Evaluating Presentation Skills

As a presenter, seniors evaluate your ability to think and communicate effectively from the quality of your presentation. Customers equate the quality of the product or service to the quality of your sales presentation. Your team will evaluate your ability to lead from your presentation skills.

Presentation Skills are critical...

As you can see, excellent presentation skills are absolutely essential for career and business. If you are looking at honing your presentation skills, there are a number of trainers, books and training videos out there. How do you evaluate the one that is best for you?

Here are 5 parameters you should use to evaluate a Presentation Skills Training Program:

1. Does it have a structured approach?

Most presenters learn

Check if they have a trademark process (e.g. Minimal Process for presentations) or format (e.g. a storytelling format) that shows they teach a clear process.

2. Is it a comprehensive program?

A good presentation is a combination of thinking skills, design skills and speaking skills. Thinking skills help you put together your thoughts and create a strong story before getting into slides.

PowerPoint or Slide Design skills help you create engaging visual content using diagrams, images and a good layout.

Speaking skills help you open strongly, deal with questions, judge audience reaction and understand your own style of presenting. All 3 parts need to be equally addressed for your skills to be honed.

What to check for:

Most training programs focus on the only a part of these skills. From the training schedule, check the amount of time allocated for each of these components. A good program allocates roughly equal time to all 3 components.

3. Does it go beyond tips and hints?

The problem with many training programs I have seen is that they teach tips and tricks. Tips include advice like, "You should appear confident on stage. Stand straight and look at your audience in the eye to appear