Guidelines for Effective Presentation

Guidelines for Effective Presentation

Prepared on: 28th February, 2009

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 Guidelines for Effective Presentation

28th February, 2009

Fr A. C. Jesurajan, S.J

XLRI, Jamshedpur

Sub: Report on Delivery of Effective Presentation

Sir,

This project has been carried out as a part of the course on Managerial Communication as per
your specifications.

The objective of the exercise was to understand how the nine guidelines help the managers in
making an effective presentation. The specific aim of this report was to

• Read carefully the handout on Nine Guidelines to make effective presentations.

• Ascertain the guidelines from the Sales and Marketing managers of Cadbury India
Pvt. Ltd

After gathering first hand information, we have documented our findings and
recommendations as a part of this report.

Report Submitted by

Group 4, FYMMS, XIMR 2008-10

1. Chris Annunciation (313)

2. Deval Gandhi (319)

3. Mukesh Kumar (332)

4. Sanju Khushlani (348)

5. Sohil Gala (352)

Thank You

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 Guidelines for Effective Presentation

Summary:

“Thorough preparation is the key mantra to be an effective speaker” sums up the essence of
the views provided by Marketing and Sales managers of Cadbury India Pvt. Ltd.
Communication within & outside organisation forms an integral part of manager’s job and
hence it becomes of utmost importance to nurture one’s communication skills. The report
presents the nine guidelines provided by Landsburg,D.L. to give an effective presentation.
The guidelines have been ascertained by the managers through their views and personal
experiences mentioned in the report. But the main problem faced is that the managers usually
tend to neglect the importance of analyzing the audience, nonverbal gestures and use of
visual aids.

So our recommendations are that the managers need to prepare their presentation keeping in
mind the audience that he is going to address and also should use appropriate visual aids
which help the audience to understand the topic and also increases the credibility of the
presenter.

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Acknowledgement:

We acknowledge the valuable contributions of Mr Avinash (Business Head, Cadbury India),

Mr Sushant (ex-Area Sales Manager, Mumbai, Cadbury India) which helped us immensely in
preparing this report and to know the importance and also the use of the nine guidelines given
by Landsburg, D.L. in corporate today during making presentations in the organisation. So
we thank them for their valuable time and inputs.

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Introduction:

The importance of making presentations in organizations today are gaining more and more
importance every day not only does delivering an effective presentation help one in his own
organization but also helps him in impressing clients in other organization.

According to Landsburg, D.L. there are nine guidelines to make a presentation much more
effective and easier for its audience to understand.

• An effective presentation requires not only an effective presenter but also a good
audience and the right situation or occasion. Hence the presentation requires creation
of a 2 way communication between the presenter and the audience.

• It is very important for the presenter to control his/her nervousness as the nervousness
can cause the presentation quality to go down and affect its overall effectiveness. This
can be avoided by preparing and practicing the presentation well and also showing
confidence in front of the audience.

• The presenter should be completely clear about the topic of his presentation and
should have done enough research on the topic before making the presentation as this
will help him prepare better and also give him confidence about the topic. A statement
of purpose always helps in making the presentation much more effective and better.
When the presenter has an adequate knowledge about the topic he has better content
in the presentation and also can give a additional knowledge to the audience which
makes the audience more engrossed in the presentation.

• It is very important for the presenter to know or analyze the audience as this can help
him prepare for his presentation in such a way that keeps the audience interested and
helps the presenter decide his content for the presentation. So the presenter should try
and know about the listeners knowledge of the topic, their attitude towards the topic,

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the composition of the audience, also their age and more importantly the size of the
audience.

• It is very important that the presentation has an organized look to it because an

unorganized presentation can lead to the listeners to lose interest and hence make an
effective presentation also look like an ineffective one. Outlining the presentation is
one of the most useful skills in developing a well organized presentation.

There are 3 main parts in a presentation:

1. Introduction

2. Body: Main Point 1 and Main Point 2

3. Conclusion

• All the major points in a presentation should be well supported by examples, charts,
tables, etc. It helps the audience to relate with the information and also gives the
presenter information and statistics to back onto.

• All the hand movements and gestures made during the delivery of the speech have a
more lasting effect than all the verbal part of the presentation. Hence it becomes very
important to control these nonverbal communications to make sure that all the right
messages go through to the audience. So stepping on the podium with confidence and
authority are of the utmost importance and also equally important is having a constant
eye contact even before the presentation is delivered. The presentation should flow
like it has been prepared by you and should not sound as if it has been memorized. It
is important to keep smiling during the presentation because the presenters mood can
help elevate everyone’s mood even in the audience.

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• Use of visual aid helps in making the presentation more effective because by doing so
the presenter can make the presentation much more effective by helping the audience
to take note of the key points and also makes it easier to remember what has been
presented.

• Keep on analyzing the audience that is try and interpret messages from their body
language, facial expression, posture. Lethargic and sleepy audience can be brought
back to the topic being delivered by involving them in the presentation and
encouraging them to ask questions. But this can only be done when the presenter has
adequate knowledge of the topic.

So hence we can understand that a mixture or a correct combination of all these 9 guidelines
is needed to make the presentation effective. Today as mentioned earlier presentations have
become a very important part of the corporate life. But it carries an even more amount of
importance for the marketing and the sales people because they need to make presentations to
clients which not only helps in achieving sales but also puts forward an image of the
company to the clients so here an ill prepared presentation can lead not only to drop in sales
but can also put the company’s image in bad light.

