Your body language must be congruent. That means that you must express physically what you mean
verbally. You may sometimes notice someone speaking that you do not believe. Question why ? You
will certainly notice that his/her body language does not match what he/she says.  

When presenting, your message must be clear to you, your must agree to the idea, you are confident
that people can understand and you are aware of how important the message is important to the
audience. When developing your PowerPoint presentation, drop any ideas that do not fit such
patterns. If you do not believe in your message, how can you expect the audience to believe what
you will say ?

The whole idea of an entertaining presentation turns into developing various rhythms. The same
applies to your voice. Avoid flat and monotonous delivery. A flat voice is boring ; watch out tone, pace,
intonation. Rushing will say you are nervous. Take a few deep breaths. A smile on the lips put a smile in
the voice. Simply vary your tone, your pace and intonation from time to time. Speak fast at some time,
Speak slowly at other times, speak a bit more loudly at another times etc.

Speak like you would be telling a story to a friend. To avoid flat and monotonous delivery, emphasize
key words in sentences, accelerate the speech at some time. Think also of silence. How much time do
you give your audience to digest what you are saying ?

Take small pauses and see how your audience reacts to it. Are they eager to hear the following words?
Any signs of not understanding the short silence ? When giving silence, keep expressing yourself with
your eyes, a smile , keeping eye contacts. It is also important to keep sentences short, simply because
you may also get yourself lost in long sentences.

If you give the presentation in a foreign language, try to listen to a radio or watch TV in that foreign
language the evening before. Repeat what the speakers say. As seen earlier modelling is a way to
improve.

You should not be learning your text, the only thing you need to memorize is the flow of ideas. That will
help your communication to stay natural. Words will come naturally. Be enthusiastic ! A simple way to
show your enthusiasm is to use descriptive words. A second way to behave with
enthusiasm is to set to yourself goals. Those are my goals which I constantly think about : when building
the presentation, when preparing the presentation, again few minutes before welcoming the
participants : "I want the audience to learn, to enjoy and to have fun, I will solve the problem XYZ that
the participants face". Before taking a road, you must know where you go! Keep repeating those goals
to yourself. Visualize yourself enjoying the presentation, visualize yourself enjoying delivering the
presentation.  Remember a day when you were the most productive at work, certainly when you had a
precise action plan in mind right from the beginning of the day.

We are still missing a major part of a successful presentation :

ü  You are the central point of attention for the audience

ü  The audience is your central point of attention

That comes to create rapport.

Next article : How to create rapport with the participants  

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