Let’s be honest…no one goes to a presentation just for fun. Audience members attend presentations with certain expectations. Their time is valuable, and they want to feel like the presentation is worth their while. Therefore, as presenters spend time carefully selecting their material, they need to spend an equal amount of time ensuring the presentation…

A presentation should last as long as it takes to adequately deliver your message. Furthermore, you need to make sure you adhere to any specific time restrictions. For these reasons, it’s important to know how long your presentation will last so you can plan accordingly and ensure you are not boring your audience to tears.…

Sound and visual aids are a powerful tool that can really enhance your presentation. Words, images, and sounds presented in various forms can appeal to audiences more than just spoken words. In addition, sound and images can help to capture audience interest, illustrate main points, and make a more powerful impact. Images give audiences a…

Chances are many of us can’t remember the last time we didn’t yawn at a conference, talk, or presentation. Perhaps you didn’t get enough sleep the night before or it’s been an exhausting day, but there’s a better chance you are bored to tears. Whatever the reason, yawning is never a good sign for a…

Pre-Presentation: What to Provide Participants with in Advance One of the most critical components in delivering a successful presentation is engaging the audience.  Many presenters spend a great deal of time focusing on how they engage audience members during the presentation, but engagement actually begins before the presentation even starts.  Presenters should take the time…

Tailor Your Look to the Presentation You only have one shot to make a good first impression and an audience’s first impression happens before you ever open your mouth.  The moment you take the stage the audience will take notice of what you are wearing. Whether we like it or not, appearance can heavily influence…

Using Social Media to Connect with Presentation Audiences Many presenters fear that as they are talking the entire audience is going to be ignoring them and staring down at their phones.  This is understandable, given that presenters put a lot of time and hard work into creating their presentation. The trick to solving this problem…

Promotion in Advance: Photo, Flyer, Brochure You have spent countless hours preparing your presentation, from outlining and mapping out what you are going to say to putting together an engaging slideshow.  Now you need to ensure that you have a full audience to hear it. Promoting your presentation in advance is an important component of…

Formal vs. Informal Presentation Style Presentations are a necessary part of business and there will be times when you will be asked to present about a topic.  Sometimes you are given time to prepare a structured presentation and other times you might be asked to give an impromptu presentation with little or no time to…

How Long Should Your Presentation Be? You have just been asked to put together a presentation for your colleagues.  You begin preparing your presentation material when you are suddenly faced with an important question: How long should your presentation be?  You want to make sure you include all of the pertinent information but you don’t…