How an Average Guy Got Recognised Every Time by His Presentation Skills

Hated being the ordinary

Presentations have been my stronghold, which won me several awards during my MBA as well as at my workplace. I did a short stint as a Training Manager at a Multi-national Bank and I have never left the room without standing applause in those 1.5hr training sessions. Presentations helped me carve a niche for myself and earned me special recognition among my peers. I’m not hyping it, but it is not uncommon for me to see people getting awestruck by the change they see in me from ‘off’ to ‘on’ stage — They see the real and different me!

I will take you through my journey and reveal to you openly how many occasions I steered my way in this direction of my strength. I’m sure you will reap the benefits.

Back at my school, I was an average student in my class, a lazy introvert, who was shying away from events or presentations till the last year of schooling. It all started in the last year of my school when we had to give a presentation on “World Health Organisation” in a team (without a Powerpoint).

My other two teammates were just sleeping partners, and I need to carry this on my shoulders alone. A compulsory exercise so prepared extensively for it, and felt butterflies in my stomach for days expecting my turn till the presentation day finally arrived. I was sick of waiting for days to get my turn and hence have automatically overcome my fear on the D day, to my surprise.

By the time I ended the presentation I knew I have delivered it wonderfully well overtaking my peers despite being an average student. The entire class was clapping continuously for 1min, making us the only team to receive such applause. This made me discover that I have some talent for the presentation.

Having discovered this in the last year of my schooling, I regretted shying away from the stage all these years and with a feeling that I should have discovered this talent much before!

Engineering — Degree phase

Four years into Engineering and there were at max 2–3 presentations, where I jumped in and won some appreciation in that limited crowd.

Did you ever notice — Presentations or MOOCs from Top schools such as MIT are so boring that it puts me down to sleep with the headphones on. But here the matter is — in Engineering, ‘subject’ takes precedence over ‘the way of presentation’, just like how MIT lectures add priceless value in teaching subject. Due to this reason, I could not hone my skills during Engineering and it did not become a platform for my uplift.

However, there came an instance when the year end project was to be presented. Once again the “Year-end Thesis project” I presented was a big hit, which of course also included an interesting subject. The external evaluator was surprised at my presentation and I bagged the highest mark significantly improving my GPA saving me from a low scorer pitfall.

MBA — Post Graduation phase

Here comes the platform where I honed my presentation skills to the max.

From Zero to Hero — my first few days at MBA:

• Again an average guy walks into the B-school. With not good entrance scores, suddenly seniors turn against me and blame the college for stooping too low to fill up their classes. So, I get ragged traditionally by the seniors, with my low scores adding extra vigour to it.
• Then arrives a platform to present me through the inter-college presentations held at my college. My presentation is on the subject “Stock markets” now and despite being an ex-Engineering (new to Finance), I bag the first prize from 20 presentations.
• Above changed my stature in front of my seniors and I could see the build-up of respect from the same seniors who detested a low scorer, right once I got down the stage.

Here walks-in my Professor in the story:

• A lecturer, who is a friendly personality but is also strict and disciplined in handling students. Dean of the College as well as a Computer Science Professor, a fatherly figure for the students, who took up the responsibility to shape the students’ career and personalities.

Why didn’t you grab the opportunity to answer this question? Why didn’t you raise your hand first ?

• The above words still ring a bell after 13Yrs of completion of my MBA.
• He imbibed in me a quality, which always invigorates me to raise my hand first and take up the challenge boldly when invited for.
• His words inspired me to talk more. I started my Finance club at college and my confidence, and speaking skills rose to a completely different level.

At my MBA college, thanks to my Professor especially as well as several other lecturers, Mentors, I could get onto the stage at least to present 100 times in the 2 years of my college, I am not exaggerating!

One such presentation I have given was on the topic “Supply meets its own demand”. Animation is my specialty, but I couldn’t embed it given the shortage of time. Our team prepared a PPT on a war-footing basis — the final PPT to be presented as agreed was a plain one. My part was to talk and explain how supply meets its own demand, while others talk about supply and demand individually.

The presentation started and I was shocked to see my other team members applied wonderful animations on their slides, while mine was ordinary. Somehow, I hate being ordinary. So, had to plan something urgently, with the only resource available to use being — ‘the way I present’.

Supply meets its own demand — So, consider the Supply as ‘Hero’ and Demand as the ‘Heroine’. They meet each other at the end. How do they find each other? That’s suspense and I’m not going to reveal it till the end. I will make all points fall in line with this story.

The above was planned in 5min and executed in 15min. By the end, my teammates were found awestruck, a few peers commented in front of the class that I was amazing and the Lecturer praised me for being the best among all the presenters for that exercise.

It continued and I have bagged several awards and recognition for my presentations, anchoring many shows at the college. As I have been working abroad, my wife along with my in-laws visited my college to get me some certificates. They were so happy to find that almost every lecturer remembers me even after 13Yrs. That’s the impact I have left, mainly owing to my presentations.

At Work Place

The recognition which I gained at my college helped me to gain a decent placement at a reputed work-place. It was a dream come true.

Even here, there were instances where I proved myself. At one of the multi-national banks, we had to present on “Climate change and Conservation”. I have come up with a Profit & Loss account and a Balance Sheet for Mother Earth with ratio analysis, which was said to be

Also, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, for the short stint I was working as a Training Manager, I have never walked out of the class without standing applause. Do believe me, I am not exaggerating it.

On several occasions, I steered the situation into my path of strength. For any complicated topic or presentation, I said we will prepare it as a presentation. And, I made a resolve that none of my presentations will be ordinary. This was the case and hence, how can I not be recognised?

Takeaways

• Experiment. Identify your strengths. Start young. Now or Never
• To overcome fear — Rehearse several times before the actual presentation, enacting as if you are addressing the audience
• Prepare yourself in such a way that you can present either with or without a PowerPoint presentation
• Everyone has his own special set of skills. Discovering them and steering the situation in that direction can ensure success in life
• Grab every opportunity you get to hone your presentation skills. Not everyone will get such an encouraging professor or platform to uplift.

Tips for better presentation skills

• Know your audience and twine a personal element of interest into it
• Never fake anything and get yourself embarassed. Never take such a risk.
• Know your subject well. The subject is important than the presentation
• Your presentation should be entertaining to grab the audience’s attention
• Overuse of images, animation is not appreciated. Use only where required
• Present to get into the listener’s mind and not to showcase your PPT skills
• It’s your duty to make the audience want to listen from you
• Lastly - Hate being the ordinary

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