5 Tips For Using Visual Aids During A Presentation

When it comes to giving a presentation, visual aids are a powerful ally to have on your side. In fact, these days visual aids are pretty much expected to accompany any presentation. This is because visual aids add an additional, powerful dimension to presentations. Studies have shown that people retain information 55% longer when combined with sight and sound, which means visual aids can make a presentation twice as effective.

It's Not Enough To Just Have Visual Aids. You Need The RIGHT Visual Aids.

How you employ your visual aids during a presentation is just as critical as using them. To help ensure your next presentation meets with rousing success, take a look at the five tips we have put together below.

5 Tips For Using Visual Aids During A Presentation:

Tip #1. Use Only When Necessary: Overloading your audience with too many graphs, charts, images, videos and sound bites will turn out to be a far greater distraction than benefit. Keep the information you present visually streamlined. Visual aids should accent your presentation, not dominate it.

Tip #2. Choose The Right Visual Aid: There are many different kinds of visual aids out there, and just as many methods to display them. Selecting the right one is a crucial step in your preparation. Consider the size of your audience, the venue and how interactive you want the presentation to be. Visual aids and presentation styles that work for one group might not be right for another.

Tip #3. Practice Using Your Aids: In order for your presentation to go off without a hitch, you need to know how to operate your visual aids efficiently. Stumbling about trying to move forward in a slideshow or boot up an image or video will hurt your presentation -- not to mention waste your audience's time. So practice using your materials in advance.

Tip #4. Use Quality Visual Aids: Grainy pictures, blurry video or scratchy audio won't make a very big splash during your presentation. The media you use to accompany your presentation needs to pop if you want the presentation itself to do the same. Also, avoid using clip art. Clip art might have flown back in 1993, but nowadays it simply will not cut it.

Tip #5. Have A Backup Plan: Be ready for anything, especially when electronic devices are involved. If the bulk of your presentation relies on your visual aids, and you find yourself in a situation where the computer is being uncooperative, the projector has burnt out or power is lost, you need to have a contingency plan. We recommend creating hardcopies of your presentation to pass out just in case.

Executive Summary: Visual aids are a great way to give your presentation the extra sizzle it needs, but remember this: Just because you can include visual aids doesn't mean you should. Be particular in the media you select to accompany your presentation, make sure their quality meets a high standard and be sure to practice using your visual aids via dry run in advance. Beyond all this, have a backup plan. Life is full of twists and turns, and computers are notorious for being reliable one day and a mess the next. Don't let "technical difficulties" ruin your presentation.

5 Tips For Getting Promoted In 2011

Promotions are not just handed out arbitrarily. Employees who achieve are the ones who take action, who take matters into their own hands. In other words, promotions have to be earned not by completing your baseline expectations, but by showing initiative.

Showing initiative and actively striving to improve your work skills will invariably improve your work life in the process. Since 2011 is nearly upon us, what better time than now to start gearing up to make a much bigger splash in the New Year. To that end, we have put together five tips that will help you earn that promotion in no time.

5 Tips For Getting Promoted In 2011:

Tip #1. Keep Track Of Goals - Looking at the company's goals and your personal goals each morning is a great way to stay on top of what it is you hope to achieve in your career (beyond making a profit). When developing your personal goals, we recommend having a coworker review them and provide constructive criticism. You might even want to ask your supervisor to look at them.

Tip #2. Go Above And Beyond - There is a reason there are countless articles written about proactive employees. The people who go above their pay grade's expectations are the ones who get noticed. Dedication is a highly valued virtue. For example, something as simple as being the first one into work and the last one out will help make a name for yourself.

Tip #3. Seek More Responsibility - If you find your daily responsibilities no longer challenge you, speak up. Go to your supervisor and express an interest in contributing more to the company. They might not dole out more responsibility to you right away, but they will certainly take notice of your interest, and sooner or later you will undoubtedly find yourself juggling more and standing out as a result.

