New Training: Successful Presentations

In this 8-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Simona Millham teaches you how to successfully communicate to groups. Learn how to plan a presentation that focuses on the needs of your audience, how to identify your core message and intention, how to engage your listeners, and more. Watch this new Professionalism training.

Watch the full course: Soft Skills for Business Training

This training includes:

• 8 videos

• 43 minutes of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Introduction

• WHO is your Audience?

• WHY are you Giving this Presentation?

• WHAT are you Going to Cover?

• HOW will you Deliver your Message?

• WHEN are you Delivering the Presentation?

• WHERE will the Presentation be?

• Presenting Tips

Explain Why Stakeholders Should Care In Presentations

In the IT world, it's normal for IT professionals to give presentations for things like new applications or changes in the business IT environment. IT professionals have the unusual burden of explaining complex topics to people that may not fully understand them or why they are needed. Even worse, since IT is largely considered an overhead expense, IT professionals need to be able to justify these needed costs in their presentations. So, IT professionals need to consider who these presentations are for before delivering them.

For instance, if an IT team is proposing a new application for a business, their message will be different for the CEO compared to end-users. The CEO will want justifications for the cost of this new application, what benefits it offers to the business over existing solutions and a general idea of expectations and rollout. On the other hand, end-users will want to know how this new application will help them and why they should be invested in learning a new application. After all, there is a lot of friction involved with teaching end-users new tools.

Knowing your audience is important for any presentation. IT professionals need to explain why stakeholders should care about this presentation, and, though that is a generic question to answer, that answer will be different depending on each group of stakeholders.