This document provides 20 tips for delivering an effective presentation. Some key tips include practicing your presentation to avoid fumbling through slides, filming your rehearsal to identify areas for improvement, starting a conversation before your presentation to reduce nerves, maintaining eye contact with your audience, understanding who your audience is and relating to them, using examples and stories to illustrate your points, and being enthusiastic to engage your audience. Mastering these tips can help you excel at public speaking and succeed in your career and personal branding.

2. Unless you're a versed speaker, public speaking can be a daunting
experience, whether it's a pitch to a client, a presentation to your
work colleagues or in Eva Longoria's case, a political speech to
American voters. To excel in your career and succeed in personal
branding, here are some useful tips on delivering a good
presentation.

3. 1. Know your stuff – You have to be an expert on your
topic and your competition.
2. Practice –A person reading off a screen can be the most
boring ordeal to sit through, causing your audience to
tune out. A well rehearsed presentation gives you more
confidence as you avoid fumbling through slides to figure
out what comes next.

4. 3. Film your rehearsal – When practicing your
presentation, record it with your phone or a video recorder.
Play it back to yourself and friends or family and amend the
parts which you and they are not happy with.
4. Prepare the room – Always make sure that you have
seen the room you are presenting in and have spent time to
know where everything is. Make sure the AV equipment is
working and you have a spare USB remote for your
presentation in case the venue doesn't have one.

5. 5. Start a conversation- To shake off nerves before a
presentation, many speakers use this well-known tip of
initiating a conversation in the room either with a colleague
or the individual who is introducing them to the audience.
6. Smile – Try not to make it a fake one, ensure it's a
confident and genuine smile making you appear
approachable. Feel good about yourself and act like you
want to be there . Studies from psychologists of non verbal
behavior noticed longer smiles from women indicated
attractiveness, trustworthiness and receptiveness.

6. 7. Be yourself – People will see right through you if are not
yourself, body language is something we subconsciously
pick up. Make sure you enjoy your presentation.
8. Make eye contact – It is difficult to make eye contact in
a large gathering but it can be done if you pretend you are
speaking to one person at a time. Research from 'Trends in
cognitive science' concluded that eye contact fixes people's
attention and helps ignore their peripheral surroundings.

7. 9. Understand your audience – When interacting with
your listeners you can pick up certain clues about who they
are. Perhaps they are conservative women or men with
large egos. Whatever you decide try to relate to them.
10. Avoid too many gizmos – Yes its very impressive to
have amazing videos and power point presentations, but
too many will distract and give your audience an excuse not
to engage. Do you ever see presidents like Bill Clinton or
Barrack Obama taking a projector into their presentations?

8. 11. Take a breather – Top speakers take frequent pauses
in their speech to allow the audience to digest the
information and keep them engaged.
12. Have a good story- Listen to Tony Robbins when he
tells a story, he is one of the most inspirational speakers of
the 20th Century who interacts with his audience and keeps
them engaged.

9. 13. Keep it simple- People's attention spans are getting
smaller with the advent of our information superhighway. If
you are not clear with your information people will switch
off.
14. Get your point across with hand gestures– There
are specific movements of the arms to emphasize what you
are trying to say. Derren Brown is a master in powers of
suggestion.

10. 15. Find out what your audience want – What have the
audience come for? What do they want from the session?
Focus on delivering their needs.
16. Use examples – When conveying a situation or telling
stories use examples to illustrate your point. This is the
most effective way for information to 'stick' in the minds of
your listeners.

11. 17. Command attention – First impressions last, so if you
can grab the audience's attention with a joke or something
eye catching, they will have good reason to listen to you.
18. Stay Positive – you may find people are questioning or
not understanding you. Remain positive throughout and
answer their questions with 'we can talk about that after the
presentation has finished'.

12. 19. Be enthusiastic – If you are enthusiastic the chances
are your audience will reciprocate. Create energy with hand
movements and raising the tone of your voice.
20. Take Handouts – As you have spent so much time
preparing your pitch, it would be a shame to let all that
information go to waste. Remember to leave any contact
details on the handouts or a business card if you're selling
a product with website information on where to find your
product.