Don’t Present Without These 16 PowerPoint Dos and Don’ts
Table of Contents
Have you ever struggled to hold your audience’s interest during a presentation? Painstakingly created slide after slide only to be met with bored, disengaged faces?
Even the most confident speakers can falter when it comes to crafting compelling PowerPoint decks. Without proper slide design best practices, it’s easy to lose your audience in a sea of dense text, chaotic graphics, and disorganized content.
You don’t have to suffer through presenting lackluster slides anymore. In fact, following simple PowerPoint best practices can totally transform your deck from meh to marvelous.
In this post, we’ll share 16 PowerPoint dos and don’ts to level up your presentations and captivate audiences. These tips will help you create professional, visually striking slides your viewers will remember.
16 Dos And Don’ts Of Powerpoint Presentations
Here are some important 16 presentation dos and don’ts you need to keep in mind while creating slides and presenting them.
PowerPoint Dos
Let’s start with the best practices and strategies to implement when designing PowerPoint presentations . What techniques should you use to create memorable, polished slides?
1. Keep It Simple With Minimalist Design
Let’s start with a common mistake – overcrowded, distracting slide design. We get the temptation to tart up slides with fancy backgrounds. But resist the urge! Fancy templates with complex colored patterns or photos unrelated to your content just make it harder to digest key information.
Instead, embrace the power of simplicity. Stick to minimalist templates and avoid template themes with extra decorations. Use neutral backgrounds and empty negative space to let your content shine. Remember, your audience came for your message, not for clip art kittens. Keep slides clean and attention stays where it should be.
2. Cut the Clutter – Follow the 6×6 Rule
Now for another slide buzzkill – mammoth blocks of dense text. You may be tempted to pack slides with long sentences and paragraphs. Don’t give in! Text-heavy slides are guaranteed to lose audiences fast.
For easy-to-digest nuggets, follow the handy 6×6 rule. Limit slides to just 6 lines of text maximum, with each line containing 6 words max. Anything more turns into an overwhelming wall of words.
Stick to concise phrases, short sentences, and bulleted lists. Use just keywords and supporting stats – leave nonessential info out. With this less is more approach, key points will stick better.
SlidesAI is a text-to-presentation add-on tool that converts walls of text into beautiful slides. It does this automatically generate condensed phrases and bullet points from your text ensuring clutter-free slides throughout your presentation.
3. Boost Engagement With Quality Visuals
Speaking of key points sticking better…you know what helps even more? Quality graphics and visuals!
Research shows we process images 60,000 times faster than text. So reinforce your points with strong visuals. Use high-resolution photos, charts, illustrations, and infographics. But avoid clipart or random stock photos – ensure every graphic clearly supports your narrative.
Well-designed visuals make presentations more memorable and engaging. Just remember to optimize graphics for high-resolution viewing and include alt-text (alternative text) descriptions for accessibility. Then watch those visual aids boost information retention and audience interest.
SlidesAI has a library of 1.5M high-quality premium stock images that you can select and include in your slides.
4. Create Brand Consistency With Formatting
Imagine a presentation where every slide had a totally different layout, colors, and font… no visual consistency at all. It would look sloppy and amateurish, right?
Formatting matters – big time! Brand your presentation by using consistent design elements throughout all your slides.
Pick one professional font combination and stick to it. Limit your color palette to 2-3 colors max. Maintain alignment and space elements consistently.
With unified branding, your deck will feel polished, intentional, and visually pleasing. Bonus – consistent branding also boosts memorability as the audience becomes familiar with your “look”.
SlidesAI ensures complete branding consistency across all presentation slides by applying your color schemes , fonts, etc to designs through artificial intelligence.
5. Check Accessibility Settings
Speaking of memorability, if some audience members can’t actually view your slides, they certainly won’t remember your message.
Ensure your presentation is inclusive and accessible to all by checking key settings. Use color contrast and legible fonts so those with visual impairments can still grasp the content. Optimize images with alt text descriptions. Verify videos are captioned.
