There are many things to keep in mind if you are hosting a presentation or seminar These include what you are going to say, how to attract an audience, what will serve as your event space… It can become very stressful very quickly!
Business Presentation Tips
To keep you from being overwhelmed by the task at hand, this article will help you with your seminar preparation by listing five of the main things you need to keep in mind when planning a seminar workshop. Each of these things is important in its own way and can go a long way toward helping you put on a successful seminar.
1. Finding a Space
Before you do anything else, you should first figure out where your seminar is going to take place. Seminar room rental is key to putting on a good seminar: where you give your seminar workshop is almost as important as the seminar itself! You want a spacious, nice room with good heating or air conditioning (depending on what time of the year it is) and ventilation. You want comfortable chairs (but not so comfortable that people will be falling asleep), and you want to make sure that you know beforehand whether these comfortable chairs will come with the space, or have to be rented separately. Once you have found the perfect room to rent for your seminar, you are ready to move on with the rest of the planning.
2. Scheduling Your Seminar
Is your target audience member someone who works during the week? If so, it is better to plan your seminar for the weekend or a weeknight. Don’t plan the seminar on a holiday if you can help it, and make sure that the date of the seminar is during a time when people are not normally too busy to take part in it. The date and time of your seminar can make or break its success, so be sure to think about every aspect of scheduling before you set a firm date.
3. Sending Invites
Most invitations are sent via email now, but it is still important to get them out in a timely manner. Send them too early and people may forget that they RSVPed to your event, send them too late and the people you invite may already have other plans. In addition to timing, though, it is also important to pick out your invitees carefully. Invite only people who you think could truly benefit from your seminar or people with whom you would find it beneficial to engage in networking.
Encourage everyone you invite to send back an RSVP so that you can make a spreadsheet of who all is coming. This is a great help in the planning (especially if you are passing out materials or catering the event) because it allows you to keep track of who and how many people are coming.
4. Plan Your Presentation
What is it that you want the attendants of your seminar to take away from your presentation? And what is the best way to impress this upon them? Your message is the most important part of your seminar. Decide what you want to say or teach, or what you want to encourage your audience to do. Then figure out the best way of relaying that information to them. Powerpoint is a great tool, but the best tool is your own passion and delivery. If you think that visual aids will help get your message across, then be sure that the event space you are renting has a screen and computer setup. Just in case it doesn’t or in case the audiovisual assets aren’t functioning properly on the day of your seminar, make sure that you have a backup plan. You can never be too prepared! Once you have all these things planned out, practice, practice, practice!
5. Stay on Topic
The room is booked, the seminar is scheduled, the guests are invited, and now it’s showtime. As you go into the room to begin your seminar, you should feel calm, confident, and ready to impress. Once you start your presentation, though it is important to remember to stay on message. Sure, it is great to connect with the audience and engage in a bit of small-talk to make yourself appear relatable, but be careful not to get off track you only have a small amount of time to get your message across, and you need to hold your audience’s attention the whole time. Wandering off topic can cause some members of your audience to tune out or worse – leave. They came here to hear you speak about the topic of the seminar, not about your child’s softball game. Inject some personality into your presentation, but not so much that you lose track of your objective.
Once you have all these things covered, the best tip of all is to just be yourself and be proud of the seminar you put together. That, along with keeping the above five tips in mind, will surely make your seminar a success!
About the Author
Emily is is a freelance writer with an MBA degree and years of experience with various companies. She loves encouraging small business owners and digital marketing. She is also a content marketing strategist for E88 Bangkok, the creative space which features coworking space, seminar rooms, wedding space as well as event meeting room located in Bangkok.