A good presentation is one of the biggest skills that you need as a professional, no matter what functional or expertise area you belong to. As you work towards developing skills for your career growth, it is important to remember that while it is good to have the knowledge, how you present it, makes a world of difference.

Career management, therefore, is about working on the skills that are needed for present and future times. So how should you go about working on the delivery of a great presentation that makes a mark?

1. Great visuals – Visuals have the power to communicate a message better than plain text. So use infographics, graphs, tables and any form of images that are linked to the topic. Make sure to share its relevance when you talk about it.
2. Content Preparation – You need to practice extensively no matter how well you know the subject or the content. So make sure that the content has been prepared in advance for the entire presentation and you have practised many times in order to familiarize yourself with the flow. You can also ensure that you time yourself to see that you are not speaking too fast or too slow, or being repetitive. These are some typical mistakes that many speakers make.
3. Work examples or real case studies – If you have work-related examples or real case studies to share, you should do it through your presentation since it makes the content more practical than being only theoretical. Also sharing situations or specific stories makes the presentation even better and more relevant.
4. Connect with your audience – You should do some research about those who will be part of the audience and work on ways to connect with them. The connection with the audience is important for them to absorb the content of your presentation since they will be able to relate to it better.
5. Keep it linked to the main message – Do not lose sight of the message you are trying to convey. What you want to share through it, is critical since it has to be received well. If you tend to wander from the key messages, you will not get the core information across.

These are basic guidelines to ensure that you are able to deliver a great presentation. If you follow these consistently for your presentations, you can make your audience more receptive.