It may take a bit more effort up front but making your presentation accessible opens your message to a wider audience. It also demonstrates corporate responsibility.
6. Create Custom Icons and Illustrations
Most PowerPoint templates come with generic icons. However, you can amplify brand personality and memorability by creating custom icons and simple illustrations.
Don’t just use a generic checkmark when you can insert your own branded indicator relevant to your company. Design illustrated characters to represent concepts. Even use emojis strategically to inject fun and improve recall.
Handcrafted visuals, even if basic in style, make presentations stand out and drive home key points better than generic clip art ever could.
7. Use Subtle Animations – But Not Too Many!
Animations, when used well, can help guide the audience’s eye and transition between ideas smoothly. Emphasize key points and important transitions with subtle animations.
Entrance and exit effects can focus attention while builds and motion path animations can demonstrate processes dynamically. Use sparingly and subtly for the best impact.
But avoid going animation crazy with sounds and excessive movement. That becomes more distracting than engaging. Limit animations so they enhance content rather than detract.
8. Pace Your Delivery
Creating stellar slides is an excellent start but don’t stop there. The live delivery is just as crucial. Invest time practicing your presentation with your slides.
Rehearse the flow and pace of your narrative. Refine and memorize transitions between slides . Nail your timing to keep the audience engaged. Get so comfortable delivering your content that the slides become natural visual aids.
With great slides and honed delivery skills, your audience will hang on to your every word from the introduction to a powerful conclusion.
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PowerPoint Donts
Just as important as the dos are the don’ts. What pitfalls should you avoid when designing PowerPoint presentations?
9. Don’t Use Distracting Backgrounds
Remember our tip to embrace minimalism? Well, the opposite is using distracting backgrounds. Avoid loud colors, complex patterns, or images totally unrelated to your content. At best, they are distracting. At worst, they make key info harder to comprehend.
Stick to simple, neutral backgrounds. If using an image, ensure it directly reinforces your narrative. Anything extra risks your message getting visually lost. Keep backgrounds clean so content remains the focal point.
SlidesAI avoids using distracting backgrounds like crowded templates or unrelated images in the presentations. It focuses on simple, clean backgrounds to keep attention on your key content.
10. Don’t Overwhelm With Walls of Text
We covered the 6×6 text limit rule earlier. But even with 6 lines and 6 words, slides can become text walls without good visual breakdown. Big blocks of text are tiring to read and make retainment tough.
Instead, thoughtfully chunk text into concise sections. Use headers, subheaders, and bullet points to organize key bits. Align text left for easier scanning. Supplement with supporting imagery. Breaking up text improves comprehension drastically.
11. Don’t Rely On Boring Bullets
Speaking of bulleted lists, bullet overkill is another issue that turns slides into snore fests. Slides crammed with back-to-back bullet points lose audiences fast. The endless text blurs together with minimal memorability.
For memorable content, limit bullets to key takeaways only. Then reinforce each point visually – a photo, icon, chart, etc. Quality visuals boost memorability way more than a slide stuffed with 11 bullet points ever could.
12. Don’t Use Inconsistent Formatting
Remember, formatting matters! Shifting layouts, fonts, and color schemes appear disjointed and sloppy. The mismatched design screams amateur hour.
Establish a visual style and stick to it slide to slide. Use the same fonts, limit your color palette, and space elements consistently. Most importantly – maintain alignment across all slides. With unified branding, your presentation will look polished and professional.
SlidesAI ensures your presentation formatting stays consistent slide to slide by applying your preferred color palette, fonts, etc through its intelligent algorithms.
13. Don’t Include Unnecessary Animations
Animations can be great for guiding the viewer’s eye and demonstrating motion. But avoid going overboard. Excessive animations, sounds, and movement become more distracting than engaging.
Use animations subtly and intentionally . Emphasize only key points and important transitions with simple builds or entrance effects. Anything superfluous, whether flying text or whooshing sounds, pulls attention away rather than enhancing content.