Tip #4. Assert Your Confidence - Confidence is an amazing, powerful quality. A lot of people are uncertain about displaying confidence in fear that it will be interpreted as arrogance. But when you know what you're doing and are sure of your skills and talents, there's nothing wrong with being assertive about it. Identifiable confidence is the trademark of a strong employee or leader.

Tip #5. Strive For Self-Improvement - Success in the business world demands adaptation. You need to be constantly learning in order to improve your existing skills. One way to go about this is to start a mentoring program with your boss or even the CEO. You could also hit the books again, so to speak, and take training classes. Whatever method you choose will send a clear message to your peers about your attitudes towards work.

Executive Summary: If you are serious about your professional life and want to achieve your aspirations, you need to take action. Organize your thoughts in goal form, push yourself to do more than what's expected of you in the work place and display your knowledge and expertise with confidence. Show your boss and your peers how invested you are in your job by showing initiative and dedication. Trust us, there's no faster way to a promotion than following these tips.

Tip #318: 5 Tips To Overcome Your Public Speaking Jitters

Overcoming Your Public Speaking Fear Will Enhance Your Career.

Though very many people shudder at the thought of public speaking, it is one of the best ways to enhance your career. And, in the business world, something every businessperson will have to deal with at some point or another. Instead of spending all your time sweating bullets, try taking your mind off the stress and worry by focusing on the five tips listed below.

5 Tips For Conquering The Fear Of Public Speaking:

Tip #1. Know Your Topic - The first thing you should do when approaching a public speaking presentation is get excited about your topic. Enthusiasm can be a powerful, driving force. What helps build enthusiasm, as well as a great deal of confidence, is learning about your topic until you know it inside and out. Enthusiasm, confidence and knowledge are the keys to combating public speaking fears.

Tip #2. Outline Your Speech - Even if you know all there is to know about your presentation topic, effectively communicating that information with good order, structure and flow might not be easy to do on the fly. Take the time to prepare accordingly. Draw out an outline with bulleted items to use as a loose guideline for your presentation's structure. Make sure all its components fit together nicely and logically.

Tip #3. Strike A Balance - In this case, a balance between having memorized your presentation and using bullet points as a jumping off point. On one hand, you do not want to come off sounding pre-recorded or overly rehearsed. But on the other hand, you do not want to struggle and stumble reaching for bits and pieces of information.

Tip #4. Get In Some Practice - Do a dry run of your presentation to help iron out any wrinkles. Use a friend, a family member or a peer as a test audience. It also helps to record yourself and listen to the recording later. Keep a pen handy, as you may want to note use of speech disfluencies - "ums," "likes" and "ahs." These are notorious credibility killers. Awareness will help minimize their appearances.

Tip #5. Engage The Audience - 50% of all presentations fall flat because a speakers just stands before their audience and runs through the presentation at full speed. Loosen up and have fun. Be conversational. Be natural. Speak slowly, articulate yourself, use emphasis and stress certain words. Remember, public speaking is just another form of conversation.

Executive Summary: The best weapon in your arsenal to combat the fear of public speaking is confidence. And really, confidence isn't all that hard to build up. The smartest thing you can do to help build confidence in preparation for public speaking is do your homework - research your topic until you are a relative expert. From there, just try to practice public speaking a handful of times to get used to how it feels to talk about your topic.

Tip #317: 5 Tips For Giving Better Feedback

5 Tips For Giving Better Feedback:

Tip #1. Be Specific, Balanced And Fair - The point of giving feedback is to elicit improvement or reinforce good behavior. That means your feedback cannot be vague or generic. The key to effective feedback is specificity. When giving feedback, go into detail. Specifically cite what did or did not work and offer suggestions where appropriate.

Tip #2. Don't Skimp On Positive Feedback - Negative feedback tends to be more common since mistakes, errors and problems stand out as opposed to things running smoothly. For this very reason, it is important that you find and praise the good things your employees do from day to day - even if it is something small. A little praise can go a long way.

