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5 Tips You Need to Apply for a Confident Presentation

The drive to do better exists in everyone, and excelling in presentation delivery is no exception.

Yet it seems that developing confidence, a crucial part of delivery, takes a backseat. To make up for this, presenters just end up putting up a front.

When confidence is just a mask, we eventually slip back to our old habits as soon as the situation that calls for it ends. You effectively stall your presentation skills and never hone real confidence as a result.

You can apply confidence to many other areas in your life, so it makes sense to develop this important skill even outside the context of presentations.

It takes a lot of hard work to become a confident presenter. Get a better look at yourself to see the areas that need your attention so you don’t have to fake it to make it.

1. Awareness

Total awareness of your habits and actions is the first step to knowing yourself better.

Your body language reflects how you feel without you realizing it. Are you constantly shifting your gaze? Do you slouch? Are your hands constantly by your sides?

These gestures don’t display confidence, so learn to change these habits.

Connect with your audience and make them feel involved by establishing eye contact. Good posture will boost your confidence and make you look confident as a result.

Use your hands to persuade your audience and emphasize points in your speech.

2. Observation

Charismatic people project confidence effortlessly.

One of your favorite actors or actresses can serve as an inspiration to develop your presentation style.

However, don’t imitate another person’s speech or delivery style to avoid looking unnatural.

Be yourself, and the audience will react positively to authenticity which improves your audience engagement.

3. Authenticity

Introverts shouldn’t force confidence when they have to give a presentation.

You can still be confident while staying true to yourself.

It will take a lot of preparation and practice in order to mitigate anxiety, but the contemplative nature of introverts help them overcome their hang-ups faster in order to improve.

Due to their limited energy reserves, it’s only crucial that they must plan their actions ahead.

4. Qualifiers

Do you fill in your speech with these words: might, probably, generally, kind of, and mostly?

These words are called qualifiers, and the given examples above express doubt. Use will instead of might, or certainly instead of probably to create a strong and confident argument as necessary.

It‘ll take some time, but speech habits and patterns can be corrected.

5. Expertise

There’s no single, true expert when it comes to reading body language. Nick Morgan, one of America’s top communication coaches, asserts that even you’re much better at reading the body language of people you know than any expert out there.

Don’t overthink how others might interpret your gestures, but be aware that your true intentions can easily be picked up.

This is why faking confidence can be an unreliable tip to follow. You’re constantly trying to be someone else and the audience only needs you to slip up once in order to see through your façade.

Build trust by being confident in your own way.

Confident and Prepared

You should be a lot more relaxed now when you deliver your presentation. Confidence is all about the effort and hard work that you invest in yourself and expressing it naturally.

These tips encourage you to build confidence in a way that will benefit you more in the long run. Don’t settle for a mask of confidence, temporary results don’t last.

Build the right habits and take an honest look at yourself so you can let confidence flow within you.

Once you’ve naturally grown more comfortable under your own skin, it will no longer be necessary to feign confidence.

References

Morgan, Nick. “7 Surprising Truths about Body Language.” Forbes. October 25, 2012. Accessed December 11, 2015. www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorgan/2012/10/25/7-surprising-truths-about-body-language
Perugia, Sarah. “Body Language at Work: How to Connect, Inspire and Project Confidence.”
Qualifiers.TheGuardian. December 10, 2015. Accessed December 11, 2015. www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2015/dec/10/body-language-work-project-confidence
White, Martha C. “4 Extremely Easy Ways to Fake Confidence.” Time. August 18, 2014. Accessed December 11, 2015. http://time.com/3131130/fake-confidence
Winch Ph.d., Guy. “10 Things Passive People Say.” Psychology Today. November 12, 2015. Accessed December 11, 2015. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201511/10-things-passive-people-say

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These are the 5 Presentation Books that Should Be on Your Reading List

Improving your presentation skills will take time, but you can speed up the process through a bit of research. We’ve compiled five presentation books that can help you become the effective communicator you aspire to be. Make some room for these titles on your night stand!

