When sound is shaped by the narrow chambers of a trumpet, it comes out stronger and clearer.
When speech is shaped by good presentation skills, your ideas and personality come out with more punch and impact.
When your presentation skills cause this impact to happen, you are perceived as more capable, more valuable, and more appealing.
And when you are perceived this way, (thanks to your presentation skills) you get listened to, you get promoted, and you get people believing in you. You become a leader.
And then your presentation skills help you make more money, have more challenging work, meet more interesting people, and live a richer life.
And all because you’ve learned that presentation skills are really about three big things.
First, presentation skills are about how you present yourself—your traits and talents. If your communication skills include the ability to be calm and confident when you speak, to keep your head when others are losing theirs, then you are standing out in the crowd.
Second, your presentation skills are about how you organize your information so that it captures and holds the attention of your listeners. What good is talking if people aren’t listening? This means that your presentation skills should include the ability to figure out what your listeners are interested in, and then build your talk around those interests.
Basically, presentation skills can be described as, “Speaking to an audience, in the language of that audience, about what is most important to that audience.”
Third, and most obvious, your presentation skills require that you are an expert in your topic. If you have great presentation skills but lack expertise in your field, you are all show, no substance. Listeners like substance delivered with style, and that’s what great presentation skills are: substance that is meaningful for your audience, delivered with style.
Presentation skills can lead to personal development, and professional advancement, and both those things are rewarding.
My call to action, to anyone who wants to develop themselves and expand their opportunities in life and work, is, “Improve your presentation skills.”
Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, leadership skills, presentation skills, voice training, speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, persuasive speaking, sales training, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.