Views from Managers in Cadbury India Pvt. Ltd

Landsburg’s views are supported by the Marketing Head of Cadbury India as he mentions,
“For any manager technical knowledge accounts for 20%, while the ability to communicate
the views and opinions accounts for 80% of the presentations effectiveness.”

So we took the perspective of the managers in marketing and sales division of Cadbury India
Ltd. And the views of the managers on each of the 9 guidelines are as follows:

• No One Way is Correct

Mr. Ashish, the Business Head, mentioned that one has to continuously learn from
every presentation as one successful way of presentation may not fit in the other
presentations. Hence there is a need to develop the presentation in such a way that can
be altered in accordance to various situations and develop it accordingly.

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Also it was observed that the managers try and make a presentation that is easy for the
audience to accept as this helps to have a 2 way communication and which in turn
increases the presenter as well as the audience’s interest.

• Stay Calm

The views that across to us were that any amount of thorough preparedness can go to
waste if the presenter does not stay calm and gets nervous.

Overcoming nervousness has been one of the major points worked upon during the
training imparted to the budding managers of Cadbury.

Mr. Sushant has shared his experience on how he overcomes his nervousness to stay
calm. He isolates himself from the surroundings before the start of the presentation
which allows him to focus only on the topic for the last 15-20 minutes before the start
of the presentation.

• Know the Purpose and Topic

It was a common view from all that it is immensely important to know the purpose of
the topic one is presenting in order to feel comfortable about the topic and also have
an ease in delivering the message across. It also helps one to understand various
dimensions of the topic on hand.

Experiences shared told us that during the monthly review meetings to the superiors it
is very important for the presenter to know the various ratios, figures and charts to
counter any questions that may arise during the presentation.

Also for the presentation targeted to gain buy-in from top management on New
Marketing Initiatives one has to be clear about how the initiative will help the
company gain advantage over the competitors and also help in increasing the sales.

• Analyse Your Audience

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“In a business setting the audience can be company top management, senior
managers, team members and subordinates hence the content of the presentation be
customized as per the audience to have the desired impact.”, Mr. Avinash was quoted.

For example, while presenting to top management one has to concentrate more on the
strategic and financial dimensions of the project and has to be very formal while for
team members it is more about presenting operational facts and motivational inputs
and can also be comparatively informal depending on the topic and situation.

• Organizing the Presentation

We always emphasize the importance of ‘connecting the dots’. This helps you to
organize your point of view in the form of presentation and the audience can connect
to the presentation more easily as everything seems to be in a particular flow.

An unorganized presentation which is similar to an incompletely connected picture

cannot give a clear view of the topic. These were the views echoed by Mr. Avinash

Even good communication skills will not help in delivery of the presentation if the
presentation is unorganized.

• Use of Supportive Evidence

According to Mr. Sushant he always prefers to use testimonials from distribution and
reports from the retailers to support the figures and facts that he gives while making
the presentations in the Sales Review Meeting to his superiors and also expects the
same from his subordinates as this gives extra credibility to the presentation and the
presenter.

• Delivery of Speech

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‘Kill with Confidence’ is the motto that Mr Avinash follows for all the presentations
he makes and this is the secret he feels that has helped him to climb up the corporate
ladder in Cadbury.

Non verbal plays a more important role than the verbal part because an over
aggressive speaker can cause the audience to lose interest in the presentation. This
was a problem faced by Mr Sushant in the start of his career as he tended to be over
aggressive leading to the effectiveness of his presentation to go down.

• Visual Aids

The use of visual aid again depends on the audience of the presentation that is if the
audience consists of superiors than the presentation should contain flowcharts, line
graphs, pie charts. While if the audience consists of a team members or subordinates
the visual aid become of even more importance as they can much easily connect to the
visuals and understand the message being forwarded so the visual aid can also consist
of pictures, comic strips, short video clips but only if they have enough relevance to
the topic.

• Feedback

According to Mr. Avinash the organization structure of Cadbury is very formal and
hence usually the feedback from the audience is also formal and he has not come
across anyone sleeping or lethargic during the presentation because the presentations
that he delivers are usually 15-20 mins and also having the complete know how of the
topic helps him in answering any questions that come across.

Also according to him the presentations effectiveness can easily be gauged by the
quality of feedback he gets in the form of questions and queries. As this gives him a
better idea of how much of the topic has the audience actually been able to understand
and also the effectiveness of the presentation.

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Recommendations:

We recommend following steps in consultation with the managers we meet in Cadbury India
Ltd:

• Proper trainings on enhancing soft communication skills are must. For eg: Many
companies conduct trainings such as Metamorphosis modules for entry level
managers, so as to prepare them to handle communication effectively.

• Senior Managers should involve themselves in training & providing feedback to their
junior managers in terms of how to improve & nurture their presentation skills.

• Many in – house initiatives should be undertaken by Human Resource managers such

as Extempore, On – the – spot thinking etc which provides opportunities to the
employees to work on their presentation skills.

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Conclusion:

The Multinational Companies are giving greater importance to nurturing the communication
skills of both the budding and the experienced managers. We conclude that these nine
guidelines can be an effective tool in helping managers to make an effective presentation.
The managers need to be given better training in the proper use of visual aids and non verbal
communication which will help them to have a larger effect of the presentations.

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References:

1. www.cadburyindia.com

2. www.icmrindia.org

3. Mr Avinash-9987511388

4. Mr Sushant Kumtha-9821295761

Bibliography:
1. Managerial Communication, Fr A.C. Jesurajan, S.J.

2.

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