Effective presentation

Making and giving effective presentations is the basic key of success for a consultant's career. We cannot become masters of all the topics before we actually present it. So here are a few things that needs to be kept in mind to give a good presentation :

1. Know your audience and their background (their level of awareness of the topic you are going to present )
2. Know the trouble makers in the audience and handle them tactfully ( you can ask them to answer some questions which others raise / Ask them some general awareness questions relevant to the subject being presented to divert their minds from asking questions)
   
3. Let the (presentation) be prepared by a person who is well aware of the topic and ensure that you go through the same with him/her atleast once
4. Be aware of timelines (total time for presentation and the time you need to spend for each slide)
5. Chose a simple layout, one or two fonts and stick to it.
6. Give slides a sense of openness - use plenty of white space.
   
7. Donot write essays on the ppt and try to use simple animations whereever possible
   
8. Try to build a case on the topic you are going to present (Belive me it becomes very easy to take the audience for a ride !! )
9. Watch your non-verbals
   
10. Have some quiz time at the end (or a slide on what we learnt till now)
11. Remember first and last 10 minutes are the only times which create an impression on the audience, use it smartly.