Presentation skills play an important role in business today and if you use some of the key 7 skills taught on presentation skills training courses there is no doubt that you can develop the skills necessary to carry out effective presentation

So what are these 7 skills and tips necessary to improve your presentation skills

1. Know your purpose, what are you trying to achieve? The clearer you are in your objective of your presentation the easier it will be to pick the right material to help you achieve your goal. One question I always ask myself is, what do I want my audience to do after the presentation?

Once I am clear on this it helps me to then set out the presentation with this in mind

2. Structure your presentation so as there is a clear beginning middle and end. I know on many presentation skills training courses presenters are taught to use the basic principle that is often used on news channels:

Tell them what you are going to tell them
Tell them
Tell them what you told them

This structure will ensure you have a beginning, middle and end

3. Use visual aids effectively, remember the word visual. A visual aid is not words, words words. Always remember if you can use a visual image in a presentation as opposed to words it is far more effective. It all goes back to the old story ‘a picture can paint 1000 words'

4. In the event that you do have to use words on a visual aid there is a golden rule that you must always keep in mind. It is called the rule of 6 which means a maximum of 6 words per line and 6 lines per slide

5. Use and remove, we all recall the old days when we presented with an overhead projector. If you recall, we used to cover the acetate with a piece of paper and only reveal the acetate line by line. The same principle should be applied using power point.

6. Always remember no matter how good or indeed how bad your visuals are, you will always be the main visual aid in any presentation, and as such must always convey confidence and dress appropriate to the business you work in.

7. Always use an ‘in conclusion' or ‘to conclude' slide, this is vitally important as your audience will always wake up when you use these magic words.

So anyway to conclude the key messages that I hope this makes you think about are that presentation skills can be improved by attending an effective presentation skills training courses.