In today’s business environment it is not enough to do your job well. You have to able to speak with confidence and communicate effectively. Presentations skills are a powerful weapon for gaining a competitive edge. Presenting is a priority skill for every manager. Customers need to understand the benefits of your products and solutions. Project managers need to be made aware of the strengths of a project to support it. Senior management need to be impressed by your ability to persuade.

 

Presenting is a complex blend of knowledge, creativity and masterful performance. You wouldn’t ski down a steep hill unless you are properly trained to coordinate your movements, yet we often see presenters who step out in front of an audience without adequate preparation and training and their performance is a pain both to them and their audience.

 

One of the reasons for a bad presentation is the failure to grasp what the aim is and what a presentation involves in terms of active knowledge, judgment, skills and techniques. On the one hand, we are quite familiar with public speaking and presenting being exposed daily to the various forms of public communication. But on the other, it is only when we assume the leading role of a presenter that we realize the difficulty of juggling the universe of required knowledge and skills in front of a critical audience.