Muhammad Noer

How to Close Your Presentation Effectively

September 13, 2017 by Muhammad Noer

Closing a presentation properly and effectively is an important skill a presenter should master. The Presentation’s Closing is as Important as The Opening

The aim of the opening of a presentation is to attract the audience and make them have a good impression about the presentation. While the aim of the closing of a presentation is to persuade the audience to remember and do the message you deliver in your presentation.

As I explained in my book, people tend to remember more the last thing the listen or see. It could happen because the very recent information people get is still new and linger in people’s mind. This thing is called Recency Effect.

A great presenter will think very hard about the idea that the audiences have to bring from his presentation. The audiences should remember just one thing that will help them understand the whole presentation the presenter has delivered.

Unfortunately, many presenters don’t close their presentations properly, effectively and persuasively. It cause the audiences could not remember the content of the presentation that has been delivered after the last session is over.

In this article you will learn about the function of the presentation’s closing, how to close a presentation properly and how to compose a proper closing sentences in a presentation,

The Function of a Presentation

There are 3 functions of a closing in a presentation:

1. To summarize the whole material you deliver,

2. To make the audience remember the main idea of your presentation, and

3. To persuade the audiences to take an action.

How to Close a Presentation Properly

After we know the functions of the closing of a presentation, now I will show you several example and proper presentation’s closing technique.

1. Summarizing the main message

This is the easiest add fastest way to close your presentation.

Each presentation must have a main message. In this way, you summarize the main points of your presentation you have delivered. “As a closing, I want you to have the main skill a manager should have.

First, communication. As a manager, you will be judged by how you communicate. Make sure you communicate coherently and clearly so that people understand what you deliver.

Second, motivation. A good manager needs to master motivation techniques. If your employee is well motivated, it is easy to direct each employee to the common goal.

Third, delegation. Remember! A manager is not a superman. You need to learn to delegate task to the most proper person. By that way, the result will be multiply.

And the last, building. A good manager can create a better leader. Teach your team, know the their talents and weaknesses and help them to progress well.

If you master those four skills, I am sure you will be a great manager who can direct a great team.”

2. Using statements or quotations

A statement or a quotation is very good to use for closing your presentation. Arrange a good statement which fits to the main idea of your presentation. You can also quote sentences from the famous figure who is well known to your audiences.

In a presentation in TEDx Jakarta with topic “How to Read 52 Books in a Year” I used the quotation technique to close my presentation.

Here is the closing sentences.

“And if you are a learner in life, fast reading will help you to love reading activities. It will help you learn so many new skills and you will finally become a excellent person.

By that way, you will become a person who will develop our beloved Indonesia now and in the future.

Therefore, if one day there is someone asks you how man books you read in a year, you will proudly answer, ‘I read 52 books in a year because I am a fast reader.’”

3. Using call to action

Call to action is an invitation to command an act.

Remember, the audiences don’t always understand what you expect from them. That is why in call to action, you deliver what action the audiences need to take.

Call to action is very important especially for the persuasive presentation where you want to sell some products, services, or in order your idea be approved and affirmed by the audiences.

This is the examples:

“You all know that family cars are diverse. But, only few cars can answer all your questions. Family car must be comfortable and fit to be used by all family members. That car must be economical so that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to refill the gas. And lastly, the price of your car must be fit with the benefits you will get from the car you buy. And that car is now right in front of you.

I invite you all to register and do the test drive.

Don’t miss it! Because the test drive activity is held only today. Feel the greatness and the comfort of this car and be clever Indonesian family who buy the right family car.”

Those are 3 ways to close a presentation properly.

If you use one of them well, the audiences will remember your main idea. Besides, they will probably take an action as you expect they to do.

Therefore, you will be successful delivering an effective and impressive presentation.

Get Over The Fear and Be Confident On Your Presentation

August 30, 2017 by Muhammad Noer

You must deliver a presentation tomorrow. In this presentation, you must deliver a material in front of 250 audiences. This is your first time delivering the presentation before hundreds of audiences.

You feel anxious. You are afraid of not being able to do the task properly. You are afraid you will suddenly forget the points you have to deliver.

In the midst of fear and anxiety, you want to absorb energy from the well-known MCs and presenters, who are always performing in front of public smoothly and calmly.

A well-known MC was caught sitting, clasping his hands. His face showed an anxiety. He admitted that he was afraid to face the event because he had to speak in front of the national elites there.

When the time to perform came, the anxiety was suddenly gone. The MC could do his task properly. He performed confidently and his performance amazed the audience, including the president and the ministers.

A very well-known MC will also experience even the anxiety and nervousness before performing. So, it’s very common if you, who are not used to speak in front of many people, feel the anxiety or fear. Moreover, if the material you should deliver is something you are not interested in or if the audiences present in that presentation are not familiar to you.

