Business Presentation Skills

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Business Presentation Skills

• 2002, Edinburgh University
• Presented by Brian Hood
• Representing

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Aims of the training

• Build on existing experience of presenting
• Introduce key concepts of presenting
• Build confidence

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Training content

• Advantages of presenting
• Six steps to presenting effectively
• Common failings of presenters
• WIIFM factor
• Structuring the presentation
• Five key techniques first few minutes
• Visual aids
• Presentations Putting it all into practice!

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Advantages of presenting

• Address the multiple senses
• Increase your credibility
• Effective use of time
• High profile
• Persuasive

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Six steps of presenting effectively

• Decide what your purpose is
• Think about the audience
• Gather data
• Apply suitable structure
• How open?
• How close?

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Common failings of presenters

• Not bold enough
• Rejecting the audience
• Showing nerves
• Poor use of visual aids
• Speaking for too long
• Poor preparation
• Being clever!

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• The WIIFM Factor

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Structuring the presentation

• Tell them what you are going to tell them
• Tell them
• Tell them what you just told them

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Five key techniques

• The interesting fact
• The challenging rhetorical question
• The relevant quotation
• The shared history
• The personal story / your expert opinion!

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First few minutes

• Be aware of
• Negative body language
• The unfunny joke
• The overbearing expert!

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Handling questions...

• Know your audience as best you can
• Recoginse influential/expert members of your
  audience at the outset
• Paraphrase back to ensure understanding
• Answer honestly, get back later if necessary
• Respond in a focused way
• Check you have answered the query

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Visual aids

• Information taken in through the senses

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Visual aids

• Make use of facilities at hand i.e. PowerPoint
• Dont over use the technology
• Make your slides clear and not too detailed
• Utilise other visual aids such as flipcharts,
  whiteboards etc

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Conclusion

• Refining your ability to present will become
  increasingly important every day of your working
  life and is an assessable part of your project.

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Summary

• Advantages of presenting
• Six steps to presenting effectively
• Common failings of presenters
• WIIFM factor
• Structuring the presentation
• Five key techniques first few minutes
• Visual aids

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Presentations Putting it all into practice!

• Split into 3 groups
• Choose a topic you all agree on i.e. the collapse
  of the SPL, The benefits of studying CS at
  Edinburgh University
• Take ½ hour to prepare a short 5 minute
  presentation using acetates
• Identify 1 person to present your topic
• We will then have the three presentations
  followed by feedback from the group and myself
• Remember this is a no risk environment and is
  aimed to give you some practice with the key
  techniques