Tip #3. No News Is NOT Good News - A common misconception among managers is that if they are not yelling or criticizing their employees, they should know that they are doing a good job. This simply is not true. From time to time, you will have to have a stern conversation with an employee, but in the interim, you should make the effort to actively support your team with positive comments on their job performance.

Tip #4. Shoulder Some Of The Responsibility - In other words, accept a small degree of blame when offering feedback. Using phrases such as "maybe I didn't explain this up front" or "maybe I didn't explain this well enough" is a good way to soften the blow. As a result, your employees will be more receptive to your feedback instead of being discouraged by it.

Tip #5. Come To An Agreement On Issues - If you are dispensing negative feedback, that means there is a problem or issue you wish to address. In these situations, it is imperative that both parties come to an agreement about the issue and that the feedback be an attempt to remedy things. A one-sided scolding will only sour an employee's mood, and certainly won't fix any problems.

Executive Summary: Good feedback that benefits your employees requires more than a simple "good job" and a pat on the back, or a vague conversation that things should have been "handled better." At the end of the business day, regular, positive feedback is extremely important to your employees. While positive feedback seems to be more challenging for most leaders to dispense, its value to morale is truly immeasurable.

5 Tips For More Effective Meetings

In the business world, having meetings is crucial to staying organized and keeping your team up to speed. However, if meetings are unproductive, they end-up wasting everyone's time. Worse yet, many of your employees will drag their feet about attending future meetings and, as a result, not approach them with the appropriate attitudes or vigor.

Productive Meetings Require Pre-Planning On Your End.

To maximize your next meeting, take some time and plan an outline of what you want to accomplish and then share it with any and all attendees. Not only will this be well received by all, but it could also mean the difference between an effective meeting versus one that was a complete waste of time.

To help ensure that you and your employees get the most out of you next meeting, we gathered five tips for you to review and implement.

5 Tips For More Effective Meetings:

Tip #1. Decide If You Even Need A Meeting - The purpose of a meeting is to exchange ideas, knowledge and of course come to a conclusion on the next step or steps to something you are discussing. That being said, before you arrange a meeting, decide if an e-mail or brief report can do the job. Not only will scaling back meetings help cut down on wasted time, but it will also make the meetings you have seem more necessary.

Tip #2. Prepare Objectives For The Meeting - You cannot hold an effective meeting if you do not know its purpose. Your objectives need to be focused - not overly specific, but not too broad, either. Try writing down phrases that require endings. For example: By the end of the meeting, I want the group to . . . Whatever you decide to end with will constitute an objective. Repeat this as necessary.

Tip #3. Provide An Agenda For The Meeting - If you want to get the most out of a meeting, you need to provide your employees an agenda that includes a brief description of the objectives, the topics and who will be expected to speak about what. Send the agenda via memo or e-mail at least sixty to ninety minutes before a scheduled meeting so your employees have time to familiarize themselves with it.

Tip #4. Take Notes And Mark Action Items - Everyone who attends a meeting should come equipped with paper, a highlighter and a writing tool. No one should be sitting and passively listening during a meeting. You and your employees need to engage meetings by taking notes and marking down action items, especially if they are pertinent or include a specific, assigned task.

Tip #5. Summarize The Meeting At The End - At the conclusion of the meeting, go around the group and have each employee provide a summary of what you covered and what their action items are. Obviously, this is why it is important to come to meetings prepared to take notes (Tip #4). Ending with a summary helps ensure no one missed anything during the meeting and serves as one final reminder about the priorities discussed.

Executive Summary: The first step to having effective meetings is deciding whether a meeting is even necessary. If it is, you need to have a clear idea of the who, what, where, when and why of the meeting beforehand. During the meeting itself, you and your employees should take notes about what is discussed and what action items are assigned. Then, at the end, you need to summarize the meeting and highlight the most important action items.