Discussion on:

10 ways to present yourself more professionally

To the women who may be reading this, we know that sometimes rooms can be very cold. Please save yourself embarrassment by always wearing a jacket or cardigan over a blouse, or wear a padded bra. I had to endure one presentation given by a woman who was obviously freezing. To this day I can't remember a thing she said because I was so distracted. I can't even imagine how the men reacted. Enough said.

Good advice overall.

However, on the topic of clothing. Your clothing is part of your brand. You need to dress accordingly. A suit isn't a requirement -- Steve Jobs never wore suits to presentations. Neither did Bill Gates. Notice that Steve Ballmer tries to play the audience game (audience A gets the suit, audience B gets the sweater and open shirt) and comes across as wishy-washy. What is a necessity is to dress up from the part.

For many of us, that means a suit. For others it can mean chinos and a golf shirt. What matters is that if you wear a suit -- wear a good one. If you wear a jeans wear crisp, clean, new jeans -- no rips (even if they cost more), no fading (even if it costs more). Just recognize that a suit says one thing about a person and jeans and a jacket says something else. Neither good nor bad -- just different. Choose your own weapons.

Glen Ford
http://www.glendford.com

to engage your audience with eye contact. It doesn't matter how smart or professional you are if you're perceived as standoffish, too shy, or otherwise inadequate because you don't look at your audience. That's one of the first things I tell students, co-ops, and newbies--Look at your audience more than your notes!

Thank you for the great article and the following comments.

I would suggest to be very careful with the wording and the pronunciation when you are not native in the language of the presentation. Your audience is sharing with you their time and they are not there to learn "interlingua":

Rehearse numerous times alone and when you are super confident about the content, the flow and the duration, rehearse now with a knowledgeable friend who does not hesitate to critique you to your face and whose opinion you value.

Join Toastmasters! As simple as that!

Thank you for this candid, entertaining yet factual article. Yes, the empty stomach in church can be embarrassing, let alone in an interview.

There's nothing better than being able to see where your presentation falls over. Set up your video camera /camcorder/phone and record your presentation. Then watch it back making notes of bits you don't like - you may discover 'habits' that you are not really aware of (like scratching your nose when nervous, or some such) that you will be able to consciously overcome once you're aware of them. It will also help with deportment (ooh - I didn't realise I stooped so much, or walk about too much, or stand too rigid......)

Dont forget the shoes ... first thing I look at .... learned this off my grandfather ... if they are smartly dressed with dirty/scruffy shoes then there appearance is probably superficial ...

Which i obviously didnt do ... THEIR appearance ...

I concur with making sure you aren't running on an empty stomach since the mind performs better with fuel but the other aspects are human nature and completely out of one's control. It would seem more helpful to help people learn to deftly handle those realities instead of asking them to some how control the body's natural responses and what it must do to keep itself in balance and working properly.

Regarding spell-check: By all means use it, but turn off the feature that "corrects" your spelling errors automatically. Spell-checkers are not mind-readers. They do a great job of identifying character strings that are not words, but a lousy job of figuring out what word you really meant. Unless you want your audience to think you really don't know a barrier from a barrio or location from lactation (I've seen both of these), look at the list of suggestions and pick the right one or enter the correct word if it's not in the list. At first you may be amazed at how often the right word isn't at the top of the suggestion list. After a while you'll realize that this habit keeps lots of silly errors out of your presentations and documents.

Really great list... thanks for condensing a lot of principles down into a digestible checklist.

The only comment I'd have is that it's slightly out of order: Knowing your Audience should come first and foremost because it trumps all others. Any exception to one of the other is usually justfied based on whom you're speaking to. For examples, there are cases where you should dress-down for your audience or where more levity is just want you need to get your points across to your audience.

I was demo-ing the newest, latest, greatest features of our new sales software to a sales team who was still writing quotes using Excel and realized about two minutes in I had already lost them. Total deer-in-headlights response. I stopped my very-prepared presentation and simply asked "So what's your biggest challenge each day with the way you do your job now?" And then within the context of that question, and the ones that followed, showed them how the new system would fix each problem. Sometimes the audience needs to lead, simply because they're coming from a totally different start position. Stopping when I did turned a "bomb" into a long-term customer, so beware the stares!

Perhaps you should've asked THAT question BEFORE you invested in the purchase or construction of new software. Why whould you even present a solution before asking the users what they require? How they work?

This stuff about clothes, and especially hair in my case, is very limiting. It shows the kind of dogma in people's minds and industry. Some of the greatest minds never paid much attention to that stuff at all. The people that do tend to be like that are more likely to be limited intellectually, creatively, and so forth. Let us go examine famous scientists and engineers and see how many of them always dressed properly. They would be considered dismal failures if that were really important. It is only important to people with very superficial outlooks on life. And those cannot be the most innovative in any field.

was that you should take care in your appearance, not that you should change it to fit your audience's expectations.

Typically the most innovative in a field are not the people giving presentations. Nobody said your hair cannot be long, however even long hair needs to be trimmed and washed and combed etc. Throwing out the bias card, neither helps your case nor, helps a presentation go well. This article is about how to win an interview or a presentation. If you are feeling picked on because of something said, that is something inside of you that may need to be addressed. For the most part, unless you are in the class of Einstein, looking like Einstein is not going to get you the job, or the sales that your presentation is looking to get.

