Public speaking skills should be matched with presentation skills. If you have no problem with public speaking, but you do not have what it takes to keep your speech or piece engaging, then you just might have a problem keeping the attention of your audience. And this is where the importance of presentation skills would set in.

Now there are certain techniques that any public speaker would find very helpful in acquiring the right blend of presentation skills. Firstly, it is very important for any speaker to appear knowledgeable. This goes hand in hand with being knowledgeable, of course. If you do not know your topic inside out, then it would be very hard for you to appear knowledgeable when you deliver your piece. Remember that you have to earn the respect of your audience so that they would listen to your piece from start to finish. Thus, they should see your passion when you talk about the different aspects of your topic. To do this, you must know every nook and cranny there is about your topic. Otherwise, you would be sloppy with your presentation, and your audience would not deem your piece worthy of their attention.

Secondly, it would be better for you to have a theme for your presentation. But you have to make sure everything about your piece is centered on your theme. Consistency is very important here. With a theme for your presentation, it would actually be easier to foster continuity and idea flow in your whole piece. But if you dwindle from your theme, your flow would be interrupted, and you just might lose your audience. A central theme is key to keeping the audience up and running in following your whole presen

tation. The theme acts as an aid for continuity, in fact. Taking a step off that path can be detrimental to your whole presentation. So, it is best to stick to your theme for the whole of your presentation. If there is a need to take a step or two away from your theme, then make sure to create enough transition for this. This way, your audience won’t feel lost in the long run.

Another important thing to remember here is that you have to present just the right points. As much as we would want our audience to listen to our piece from start to finish, well, they just cannot. You cannot expect to get 100% of your audience’s attention, in spite of how engaging your presentation may be. There will always be room for distraction at one point or another, and your audience will give in to that. Thus, it would be better to present just the major points of your topic. In a typical 30-minute presentation, it would be ideal to present just 3 or 4 major points, with a few subpoints here and there. Yes, you may want to present more, but the sad fact here is that roughly your audience would retain just 10% of your presentation. So, just focus on the major points and a few subpoints along the way.

Now, let us take a look at the figures. Any speaker has a typical speaking rate of roughly 150 words per minute. But the thinking rate of the audience can reach up to 600 words per minute. Yes, that is how vivid the imagination can be. With the audience thinking way ahead of the presentation, they just might wander off a bit. If you present too many points, that wandering off would occur more. This is another good reason why you should just stick to major points for your presentation. This way, you are sure to have your audience’s attention. And you can even be sure that the people would retain more information from your presentation!

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