Keep it simple and purposeful. Let smooth, minimal animations work behind the scenes rather than take center stage away from your narrative.
14. Don’t Use Unsupported Graphics
Only include images, photos, charts, etc that directly support the ideas and messaging in your presentation. Don’t insert fluffy visuals that have no clear tie to your content.
Every visual aid you present should clearly reinforce your narrative rather than derail tangents. Unsupported graphics quickly become distractions. They also undermine your credibility if audiences can’t grasp the connection.
Keep it focused. Be intentional about every visual you include. Remove anything superfluous that doesn’t serve a purpose.
15. Don’t Plagiarize Content
While it’s fine to find inspiration from other presentations, copying chunks of text or visuals without proper attribution is unethical. Never pass off someone else’s hard work as your own.
Always credit sources directly within your presentation if incorporating external ideas, quotes, charts, images, etc. Also, avoid violating copyright laws by inserting visuals without licensing them appropriately first.
Your presentation should showcase your unique ideas, voice, and message. Ensure you create original content or properly cite anything derived from others. Your integrity depends on it.
16. Don’t Wing Your Speech
With great slides completed, don’t just wing it on presentation day. The live delivery is just as crucial. Invest time to refine your pacing, transitions, slide timing, and flow.
Practice your speech thoroughly with the deck so your narrative and movements feel natural. Nail down transition phrases between slides. Get 100% comfortable presenting your content.
With stellar slides and a well-rehearsed delivery, your presentation is sure to wow audiences from start to finish.
There you have it – 16 PowerPoint dos and don’ts for creating memorable, professional PowerPoint presentations. Apply the dos to make high-impact slides, and avoid the don’ts for mistake-free presentations.
Put these PowerPoint best practices into play and watch your ordinary slides transform into extraordinary visual stories. Your audiences will be engaged from start to finish.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the dos and don’ts of powerpoint presentations.
Key PowerPoint dos include simple designs, concise text, quality visuals, consistency, accessibility, custom icons, subtle animations, and practice. Don’ts involve distracting backgrounds, walls of text, boring bullets, inconsistent formatting, excessive animations, irrelevant graphics, plagiarism, and winging it.
What is the 5 by 5 Rule in PowerPoint?
The 5 by 5 rule recommends having no more than 5 lines of text per slide and 5 words per line. This keeps each slide focused and text easy to digest. Too much text overwhelms audiences.
What is the 7 Rule on a PowerPoint Presentation?
The 7 rule states that your slides should have no more than 7 bullet points. Like the 5 by 5 rule, this maintains simplicity for the audience. More than 7 bulleted items become hard to retain.
What are the 5 Rules of PowerPoint?
5 key rules are: don’t cram slides with too much text, minimize slides for emphasis, utilize quality visuals, stick to a consistent format, and limit animations. Following these makes presentations professional, clean, and engaging.
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General vocabulary for presentations
Sometimes, the smallest changes in your presentations can make the biggest differences. One of them is to learn a few phrases that give you confidence during your speech. Here are some important verbs to get you started:
To highlight
To emphasize
To walk you through (*very common in business presentations!)
To send around
To carry on (similar to continue)
To get carried away
To sum up (similar to summarize )
To focus on
Vocabulary to start your presentation
Learn how to powerfully start your presentation with these 4 simple steps. Here’s some vocabulary you can use:
Welcome your audience
Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to today’s webinar.
Hello everyone, I’m very happy to be speaking with you today.
Introduce yourself
My name is Susan, and I’m part of the design team here at Globex Corporation.
First of all, a little bit about my background – I am the Team Lead at [Company], and I’ve been in charge of [your main responsibility] for [X] years.
I’d like to tell you a bit about myself – my name is Eve I’m the Operations Manager here at [Company].
Introduce the topic and goal of the presentation
Today, I’d like to talk about…
This presentation will take about [X] minutes, and we will discuss…
We’ve allocated [X] minutes to this presentation. and I’ll talk about…
I’d like to give you a brief breakdown of…
I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about…
The main goal of this presentation is…
The purpose of this presentation is…
My objective today is…
Read these 5 tricks the best public speakers use to captivate their audience .