Having sat through numerous powerpoints from ranking military personnel, anybody can make a mistake and so often, the presenter is not the creator. That being said, the person who looks like a fool is the presenter. Practicing, including reviewing the slides prior to presenting is paramount.

British English and American English are not exactly the same, and it's surprising how many times a word the Brits and Yanks spell differently comes up in a presentation. And be careful with metaphors. A personal example was using "Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all" which to Brits signifies all the deadbeats of a Somerset village who break the back of a horse as they all try to hitch a ride on it - pretty good analogy of the way a successful project attracts the glory-seekers I thought - but "Uncle Tom" means something very different to an American audience.

So which side of the Atlantic are your audience from - and join them.

Not so much in a presentation but certainly in a job interview or even in a meeting, remember the tired old job interview advice: God gave you 2 ears and 1 mouth. Use them in that proportion.

Presentation slides are only meant to support your presentation, so don't put to much information on them and avoid long lines of text since nobody will read it.

A few days ago, I had to make a presentation to a non profit that was interested in my group's services. I was told there would be 5 or 6 people there and I could do a powerpoint.

When I arrived there were 40 people in the room and no way to do a PP. I use PP as an outline, so I switched to using my printout as speaking notes. Things went well. However, I've learned my lesson. From now on, I'm not only practicing with my PP, but also without it.

I believe the write of this article is either ex military or 50+ this is a classic 1980s viewpoint, I am sorry but as a business man I trust someone a lot more that is not acting out of character than giving a crap about how tight there tie is. And you will find that when the Pokmon generation comes into power it will be even more relaxed. Hey Mark Zuckerberg made a couple million in sweatpants dont believe me Google his name and all images you see is the opposite of what the writer describes. So boys and girls put those 80 records away and get with the program.

He wasn't asking you to act 'out of character'. And 'trust someone'? Trust what? The idea is don't have anything distracting. And, finially, Mark Zuckerberg ALREADY has billions of dollars, and no boss - the rest of us have to play by the rules! Just try to make your next presentation in sweat pants and tell your boss, "well, Mark Zukerberg does it!" Yea, right. good Luck

I have always felt ashamed when a presenter is asked about an abbreviation or certain item on their slide and they don't know it. why put it there to begin with?
When you are presenting anything, you are "the expert" so you better check up and know what you are talking about on each slide. Don't put anything there that you don't know. if it must be there, then do your homework with a little research

I world add:
#3A - use the restroom before starting the meeting

I also caution on the use of too much jargon or acronyms - you know what they mean, but is your audience's understanding the same as yours?

When writing an article, such as the one above, check your grammar, it is equally important as checking spelling. It is never proper to start a sentence with the word "and, but and or", these are conjunctions and are used to connect parts of a single sentence together. When giving presentations to professionals, we need to appear professional. I agree with most everything in the article, however when reading the article the gramattical errors jump out at me, especially when written by someone who is a writer.

Whether it is a presentation or an intereview, dont forget to make eye contact with your audience. If it is an one on one interview keep you eye contact all the time; if it is smaller group make eye contact with everyone at least once- make them feel they are imporatant; if it is larger audience, still try to make contact with the audience.

Another important thing is answering questions from the audience. Make sure to compliment the question and then try to rephrase the question before trying to answer the question. If you dont have the right answer, honestly admit it.

To look as a professional you must be serious ,hard- worker(without hard work no one can be a complete professional), smart - worker,ability to solve various issues, good learner and a good listner. He/she should be active.And the most important thing is that he/she has the ability to do things better than others in a more efficient way..


thank you....//////////////

If an IT person meets you to help you get into their LAN or internet or ... Be kind. If an AV person meets you to help you with a microphone or getting your laptop projected to the big screen -- Listen to them. Every event venue has its own personality. Not listening to the "help" may mean you didn't hear them tell you were the mute button was on your mic. If you have never been to the town before and someone is picking you up at the airport or hotel, you may find out where the best place to eat is or what not to say to the new sponsor who just finished chemo and has a wig that doesn't look quite right so be careful what you say about her hair (true story).

You may make a connection with the greater audience, but how you treat those who work with you as you are presenting can also make an important impression. These talented individuals can also say things about you after you are gone. They speak and deal with important people. They dealt with you didn't they?

I would recommend avoiding any type of religious jewelry. Unfortunate religious prejudice does exist (although illegal) and you do not want to take a chance.

Also avoid wearing those large Rapper dollar sign necklaces. :0)

So there are very rare reasons to wear a suit and tie, in other words, to dress formally. And this is true even if you're meeting with the big dogs (CIO, COO, CEO). IT has lost it's pretense decades ago, and everyone knows it, and therefore the expectation is keep it "Steve Jobs" casual. I've been a developer for 34 years, and from what I've seen, the three piece suite and tie was ditched about 15-20 years ago. These days, all a business should care about is your experience, your skills, your certifications, basically your resume and reputation.