5 Steps in Preparing a Presentation
If you have to prepare a presentation but do not have enough experience in this matter, you found this article at the right time.
Preparing a presentation may seem easy, but there are quite a few points that are very important to consider when designing and creating slides.
We have collected the best recommendations to help you make your presentation more harmonious, useful and memorable.
In this article, we will also tell you what should you avoid in any case, and this will help you avoid mistakes and possible misunderstandings with the audience. If you are ready to absorb information, then let’s not delay!
Planning Your Presentation
A presentation is considered successful only if it entirely covers the purpose of the project and can convey precisely what the author planned to share with the audience.
For this, both the slides’ shape and the content are essential. For your presentation to be thoughtful, structured and understandable, you should start with planning. Several essential steps are included here, which we will discuss in detail.
Step 1. Analyze your audience
Audience analysis is essential. You need to precisely understand who you will interact with and for whom you will provide information.
Try to find out more about the values of your audience, their social status, worldview and attitude towards your topic.
By educating yourself on these subjects, you will understand the tone of your presentation, what topics you can avoid, and what issues you must focus on.
Step 2. Select a topic
You must clearly formulate and present the topic of your talk.
This should be a specific sentence, preferably small in size, but accurately describing what will be discussed.
You should avoid unclear topics and add only specifics and essential aspects of the topic and its description.
Step 3. Define the objective of the presentation
After you have formed the topic of your talk, it is essential to define its purpose. It includes determining the overall meaning of your presentation and why you are speaking about it.
You need to understand what thoughts or ideas you want to form in the mindset of your listeners and viewers.
Clearly and briefly formulate this objective in one sentence. It will help you find the right tools to achieve this goal.
Preparing the Content of Your Presentation
After going through the first three points of this step-by-step instruction, you will already roughly understand what kind of content should be in your slides.
But a rough understanding is just the beginning. The content should also be high-quality, useful, informative and up-to-date. To bring all of these four factors together, let’s move on to step 4.
Step 4: Prepare the body of the presentation
The most critical factor in a presentation is its main part. Here you should collect all the studied data, connect the topic and the goal, and important content such as:
- Data and hard facts that support your ideas
- Quotes and direct speeches of famous experts on your topic
- Description of personal research or experience
- Illustrations, graphics and visualization of your words
- Bright accents and interesting facts on your topic
While you select all the necessary information, try not to oversaturate the presentation with complex concepts and make sure to explain your points clearly.
So, make sure that the audience does not get tired and lose interest. Try to switch the audience’s attention to something else if you feel this might happen.
You must also pay attention to the visuals. Choose nice colors, interesting and readable fonts, combine text slides and pictures and stick to the same style throughout your presentation.
This will significantly help your templates for future presentations. For example, on the MasterBundles platform, there are countless templates, and you can definitely find an option suitable for yourself.
Also, this resource is pretty useful because you can find templates for any topic and specialized field, be it design, real estate or jurisprudence. Stylish designs will not leave anyone indifferent.
Step 5: Prepare the introduction and conclusion
Not only is the main body worth paying particular attention to, but also you must also pay attention to the two pillars of your presentation: the introduction and the conclusion.
There is an opinion that this part of the presentation should be deposited in the minds of the audience the most. In the introduction, you should describe what you will discuss while at the same time engaging the public.
You can start with a joke or a small greeting to relax people and encourage them to take in further information.
In your conclusion, it is worth summing up everything you have said before, highlighting a few basic thoughts and ensuring that everyone understood your information the way you wanted to present it.
Practicing and Delivering
After your presentation is ready, it is crucial to understand how to present it and describe specific facts. To do this, you need to move on to the final step that is practicing.
Step 6: Practice delivering the presentation
Having spent a considerable amount of time and effort on preparation, you can quickly, in one stroke, lubricate your whole work by checking if the speech is incorrect or not of high quality. Many will consider this a useless item, but we think otherwise.
By having such a “rehearsing” of the main show, you help yourself eradicate many speech defects and repetitions and possibly remove unnecessary and useless information.
And of course, you will feel much more confident, which means that others will be able to feel this confidence. Here’s some advice, which can help you make your presentation more relevant:
- It is not necessary to completely read what is written on the slide with accuracy – describe it in other words.
- Create a separate outline for yourself and focus on it during your presentation.
- If you rely on your memory and do not want to use the tools at hand, then be sure that you are 100% guided by the topic.
These small but important tips will help you create great material and powerful performance. Follow all points carefully, and your success will be impossible to dispute.