Develop Your Presentation Skills From Beginning to End

There are three important elements to every presentation; the beginning, the middle and the end. Most of us spend a lot of time on the meat and potatoes of our presentation or the middle but fail to realize the importance of the opening and the close. By attending a professional presentation training seminar, you will learn about how to create a winning beginning and end that will dramatically increase your presentation impact.

The beginning of your talk or presentation is an opportunity to hook the audience. This equates to a level of engagement that keeps the audience listening attentively to the rest of your remarks. The hook can be any number of strategies but top choices that are most persuasive include: a statistic, a question, an anecdote, a number or a fact. Try combining two or three hooks together to draw in your listeners by illustrating a dilemma or problem they face. Then once they're hooked follow up with how your presentation will solve the dilemma they face; this is often known as the solution. The beginning is also a the time to share your credentials and why you are an expert on your presentation topic. Use the beginning to identify the 3 core elements of your presentation to alert listeners to what they'll learn in the middle. And of course use the beginning to explicitly identify what the listener will gain by sitting through the entire talk.

The middle of the presentation is where you share the bulk of your remarks. Keep the middle organized by using three key points, as introduced in your beginning. Remember to expand on each point and talk in an open relaxed manner but always bring your remarks back to the overall theme or solution that you introduced in the beginning. The middle can be expanded in length to suit the situation but should always be clear and focused on your overall solution or theme.

The end is the time to tie all your remarks back to your original purpose. What was the hook you shared at the beginning? Now may be a good time to mention it again to remind listeners of how you started the session. Also take time to revisit the theme and the three key elements that you discussed. Overall, the end is the time to highlight how your session not only provided a solution to the dilemma faced by the group, but how your key points all contributed to a great take-away gained by those who attended.

All in all, a good beginning and ending can serve as valuable bookends which add immeasurably to your presentation and public speaking skills! Learn more about how to master your presentation skills at http://boldnewdirections.com/home/section/92/free_presentation_skills_report

Suzanne Guthrie is a presenter and a speaker. She is also the Director of Transformational Learning at Bold New Directions, a global learning company committed to helping others improve their communication, leadership and resilience in the workplace. You can learn more about Suzanne Guthrie and the training programs at Bold New Directions via their website at http://boldnewdirections.com/