Addressing questions from the audience
If you have any questions about anything, feel free to interrupt.
If anything isn’t clear, please click on the ‘raise hand’ button and I’ll do my best to answer your question.
I’d be happy to answer your questions at the end of the presentation.
If you have any questions, please kindly wait until the end to ask them. We will have [X] minutes for a Q&A session at the end.
Since today’s audience is considerably large, we will not have time for questions, but please email me at [email protected]
Learning new English words is not easy, but you can achieve effective communication through practice and repetition. If you are a Talaera student, visit the Library to practice your vocabulary for presentations. If are not part of the Talaera community yet, learn how we can help you here .
Clear out technical issues
Can everyone hear me well? Let me know if you encounter any technical difficulties throughout the presentation.
If you are not speaking, please put yourselves on mute.
If you feel that the sound quality is poor throughout the presentation, please let me know.
Transition to the main topic of the presentation
Hi everyone, I think we might still be missing a few people but I’m going to kick things off now so we have time to get through everything.
All right, let’s dive right in!
All right, let’s jump right in!
Let’s get started.
Let’s kick things off.
I’m going to talk about
The purpose/subject of this presentation is
I’ve divided the presentation into 3 parts: In the first part, … / Then in the second part, … / Finally, I’ll go on to talk about…
Let me begin by looking at…
Let me start with some general information on…
Vocabulary for the main body of your presentation
Introduce a topic or section.
Now let’s move to the first part of the presentation,
We can see 4 advantages and two disadvantages. First,
On the one hand… On the other hand…
There are two steps involved. The first step is… The second step is…
There are four stages to the project.
Request more info about our English training
Transition to a new section
All right, let’s turn to…
Now we come to the next point, which is
Okay so that’s [topic 1], but what about [topic 2]?
There’s a lot more to talk about, but since we’re pushed for time , let’s move on to [topic 2].
This leads me to my next point, which is…
Give examples and details
For example…
A good example of this is…
To illustrate this point…
This reminds me of…
To give you an example…
Let me elaborate further on…
Describe visual aids
As you can see [from this infographic]
This chart shows
If you look at this graph, you will see
From this chart, we can understand how
Let me show you this [image, graph, diagram]
On the right/left
In the middle of
At the top/bottom of the picture
Emphasize an idea
This is important because
I’d like to emphasize that
We have to remember that
Repeat the same message with different words
In other words
To put it more simply
So, what I’m saying is that
Let me say that again.
It’s easy to get stuck in the middle of a presentation, especially if English is not your mother tongue. Here are +21 Top Tips You Need To Know if you’re learning business English .
Finish your presentation and summarize
The end of a presentation, together with the opening, is one of the most important parts of your speech. Read these 5 effective strategies to close your presentation and use the vocabulary below.
That’s all I want to say for now about [topic].
To sum up, …
This sums up [topic].
So in a nutshell, …
So to recap, …
In brief, …
To conclude, …
I’d like to conclude by emphasizing the main points…
That’s it on [topic] for today. In short, we’ve covered…
So, now I’d be very interested to hear your comments.
And this brings us to the end of this presentation. I hope [topic] is a little clear after today.
So to draw all that together, …
Start and navigate the Q&A session
Thank you for your attention. I hope you found this presentation useful, and I’d be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you for listening. We now have [X] minutes left. Do you have any questions?
Thank you for your question, [Name].
I’m glad you asked.
That’s an interesting question.
That’s a great question, I must say. I’m not 100% sure, but off the top of my head, I can tell you that…
Are you asking about [topic 1] or [topic 2]?
Can you please clarify what exactly you mean by [question]? I’m not sure I fully understand.
I’m afraid I don’t have the exact figures at hand, but if you give me your email address at the end, I can follow up with you later.
Does that answer your question?
I hope that makes sense. Is that the kind of answer you were looking for?
Take your presentation skills to the next level.
