Should presenting be an art to practice?

Posted Friday, January 20, 2006 at 4:24pm in PR General  | 

There’s an interesting article in this issue of PR Week on the art of presenting. Basically, it says that although some PR pros may be good at communicating, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good at presenting.

It then goes on to discuss why relevant training is needed within agencies to help staff become better at presenting ideas to clients or reporters and why not enough training is given to staff at junior level.

I thought this was worthy of a post as presentation skills are a necessity in the profession. PR is usually the face (and conscience) of an organisation so dealing with external people is a day-to-day occurrence.

No doubt there have been times when the better agency has lost a pitch through a bad or unprepared presentation. After all, you may have the greatest ideas in the world, but if you can’t communicate them articulately and proficiently, then they aren’t going to be used.

So what are the key ingredients to delivering a good presentation? Is it something that comes natural to some and not to others? And how does one overcome nervousness, or at least, how do we use nerves to our own advantage?

At university, we carry out numerous assessed presentations to lecturers and fellow students. Not a large audience but one sufficient enough to get the butterflies flapping, and of course, also knowing your grade is dependent on your presentation is enough to get you a little anxious.

Although these presentations are not the same as a ‘real pitch’ in the monetary sense, a poor outcome can still have its costs.

I’ll admit, I do get nervous before a presentation, but at the same time I’m glad it’s a requirement at university. It’s a great starting point for something we will no doubt be required to do in the future. It’s also a good feeling when you pull a great presentation off; you’ve said what you want to say, spoke clearly, articulated your point and engaged the audience.

But if it’s true what PR Week say and not enough juniors are being trained in presenting, then how are they supposed to learn? In fact there’s even an argument in there that says it should be learned the hard way. I.e. By making mistakes. But surely this method would be unfavourable to the agency and unfair to the junior? Imagine presenting without any training or guidance whatsoever?

So should the art of presenting be something that is perfected and practiced internally? Perhaps holding internal presentations among staff is a good way to train juniors and also help blow gathered cobwebs out from the more experienced staff? To use a cliche - practice makes perfect - and like all cliches there is an element of truth involved.

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