the most important part of preparing for an oral presentation is the ability to listen and pay attention.
The question is how to listen and pay attention so that you don’t forget. If you’re preparing for an oral presentation or a technical paper, you obviously get paid to do that. But do you have to do it like a professional? Of course you don’t.
If youre planning on giving an oral presentation, you might think youre a big shot. But youre not. In fact, youre not really even that. Sure I got paid for it, but Ive been paying attention all along. The key is to pay attention so that your presentation is as good as it can be. Like I said, the right audience will pick up on it, and that’s the important thing.
It’s a lot easier to do a technical presentation if you are in a room full of people. If you’re getting an audience, then you’re a very good person. If you are a small business owner, then you are a very good person. But unless your presentation is a bit overpriced, if you are a big business owner, then you might not be able to get a presentation in the way you want.
My advice is to get an audience. Even if it is just your co-worker who has to wait in a line to see you, that is a good audience to work with. I have found that if you have a presentation under way and you’re not sure if your audience is there, then you can just send an email to your audience and ask them to come to your room. The best thing about getting an audience is that they are more likely to listen.
When you have a presentation under way, your goal is to make sure that your audience is there. Of course, if you are an expert in whatever subject you are discussing, then you can make sure that your audience is there too by sitting in the room with them. But if you are not an expert, you are basically “showing” your audience what you are up to, and they will probably only listen to you if you are already speaking.
While you can’t expect that your audience will be all-knowing, they can at least provide some input. Most good presentations have a presenter speaking while a small group of people listen. If you are the presenter, then you may find that your audience is more likely to focus on what you are saying. They might decide that it is best to just stick around and listen.
In a presentation you are presenting, you take a couple of steps at a time. First, you have to make sure that your audience is in the right mindset. If they don’t hear you, then they won’t. Second, you have to make sure that you are introducing a new concept. You could probably tell a new person to “go ahead and build a new idea.” But you don’t want to create a fake audience.
Everyone wants to hear you. Thats why your introduction is so important. You want to make sure that your audience is listening. This is the part of the presentation where you start to build the relationship. It could be that the audience is all on board with what you are about to tell them. Or it could be that you have to explain something you were just about to say. Either way, make sure you are setting the stage.
You probably want to build your audience so that they are listening, and that you are trying to tell them something they want to hear. Sometimes the best advice in life is the simplest.