Start Talaera’s online course on impactful presentations for free and take your skills to the next level. Explore all our resources on public speaking skills in English .
Keep reading about presentation skills:
21 Helpful Tips For Remarkable and Outstanding Presentation Skills
How To Start a Presentation: Follow These 4 Easy Steps
How To Bring Across Your Main Idea In A Presentation Effectively
5 Effective Strategies To End A Presentation
6 Public Speaking Tricks To Captivate Your Audience
How To Do Effective Business Storytelling According To Former Prosecutor
8 Little Changes That’ll Make A Big Difference With Your Presentations
3 Quick Public Speaking Tips For Your Next Presentation
Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are [TED Talk Lesson]
Talaera Talks – Transcript Episode 5
Topic : Deliver impactful presentations
Listen : Spotify , Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts
Duration : 22 min.
Intro Welcome to Talaera Talks , the business English communication podcast for non-native professionals. My name is Paola and I am co-hosting this show with Simon. In this podcast, we’re going to be covering communication advice and tips to help express yourself with confidence in English in professional settings. So we hope you enjoy the show!
Okay, welcome back for our third episode of Talaera Talks. This is Simon, and I’m joined with Paola. Paola, how are you doing?
0:37 Hi, Simon. I’m great. Happy to do another episode.
0:41 Yeah, absolutely. And Happy Friday.
0:44 Happy Friday!
0:49 So today, our topic: Presenting in English. I’d like to start this episode with a quote I found on Harvard Business Review that I thought was really interesting. It says, “Even native English speakers often anticipate disaster when making presentations. By but for non-native speakers, the anticipatory and situational anxiety associated with their unique challenges (these challenges – being understandable, choosing the right words, speaking spontaneously), can be overwhelming. Moreover, if these concerns interfere with your willingness or ability to make business presentations, the impact can be career-limiting.” So yeah, that’s a pretty kind of heavy quote to start. But it is something that we see from a lot of our clients, right?
1:52 Yeah, it’s super interesting. It was super interesting to read. It’s something we know, but it’s important to remind it that it is presentations, the topic we have today is something that is not pleasurable for anyone, not for non-native speakers, but also for native speakers. So that’s something to point out. And today, we talked about that… We said that we wanted to start with those challenges or fears that we see from our clients, our learners.
2:25 Yeah, and it’s usually around the same things, you know, we, at least for me, I come into contact with so many of these, so many of our students who are so competent in their, in their daily lives, what they’re doing in their professional lives. And they come to me with these with these fears, like this just general lack of confidence, or imposter syndrome, right? This I don’t know if I really deserve to be speaking and, you know, kind of explaining this concept to all these people.
3:05 Mm-hmm. Yes. And also the fear of not being understood, well, they know what I’m saying, well, they understand my accent. There’s a lot of worries and concern around accent and our pronunciation expert, Lisa hosted a webinar, actually last week, where she explained that accent matters. But as long as people understand you, it’s fine. You don’t need to be perfect. Everyone has an accent. So that’s also totally fine.
3:37 And this being Yeah, this being one of I think, at least for me, in my experience, one of the most frequently asked for aspects from students. So you know, and just to like, again, just say that this is a challenge for everyone, not just, you know, non-native English speakers. You know, I think all of us have a tough experience or somebody that we think of when we think about public speaking, it’s, it’s like this, yeah, really anxiety-riddled thing. I mean, I don’t have any, you know, funny personal stories, but uh, do you, Paola?
4:20 You want me to tell my embarrassing story, don’t you?
4:22 Please, you must.
4:25 So I used to teach at a university in Vietnam when I lived there, and the classes where it rains, you know, from perhaps 50 students to up to what 300 there’s was a class with, you know, 2-300 students and there was a little stage it wasn’t too high, but there was a little stage and I fell off.
4:46 You fell off the stage. This was during or after the presentation, or…?
4:56 It was around the beginning of the presentation. So…
5:01 During! Oh, I thought it was it was like after like you were walking off?