Presentation books focused on content and delivery

1.) Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story‘ by Jerry Weissman

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Jerry Weissman’s book offers readers techniques in content creation and delivery. The title adheres to a strong sense of structure that mirrors the advice it gives. It’s underlying cause is to help readers create meaningful messages that will stay with the audience.

Thirty million presentations will be given today. Millions will fail. Millions more will be received with yawns. A rare few will establish the most profound connection, in which presenter and audience understand each other perfectly…discover common ground… and, together, decide to act.

 In this fully updated edition, Jerry Weissman, the world’s #1 presentation consultant, shows how to connect with even the toughest, most high-level audiences…and move them to action! He teaches presenters of all kinds how to dump those PowerPoint templates once and for all and tell compelling stories that focus on what’s in it for the audience.

 Weissman’s techniques have proven themselves with billions of dollars on the line. Thousands of his elite clients have already mastered them. Now it’s your turn!

2.) The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience‘ by Carmine Gallo

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The presentations Steve Jobs gave for Apple have become benchmarks for great delivery. Carmine Gallo delves into what makes Steve Jobs an effective speaker, and lends practical advice to his readers. In his book, Gallo emphasizes the importance of a good story that connects with the audience.

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s wildly popular presentations have set a new global gold standard—and now this step-by-step guide shows you exactly how to use his crowd-pleasing techniques in your own presentations.

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs is as close as you’ll ever get to having the master presenter himself speak directly in your ear. Communications expert Carmine Gallo has studied and analyzed the very best of Jobs’s performances, offering point-by-point examples, tried-and-true techniques, and proven presentation secrets….

With this revolutionary approach, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to sell your ideas, share your enthusiasm, and wow your audience the Steve Jobs way.

Presentation books focused on design

3.) slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations’ by Nancy Duarte

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Nancy Duarte’s book is a feast for the eyes, which proves that it’s an excellent reference for presentation design. The comprehensive guide is a product of the author’s experience as an industry leader, working with high profile clients like Al Gore.

No matter where you are on the organizational ladder, the odds are high that you’ve delivered a high-stakes presentation to your peers, your boss, your customers, or the general public. Presentation software is one of the few tools that requires professionals to think visually on an almost daily basis. But unlike verbal skills, effective visual expression is not easy, natural, or actively taught in schools or business training programs. slide:ology fills that void.

Written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, this book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. The book combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world’s leading brands…..

Millions of presentations and billions of slides have been produced — and most of them miss the mark. slide:ology will challenge your traditional approach to creating slides by teaching you how to be a visual thinker. And it will help your career by creating momentum for your cause.

4.) Speaking PowerPoint’ by Bruce Gabrielle

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Bruce Gabrielle’s book offers a fresh take on using PowerPoint for business presentations. While it might not be as ‘glitzy’ as Duarte’s book, it offers concrete tips that are useful for the more corporate-oriented reader.

You use PowerPoint at work to create strategic plans, executive briefings, research reports and other boardroom-style slides. But could your slides be clearer, more convincing and built in half the time? You bet!

Learn a new method for business managers who want to use PowerPoint at work to drive strategy. The Mindworks Presentation Method is based on 40 years of research in brain science, instructional design and information design and will help you to

Eliminate time wasters and complete PowerPoint decks three times faster
Enhance your credibility by creating visually pleasing slides using simple graphic design rules
Make complex slides easier to understand and avoid “Death by PowerPoint” forever
Make audiences more likely to agree with you by applying the proven principles of master persuaders

A mix of both worlds

5.)Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery’ by Garr Reynolds

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In this title, Garr Reynolds effectively guides his readers through three aspects of presentation: preparation, design, and delivery. The title refers to his “Zen” presentation philosophy, which advocates a simple and minimalist plan of action.

Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making “slide presentations” in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.

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