Six Ways to Improve Your Presentation Skills To Ace Your First Training Session

The Three Minute Train the Trainer Series #12

This is #12 in The Three Minute Train the Trainer Series for new and aspiring trainers.

Presentation Skills

The core of a training professional’s role is facilitating training sessions, which requires excellent presentations skills.

You have your training objectives and your audience, all you now need to do is manage the session and engage your trainees, so they learn.

Presentations skills don’t come easily to most. Giving a talk is one of the most feared activities for most adults.

Here are six ways you can improve your presentation skills:

1. Prepare

The most important thing about running a training session is the preparation. Whether you wrote the training material or not, you must know the subject matter inside out.

Before your first session, do some trial runs and make sure you know exactly what to say. And I don’t mean one run-through, half an hour before the session.

Go over and over the presentation until you are flawless. If you haven’t run through it at least ten times, you are unprepared.

A seasoned presenter who knows the material inside out can wing it. A new trainer can’t.

Record your training sessions on your phone. You will soon see where you stumble over your words, forget what you would say, or go completely blank.

Practice makes perfect.

2. Optimize your voice

Your voice is critical as the trainees must hear and understand everything you say.

If your message doesn’t get through, you will think you’ve trained your students, but you haven’t.

Slow down

The most common mistake new trainers make is talking too quickly, and you must slow down and speak clearly.

When you record yourself, take notice of the speed you are talking. If you are accustomed to listening to Youtube or audible at high speeds, you probably talk too fast in real life.

Cut out filler words

Practice cutting out all the “ums” and “ers”. When you first hear yourself, you will be surprised at how many times you repeat the same word or say um, er, like, you know, etc.

You can practice modifying your speech after you’ve listened to a recording of yourself.

Vary your tone

Take a note of your tone throughout your practice. Do you speak in a dull monotone, or do you sound too excited?

Will the audience know from your tone what the essential parts of the presentation are? How do you emphasize your words if you need to?

Use your recording to make sure your tone is varied and doesn’t sound dull.

Be concise

Are you rambling, or are you getting your point across clearly? Unless you practice the exact words you will say, you will find it difficult to be precise.

You may know the training material, but have you practiced getting it across succinctly? The more you rehearse what you want to say, the better you will become.

Be heard

Make sure your voice is loud enough for everyone to hear. If you are in a training room, you will have to throw your voice to the back of the room. Make sure you practice in a room similar to the one you will be using.

If you are on a zoom session, you will have to be near enough to the microphone for people to hear you. If you move your head around, the mike might not pick up what you say unless you have a headset. Do a practice run with a colleague or friend to ensure everything is working beforehand.

Pauses & repeats

You can use a pause or repeat a phrase to emphasize important points.

When you listen to your recording, notice whether you leave enough pauses for your audience to know when one idea finishes and another starts.

Your trainees are trying to make sense of new information and work out how the content is structured. Running topics or sentences together could be confusing for your trainees.

3. Manage your body language

Your students will pick up a lot from your body language, so make sure you present confidently.

In a classroom, stand up straight and don’t fidget or rock. Avoid crossing your arms or standing sideways on from the trainees.

If you are online, make sure you have positioned your laptop to look at the camera directly. Sit up straight and have an open posture while you sit.

As a trainer, you will need to make eye contact with all the trainees, so make sure you are glancing about the room at the trainees in turn.

Watch your students to make sure they are engaged and also pick up on anyone who looks like they don’t understand something.

It’s harder to make eye contact in a zoom session, but make sure you look at the camera and watch your trainees pick up on their understanding.

If you have been recording yourself, you can see how you are standing or sitting, what you are doing with your hands, and any habits you are unaware of.

4. Practice where you preach

If your session is in a training room, you must practice in a training room. Take all your notes and equipment with you and set up just like you would for a proper session.

Run through the session aloud and practice walking about, changing the slides, handing out the materials. Pretend to write on the whiteboard and flip chart.

If you are used to where everything is and how to use all the equipment in the training location, your first session will run much more smoothly.

If your session is online, do the same.

Practice giving a presentation from the room you will be using. If the traffic is loud or your dog keeps barking, you will know to fix the problem before the actual session.

Make sure all audio and visuals work, and if you are sharing slides and putting people into zoom rooms, practice with a couple of friends.

Nothing beats having a proper rehearsal.

5. Prepare questions

There is always someone in the group that asks all the unusual questions.

Make sure you think of every awkward question that can come up and prepare an answer.

If you still get one you can’t answer, say it’s an interesting question, and as it’s the first time you’ve run the class, you need time to think about the answer. Tell the students you will get back to them and make sure you do.

6. Ask for help

Make sure you let your group know that this is your first session, and you may need their support.

Most people are helpful and will sympathize with you, especially if you admit you are nervous.

Summary

If you make a significant effort to prepare, you will do OK. Your first session will not be perfect, but everyone has to go through the stress of their first presentation to get better.

Ask someone to sit in with you for support and give you feedback afterward.

A presentation by an experienced trainer will look easy. It’s the preparation and practice beforehand that makes it look that way.

I’m a Learning & Development professional writing about leadership & training and I’ve designed The New Leader’s Starter Kit to help leaders communicate more effectively with their teams.

Get your FREE copy here — The New Leader’s Starter Kit takes you through how to run One-to-Ones and Constructive Feedback sessions & develop professional listening skills — a printable one-to-one form, feedback form and listening skills checklist included.

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