5:06 No, I move a lot. I use my body language quite a lot. And that was one of the moments where I overdid it, probably, and fell off.
5:17 Wow. Well, I’m glad that you’re still here with us.
5:21 Yeah, you know, but that’s the story that I sometimes not always tell it. But I sometimes tell it when my students say, Oh, I’m nervous, and I assume that it can happen, you know, I thought it was going to be a disaster. And then I actually ended up making friends with the students that turned out okay.
5:39 Right. Well, yeah, I mean, today, we’re not necessarily going to go into the physical dimensions of how to avoid falling off the stage. But we do have some, some good tips, right?
5:54 Yes. And to provide some advice on how to deliver presentations, and lose that fear, we’ve divided it into three main blocks. And those are what to do before the presentation, tips for during the presentation. And then even after there’s things you can do to, to get better.
6:18 Right, let’s start with the first, right, what can we do before the presentation in terms of getting ready, preparing?
6:30 So preparing, it’s a very general term, but one of the tips that we like to give is, think of the WHAT, WHY and NEXT. So WHAT is your presentation about? WHY should they listen to you and not look it up online (or listen to a podcast, like ours)? And in what NEXT means – what is supposed to happen next? Do they need to do anything, go on a website, send you feedback? Are you going to send them the materials? So what why our next is so straightforward and simple. But when I asked this question to our clients that are so thrown off, and they don’t know what to answer sometimes,
7:10 Yeah, I think that’s one of those things. And I struggle with this all the time is, when I get an idea or something like that. It’s so easy to just jump over those most basic things of, you know, what, why and index, those are so, so basic, but it’s such it’s, they’re so foundational, right? And in terms of creating something that people will understand and be able to, to really attach to.
7:41 Yep. And do you have any tips around how much you should learn? Should you write the whole thing? Or should you memorize?
7:52 Yeah, that, you know, this is a good question as well, that a lot of our learners ask in terms of, yeah, you know, I’m just going to go and write it all out. And then I’ll have an idea. And I’ll feel better because I can write it and change it so that it sounds more professional. It sounds like I know what I’m talking about. And I always tell people, please don’t try to prepare a presentation where you’re reading a script, it is just the most unnatural thing ever. And, and it, you won’t end up sounding more professional, if anything, your audience is going to detach, because they’re going to sense that something’s not really right here, it doesn’t seem genuine, right doesn’t seem real, it just seems like this person is doing what he’s doing, which is reading off of a script. And even still a lot of times with a lot of our learners where they know that, okay, I know this material. But I’m going to put all of my effort into making this perfect slide this perfect presentation. So I would say, focus on actually knowing the material itself really well. More than focusing on how the presentation looks, you know, these kinds of things. Because once you’re in that situation where you’re on the stage, and people are looking at you, at least you’ll be able to Windows like kind of red Sirens of you know, panic and anxiety show up. You’ll have learned the material itself so well that you can roll with that.
9:29 Yes. And you also have room for improvisation because your brain is so used to the content and you know, so well what you want to say that that’s when your brain starts to come up with anecdotes and that’s the fun thing that gets you hooked. And that’s the main Why should people listen to you instead of reading an article online?
9:49 Exactly. Because for most of our students, you know what you’re talking about. That’s why you’re up there. That’s why you have the opportunities to speak there is because someone thinks you’re qualified enough to speak to all these people. So trust in that and go with that. So yeah, so we have right not, not over learning. Don’t script it right? What else can we do?
10:14 Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice in your mind, but more importantly verbalize it, say it out loud. And recording yourself is uncomfortable for everyone. But it works. I have never tried it. I always told my students should record yourself, you should record yourself and they were like, Huh. And just a few of them did it. And when we started with the webinars, I haven’t done something like it before. And I said, Okay, I’ll use my own tip. And it was one I’m comfortable. And two, super helpful. So if you get to go over the sound of your own voice, I would say do it.