Anxiety or fear is something normal. As long as you are not driven by them, you will be just fine. The anxiety or fear will force you to make a good and proper preparation. The most important thing is that fear and anxiety can be overcome by several ways.

Accept Your Fear and Anxiety

Anxiety and fear before delivering presentation are something very normal because famous and experienced presenters will also experience them. But, they can pass thru them. The most important thing to do is you accept the fear or anxiety you feel in facing a presentation.

Fear or anxiety before delivering presentation will make you feel nervous on stage. Feeling nervous on stage can cause certain physical symptoms, such as palms of your hands are sweating, body shaking, or the increasing of your heartbeats.

This nervousness can make someone not confident. If you are not confident, you will not deliver the material well. You will be nervous while you are presenting the material.

If you can accept that you feel the fear or anxiety, you will be more relax. After feeling a bit relaxer, you will be able to ignore your fear and anxiety.

You can make yourself more focus on your materials for your presentation. Think of the best ways you can use to make the audiences get the point you want to deliver.

If you try to fight your fear or anxiety, you will be more nervous. Nervousness will not make you focus on your presentation.

How to get rid of the nervousness? By making a positive visualizations right before you perform and deliver your material.

First, visualize that the audience is enjoying your presentation. They pay attention to your presentation with enthusiasm, while sometimes they applause you.

Second, visualize that the presentation you deliver is going well and smoothly. The presentation gives the information the audience needs.

Third, visualize that the audiences are your friends. When you present the materials, visualize that you are talking with your friends.

By doing those visualizations, the anxiety you feel will soon disappear. Besides, try to pray before you deliver your presentation. Prayer can make someone be calmer. While praying, try to close your eyes and take deep breathes and exhale slowly. This way can make your body be so relaxed that fear and anxiety can be overcome.

Make a Good Preparation

In fact, the key for not being too nervous in facing a presentation is making a good preparation. Although a good preparation is not a guarantee that your presentation will be spectacular.

What is a good preparation? It’s of course preparing the materials for your presentation well. Specifically, try to prepare the proper opening sentences. The proper opening sentences will make your presentation go well and smoothly. It also will make the audience more ready and curious to keep paying attention to your presentation.

Besides, try to practice in front of your friends. This practice can you use to anticipate the probable questions so that you will be ready and prepare alternative answers.

To increase your confidence, you can also practice in front of a mirror. Mind your style of speech. If you don’t like it, the audience can feel it too. Practice and practice until you find the proper style of speech you like.

Reconcile with Your Fear

According to what I experience in my whole time, sometimes fear and anxiety before delivering speech will not disappear although I have made a good preparation.

But still, the nervousness will show up several times before I deliver a presentation. I choose to reconcile with the fear and anxiety I feel.

Nervousness before delivering presentation is a sort of energy which waits to be released. You can release it by letting it go on the podium where you deliver the presentation. If you reconcile with it, you will be calmer and surer to perform well and properly.

Nervousness, anxiety or fear is a positive energy for you. if you don’t feel an anxiety of fear, you will not have the motivation to prepare a good presentation. The lack of anxiety or fear indicates that you are being used to with the material you are going to deliver.

Someone who is getting too used to something will probably perform something monotone that will make the audience feel bored. By feeling anxious and afraid, you will try the best to make the presentation go well.

Basically, a presentation will go well if you have the knowledge of presentation. You can learn the ways to deliver presentations well so that your presentation will be spectacular. After learning the tricks, you can prepare a presentation better than before.

The Most Forgotten Essential Communication Skill

August 16, 2017 by Muhammad Noer

If there is someone known as great communicator, what do skill or character do you think he should have?

Most people will answer:

He is very confident and dare to take the stage
He is able to speak in front of public and elaborate his opinion
He is able to influence others.

However most people usually forget to mention this skill, whereas without such skill he cannot be called as a great communicator, no matter how great is his charisma, ability to talk and influence other people.

That is why I call this skill as the most important skill which is forgotten by people. Do you know which skill it is?

This skill is nothing else but listening skill or the skill to listen.

There are many complaints, whether in company or family, just because we do not really listen and understand. Many leaders are also considered as ineffective because they listen less.

Why are we bad listeners?

The fact is that many of us are less-effective listeners. People often think that listening is something they do every day and automatically they master it.

But the reality is not quite the same. Here are some conditions that describe that we are not effective listeners. While reading the following list, ask yourself, “Am I doing those things?”

We listen merely to wait our turn to talk, not to learn to understand. As our turn to talk comes, we tell our opinion or experiences which are greater than other.

