Whether you are presenting your work to the executives of a company or pitching your ideas to potential investors for your start-up, it is crucial that you feel confident about what you are doing. You also need to let everyone know that you have excellent ideas and you believe in them. You might succeed in achieving your goals, but you also have a chance to fail. It does not matter though. When you feel like you were unable to deliver anything positive, you can try again and do a better job next time. Learn from the mistakes and present with confidence if given another shot.
Record yourself
You can record your entire presentation or even the whole meeting to find out how well you did. From the moment you started talking until you answered questions given by the panel, you need to review yourself. It helps if you have the chance to see what you did and criticise yourself. You can also notice what others saw in you which might help you improve in the future.
Look at the reaction of the audience
You want to know if the people in the room felt satisfied with what you did. The best way to know it is by looking at their reactions right away as long as you do not allow yourself to get distracted. The reason why it helps to look at their faces is that they cannot hide what they feel. Some of them might be unhappy with what you are doing, and it will show. Others might agree with you, and they will nod. You will then know which aspects of the presentation need improvement.
Create a checklist
You need to have a checklist of what you need to do for the presentation. You will then know if you have gone through all the steps to be ready. If you missed anything on the list, you could write it down so you can use it the next time. If you failed to follow one or more steps, you also need to make a note so that you can understand its impact on your overall performance. Sometimes, your failure to follow a step will not affect your presentation, and you might consider removing it to save time and effort.
Be open to suggestions
Ask your boss or anyone else in the room about your performance. When you do so, you need to be ready for the responses. Some of them might tell you straight to your face that you did a horrible job. Instead of getting offended, you can ask how you could improve the next time. For instance, if someone told you that your presentation was confusing, you might want to invest in an AV display stand you can purchase at www.unicol.com. The audience did not capture what you said and received no visual aids. This simple addition to your presentation could positively impact the results in the future.
You cannot prevent yourself from making mistakes, but you can keep improving by understanding where you went wrong.