10:54 Yeah. You know, this is one thing that I have to be totally honest here. Doing these podcasts is the first time I’ve actually recorded myself for a long time. And I’ve learned a lot about, you know, not saying the word Absolutely. 500 times, yeah, within the span of 20 minutes. So those are good learning lessons. Definitely. Okay, and then so we have that. And then the last little tip is, I would say get an English mindset before 30 minutes to an hour before the presentation. And that could be listening to a podcast, you know, like Talaera Talks, or, you know, watching a show on Netflix that’s, that’s in English, whatever you can do to get your kind of English mind, you know, in the zone before you go up and actually speak English. So So those are all of our kind of pre presentation tips, what you can do before, so what about during,
11:58 so for during, there’s a lot of things that you can you can do to improve your presentations. But the first tip is to learn how to start to have a mind map of what am I going to do at the beginning. So you start confident already. So welcome, everyone, introduce the people introduce the topic and go to the main point, those four parts will help you have a nice start. Welcome, everyone. For example. Hi, everyone. Welcome to today’s presentation. Today, we’ll be talking about business events, introduce the people, you can introduce yourself , like, Hi, my name is Paula and I’m a business English instructor at Telstra, and perhaps even the audience. Today we have with us students from all different nationalities and levels, or, you know, whatever the audiences, that’s also helpful for everyone to understand, introduce the topic, or give you some best practices for business emails , and a few templates, and then go to the main point. So a simple sentence like Alright, let’s get down to business. So having those welcome introducing people introducing the topic and going to the main point will help you have a nice start.
13:16 Yeah, and I like that concept of that the mind map is so good. Because it’s it’s not the scripting, like we were talking about before, it’s having a kind of a little mental checklist. So that when those first few minutes, were you’re up there on the on stage, and you’re like, oh god, oh, god, here we go. Here we go. You have that little checklist that I created. Okay, so I welcomed introduced the people the topic, and now to the main point, and that can get you in the zone and going I really liked that. Yeah, so so having that, that starting template. And then another thing would be, I would say slowing down, slowing it down. And this is really I think it touches on a lot of aspects. The first would be just the general anxiety, we tend to speak a lot faster when we’re really anxious, you know, but by slowing down, it really helps with non native English speakers because it helps with the accent. And it helps with giving you some time to really think through your next thoughts. Now, I’m not saying that you should, while you’re speaking, try to think steps three, four or five ahead of you. But giving yourself a little bit of time to Okay, I’m going through this pattern now. Now I can go to the next one, right. And doing that, you know, another with the slowing down a tip if you’re really nervous to go in is prefacing your speech. So before you really get into everything, maybe after the welcome part is just to say, Hey, you know, I’m going to try to speak as clearly as possible, as English as myself. first language and really smile and maybe make a little joke about that. And I think that’s a good way to open it out for the audience to show some vulnerability and and help. I mean, what do you think about that?
15:13 Yeah, I mean, we see that with, sometimes with celebrities, when they’re not native speakers, and they admitted, and they, they kind of put yourself put themselves, as you said, in that vulnerable position, and that makes them even cuter.
15:28 Mm hmm.
15:29 So it’s making yourself human, I think it’s always a good tip. And you were saying that slowing down helps with your accent and also for yourself to gain time to really know what you’re going to say. But also for the for the audience. We don’t mind people making some little pulses, so that they also have time to collect their thoughts.
15:50 Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Those are, those are two really good aspects, starting, you know, the template and then slowing down, right. Yeah, kind of diffusing the anxiety by saying, Hey, you know, this isn’t my first language. And that really gets the audience on your side, right. And then another would be not reading off of your slides. I mean, this is kind of the basic, you know, what you learn in school, but it’s also something that a lot of people get, yeah, get, get hooked on, just because it’s like a safety net. And I would say that’s where the overlearning the material that we talked about beforehand comes into play. Anything else in this?
16:42 Oh, recap for sure. After every section, do a little recap, and at the end to recap where you summarize the main points of the whole presentation?