We already have our perception toward our interlocutor, while we listen. For example, “Ahh…. Budi is just a layman staff, nothing special in his ideas.” As the result, we stop exploring what the interlocutor means.

Those are some examples to point out that we are not good listeners.

The ability to listen is a skill we must learn. Doing it every day doesn’t make us expert in that. There are tips, tricks and techniques that we should learn, put them into practices and realize while we listen.

Why should we be better listeners?

Listening is the most wondrous gift we could give to people before us. When you listen, it means we give out time and focus totally to the interlocutor. In this time nowadays, time and focus are two things that are so rare. Aren’t they?

By listening to others thoroughly we make them feel respected . You make them think that they are significant –you make them feel important- where such thing is basic need for each person.

By doing those things we will get respect from our interlocutor. People will respect to those who listen and understand, not to those who always command and tell people what they must do.

Listening is also a basic for other communication skills, for instance persuasion and negotiation. Do you want to convince others? The first step is listening to what people desire and need.

That is why now let us learn to be better listener.

What are the Tips to be Better Listeners?

What can we do to be better listeners, who are able to make people fell respected?

Here are some tips we can put into our practices:

1. Give your effort to listen with focus

There are two words in English, hearing and listening. Hearing is the process of automatic listening, without any efforts. Listening is the process of listening with effort to get the understanding.

When we listen to a presentation, hearing means when we listen to the voice of the presenter. It doesn’t mean that we do the process of listening because we don’t understand what the presenter says.

Active listening needs effort. When listening, we must pay attention to understand what people say.

Besides, we also need to focus. If we don’t give our focus when we listen to others, people will not feel respected. For example, when your partner complains but you listen to his/her while playing with your hand phone.

We must try to get rid of things that can make us not focus in listening. When you speak to people, don’t speak while you play with your phone, or read newspaper, or do other things. Dedicate that moment only for the people in front of you.

2. Interpret what the interlocutor means

What people say is often different with what they mean. For example, when you arrive at home and ask to your wife, “How was your day, honey?” and she relpy,”Ya… I am fine.” (with unhappy face) If you still assume that your wife is okay, you are less sensitive.

How we interpret what the interlocutor means? Besides listening to the words, we must also pay attention to the intonation and body language of the interlocutor. This is what we call listening with ears, eyes and heart.

3. Respond appropriately

The way you respond what people say defines your effectiveness as listener. Don’t try to tell your own story or opinions. Often the best response is “hmm..”, “Okay …” or even nodding our head.

Besides, another response to show that you pay attention is by asking further. There are two functions of asking,

Asking to clarify

You can ask to convince what you listen is true, the aim is to confirm or make the speaker speak more. Here’s the example.

Budi : I love reading books about self development.

You : Oh, I see. You like self-development books. Don’t you?

You can notice that to clarify you can just repeat or paraphrase what the speaker says. By clarifying, you make sure what you understand corresponds with what the speaker says.

Asking to explore more deeply

You can ask to know further about the materials in the conversation. By asking, people will feel that you are really interested to know about what he or she is talking about. Here’s the example:

Budi : I love reading self-development books.

You : Ooo… I see. Who’s your favorite author?

And after that you can ask other questions, like:

What is the most impressive book you’ve ever read?
How can you like to read self-development books?
And many other questions…

By asking, you will know more about your interlocutor. He will also feel that you are interested with what he is talking about. In the end of the conversation, he will even say that you are a good friend to talk to.

Those are the simple tips to be a better listener. The good news is that these tips can soon be put into your daily practices. So, happy practicing and make people feel they are special.

This active listening technique is a skill you can practice in our newest workshop, “Impactful Communication in the Workplace”. There you will learn the steps to make other people feel heard, paid attention, and special because of you.

Preparing A Good Presentation With Mind Map Techniques

August 2, 2017 by Muhammad Noer

Brainstorming techniques using the post it could be one way to prepare your presentation. It collects your ideas and you can compile them into a presentation framework.

You can also use another way, that is using Mind Map techniques. According to Tony Buzan, Mind Map is a graphic technique which provides a universal key to unlock the potential of the brain. It suits the way the human brain works. It will make

it easier for you to remember and compile information.

In this way, we make notes that connect one information with others, along with pictures and colors to help the association in the brain.

This technique is popularized by Tony Buzan, an education expert.

Mind Map Techniques For Presentation

Similar to brainstorming, we can started from the main topic, then look for anything related to that. If brainstorming is initially unstructured, Mind Map makes the ideas have structured from the beginning.

