by Joseph Wardy

Created on: February 12, 2009   Last Updated: March 28, 2009

Business presentation is a skill frequently misunderstood. This essay will explore why business presentation skills are very important in your career success. Please consider five reasons why these skills are so very important:

1) Presentation is an executive skill. If you wish to advance in your career, you will be tapped on the shoulder and asked to share your knowledge, insight, creativity and experience,. You can assess this reality as an albatross around your neck or as an honor and an opportunity. Consider the following : Presenting requires the leadership skill of persuasion and the capacity to communicate a vision.

2) We are always presenting. The quality of your voice is a presentation. Negotiating a raise is a presentation as well as a status report at a meeting. What we say and how we say it reveals our presentation skills. In person to person dialogue, presentation skills add the component of body language missing from the phone or email. The enormous challenge is that presentation requires us to stand. Here, attitude can be that standing is uncomfortable and scary, or it can be construed as authoritative, inviting confidence and poise under pressure.

3) Presentations skills is not public speaking. Traditional public speaking is a monologue. With presentations, the speaker engages the audience by receiving and asking questions. Put another way, presenter is conducting a meeting whole standing up. An effective presenter respects the time constraints with the audience while managing their concerns. It is more skillful to manage interaction than to simply deliver it. When the audience is engaged in dialogue, the presenter is connecting with the participants while reducing platform delivery.

4) Presentation requires the skill of the whole brain. The time to think is not when delivering the presentation. It is in the labor of preparing and practicing by planning and developing prior to presenting. Planning involves the creative thinking of discovering what the audience needs and wants. Thought: Saying nothing well does not work in the workplace. Once needs are established, we can then use the logic of critical thinking ( developing ) to organize the right content.

If your employer does not offer a training program, consider joining Toastmasters. The Web site is www.toastmasters.org

5) Presentation skills build a reputation. Presentation is about image and not words. Participants will remember you as organized or unorganized, enthusiastic or unenthusiastic, passionate or apathetic, sincere or going through the motions. With presentation skills, we cannot hide behind a desk, computer or podium. Lastly, your presentation skills impacts the reputation of your boss and the division the speaker represents.

Learn more about this author, Joseph Wardy.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.