16:54 Yeah, yeah. Good. Good. So So summarize. Yeah, yeah. And that’s a that’s a good, you know, I would say three aspects, four aspects that during the presentation, if you keep these in, in your mind, it’s, it’s, I would say, it’s going to help a lot. And so now we’re going to move to what can we do after the presentation? We’ve done it, we’ve walked off the stage. Whoo, I’m so glad that’s over. Now, is all of our work done? No.
17:27 No, not really. That’s now it’s your chance to actually learn from, from everything you did. So one of the tips we suggest is try to ask for feedback. But that’s not so easy, right, Simon?
17:42 Yeah, it’s, I think, a big question. And that is, who do you get the feedback from? Right?
17:50 So we, we would always suggest to try and find someone you can trust someone who is honest, and who can give you objective feedback. So in some cases, that can be your manager, but sometimes it’s a colleague that understands the topic, and can really provide some feedback on how you did.
18:13 Yeah. And that’s, I think, in terms of learning, this is one of the most crucial thing is reflecting back on what you did, and seeing what worked, what didn’t work, and how can I take that and move forward? Because especially with presenting, it’s a skill, and it takes practice, practice, practice. And, and I think, for a lot of people, you should jump at the chance to do this. So that you can continue to learn and continue to grow. But be sure to reflect by Yeah, by asking for feedback and seeing what worked,
18:47 for sure. And ideally, that would be someone, perhaps from work that can see how you did and like the actual show, if not Talaera teachers also do that. So you can present your own presentation, pretending it’s the actual one. And that’s how we can provide feedback on the structure, the vocabulary, the language in general.
19:08 Yeah, absolutely. I do that. Oh, there you go. Absolutely. Definitely. See, I’m reflecting back and learning as we go. I’m working. I’m learning that. Yeah. But I’ve done that recently with a couple of students where we’ve gone through their deck and looked at what are their plans in terms of presenting and we’ve kind of gone through in detail that together. So So yeah, so that was kind of I would say the biggest thing in terms of afterward.
19:40 So we have the pre-presentation, just as a quick recap for the pre-presentation and before your presentation, always remember the what why next, what is your presentation about? Why should people listen to you and what should happen next overnight Learn the content. be super confident about what you want to talk about. But don’t script it. Don’t write everything down. Otherwise, it would sound like you’re just reading.
20:11 Write and practice through verbalization. record yourself, even though it may be awkward, but it’s a great learning technique. And then get in that English mindset beforehand by Yeah, listening to a podcast or what have you. And then during the presentation, right, starting with the template, Paolo was discussing the welcome introducing the people the topic, and then going to the main point,
20:37 slowing down a little bit. It’s not necessary to go super fast. It’s not only not necessary, but people will understand you better if you take your time and make some pauses. Of course, don’t read off their slides. Tell them the story.
20:54 Right, right. And remember
20:56 to recap, just like we’re doing now. Send them or tell them a quick summary and the main points,
21:03 right, and don’t fall off the stage as well. That’s ideally we forgot. Ideally, it’s final for then, as the final point, right, asking for feedback, finding that person that can get you that feedback that’s so important to you. Finding what worked and moving forward.
21:21 That’s right. All right. Do we have it for today?
21:25 I think that is it for today. Yeah. I had a lot of Thanks. Yeah, I had a blast. And thanks for meeting up. And we have a lot of good stuff coming up with Talaera. Right.
21:38 We have webinars, our blog is busier than ever. So go on the http://blog.talaera.com/ , check out the resources. And what else?
21:51 Find us on LinkedIn. And yeah, please ask any questions, we’d be glad to get back to you. So that is it for today. And thank you to all of our listeners. So far, we’re excited to keep growing this. And as always, keep learning!
22:11 And that’s all we have for you today. We hope you enjoyed it, and remember to subscribe to Talaera Talks . We’ll be back soon with more! And visit our website at https://talaera.com for more valuable content on business English. You can also request a free consultation on the best ways for you and your team to improve your communication skills. So have a great day and keep learning!
- Talaera Talks Podcast
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