For example, if I want to design the material on how to build a learning organization, then I can make streaks of mind maps as follows:

Pembuka: Opening; Buta huruf abad 21: Illiteracy in the 21^st century; Ubah sikap: Change attitude;

Langkah: Steps; Isi: Content; Masalah: Problems; Komponen: Component; Tantangan: Challenges

Tidak sulit: It’s easy ; Ringkasan: Summary; Penutup: Closing; Solusi: Solution; Paradigma: Paradigm;

Pendukung: Support; Pendekatan: Approaches; Contoh: Examples; Mulai: Start; Kompetisi: Competition;

Komunikasi: Communication; Atraktif: Atractive ; Provokatif: Provokative

Step One: The Title

The first step in creating a Mind Map is to set the title of your presentation. Create a big headline in the middle of the page and give an illustration to represent it.

Step Two: Determine Main Branches

Mind Map will help you recognize and create presentation structures from the very beginning. In this example, the presentation structure is made very simply by consisting of three main branches. The branches are: Pembuka (Opening), Isi (Content), Penutup (Closing).

Step Three: Develop Each Branch With Required Details

Now you have a big picture with three main branches. Next develop each branches. For example, for the Opening branch, I will start with a quote from Alvin Toffler about ‘buta huruf abad 21’ (illiteracy in the 21st century). Then how to change the attitude from lazy learning to spirit and what steps are needed.

You can see that these three steps are created with concise keywords and sentences that represented them.

After that, I developed a second branch of the content. Here you can see what the Mind Map will discuss about the organization’s learning issues: why it happens, what components in the learning organization and the challenges it faces.

The problems are answered with solutions that will discuss: learning paradigm, supporting factors for learning organizations, approaches that can be done, and actual examples.

Finally, the closing branch is developed very simply in the conclusion that build a learning organization is not difficult. Any organization can do it as long as it has a strong desire. The presentation ends with a statement and a summary.

Step Four: Use Mind Map As Your Presentation Flow

Once the Mind Map is complete, you can check whether the plot is strong enough and coherent. If there something is not logical, you can make the necessary changes. Once you are comfortable, then you can turn the mind map into a presentation slide.

Step Five: Use Mind Map As Your Powerful Reminder and Notes

The Mind Map that you have created is not only help in making the presentation slides. It can also be used to help you remember when delivering presentations in an actual session. In the example above, I just remember the Mind Map I made, move it into my head, and I will remember the entire flow of the presentation.

How to Choose A Good PowerPoint Template for Your Presentation

July 11, 2015 by Muhammad Noer

A good presentation can be supported by using a good presentation template.

The right PowerPoint template will help you show ideas clearly. It makes your presentation look professional, consistent and, elegant between one slide to another.

Unfortunately, standard presentation templates available in PowerPoint in my opinion is not good enough.

Your presentation looks too common and mediocre by using such templates. Even some template has a conflicting color combination. It looks busy and uncomfortable to the viewer’s eyes.

Then, how you choose a good presentation template?

Here are the characteristics of a good presentation template for your reference:

1. The template gives you enough room to fill in content

This is the main requirement when you choose a template.

Good template gives you enough room to be creative.

You can add images, graphics, or text to visualize your ideas.

Remember the presentation template is the background of your presentation.

The template presentation should not be too dominant that move attention from the content to the template.

2. Using harmonious and consistent color

A good presentation template usually using colors harmoniously. This is very important because the right color combination will create comfort and looks professional. Audiences can easily see a slide-by-slide with consistent color.

Avoid using a presentation template that use too many colors. Remember, too many colors will create distraction and visual fatigue for your audience.

3. Good Font Combination that Match With The Presentation Template

In addition to giving you enough space to fill in and harmonious colors, a good template provides a carefully selected font.

The font that match with the presentation template itself so it looks attractive, visually beautiful, and consistent.

For example, formal template for business presentations should use formal fonts. On the other hand, more creative presentation can use a unique or fancy font.

4. Enable you to create a good visual communication layout

A good template should help you to create a good visual communication.

For example, when you want to create a title, a good presentation template will provide a slide title that dominant and powerful to attract audience attention right from the beginning.

When you want to use picture, a good template also helps you in selecting the right layout.

The same thing when you want to create a chart. It will provide a good layout options for your chart.

Therefore, you can adapt the template with your content easily.

5. Presentation Template should match with your content

There is no template suit in all situation.

Each presentation is unique and requires a unique look as well.

When you deliver a formal presentation to the board of directors, investors, or your boss, then you need to choose formal or corporate style template. Despite the formal nature, your presentation will still look attractive and elegant.

Please take a look the following examples of good template:

Conversely when you make a presentation for birthday parties or other informal events, use a more fancy and creative template.

It will make your presentation look fresh and stylish.

Please see below example:

Those are five characteristic of a good presentation template.

The question is, where you can find presentation templates like that?

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Do you have other view of a good presentation template?

Please share in the comment.