This is a guest blog post from our partner, Joanne Flynn, Founder of Phoenix Strategic Performance.
Who says great presentations, ‘just happen’? What will great presentation skills do for you?
As a professional, your ability to present information is a core career skill. Enhance your career brand and be known as a great presenter who can effectively and reliably promote:
- Your product & company to a competitive marketplace
- Complex ideas with simplicity and sophistication
- Yourself, your brand & your career
Presentation tools are getting more sophisticated. But, great presentations are not keeping pace. Why is this? Great presentations are so much more than a PowerPoint.
Great presentation skills are the complete and integrated combination of both theory and practice. Here’s a good analogy. How do you learn how to play tennis? Would you ever think you can learn how to play tennis without ever getting on the court and swinging the racket? Would you ever think that you could read a book and say you can now play great tennis? Or would you ever think you could watch a few videos of some tennis matches and think you can go on the tennis court and compete. Making great persuasive presentations is just like learning to play tennis. There is so much more to the great presentation game you can only get by a presentation skills workshop. So what will you learn and practice when you attend a presentation skills workshop?
1. Understand the theory behind good presentations and more importantly, the behavioral skills to make it happen
First you have to study both the science and the art of making great presentations. Yes, real fundamentals do exist. What makes a great presentation and what will cause a presentation to crash? What are you going to do to plan for the killer presentation? What will you avoid?
2. Construct a great visual presentation
There are fundamentals you must understand to create a great visual billboard that complements and enhances the impact value of your presentation. There are also pitfalls you must always avoid.
3. Understand & practice the behavioral side of presentations – the physical skills – recording and playback required
This is where your presentation comes alive, or not! Managing the energy (or lack of energy) behind your body language/gestures and your vocal energy is the physical skills part of presentation skills. This is the practice training you can’t get by reading a book or watching videos. This is where all the planning comes alive! Here is where you find your personal style and figure out how to use your style to its best advantage. This is where presentation skills training becomes personal. It’s where you become confident that your presentation and your skills deliver your high-impact message completely and on the mark.
If you would like to learn more about how to make your presentation more effective, powerful and engaging, please join us in Phoenix on June 9th and 10th for our 2-day workshop: 3 P's of Powerful Presentations: Professional, Promotion & Profit.
About the Writer & Presentation Facilitator:
Joanne Flynn is experienced in all aspects of organizational development and training on a global level. Her consulting engagements have included the design and delivery of training and development programs on the topics of presentation skills, business development, strategic selling, leadership and management development, and executive coaching. Her consulting clients range from global investment banks to private equity / venture capital firms. Joanne was previously the Vice President and Director of Global Training and Development at Goldman Sachs for nine years. At Goldman Sachs, Joanne implemented programs to improve the organizational effectiveness of business units, most notably investment banking, equities, fixed income and operations.
