before moving into the actual content of the presentation. Also the need to demonstrate to the audience how they can use what they are learning before closing by asking what if they have any questions.

The IPB structure is designed to use an incident or story and then explain the point of the story before finishing with the audience understanding the benefit they will get from actually getting the point. Both 4MAT and IPB are great structures to use to plan a presentation.

Don’t wing it! Simple!

OK, here’s the problem for presenters. You know how some people say that a particular film was brilliant and yet other people will tell you it’s the worst film they’ve seen? Well, it’s a bit like that with presentations. It’s a very personal thing. That said, a good presentation is one where the presenter really connects with people in the audience and what they say and the way they say it touches them and makes them feel differently so they leave remembering the presentation and, crucially, the presenter that made them feel like that.