Solid presentation skills are learned over time. That means if you want to dazzle your clients and prospects with your slide show or have them cheering after your speech you need to practice. Unfortunately since formal presentations for many business executives are an infrequent occurrence, you can’t become a master overnight. Below are a few tips we’ve learned over the years that can immediately help improve your next presentation.

Tip #1: Be Ready for Questions

Polished professional speakers prepare for common questions in advance, so they have a short and focused response. But if you don’t have the experience or a question throws you off balance, you can maintain composure by rephrasing the question back to the audience members to give you more time to think on your feet.

Tip #2: Pause; Don’t Trip

When you are nervous, everything becomes magnified. During a presentation forgetting what you intended to say or losing your flow of speech can be terrifying. When this happens remember to stop and take a deep breath. This pause feels incredibly unnatural, but it is usually barely noticed by the audience.

Pausing is far superior to tripping over your words and throwing out incoherent sentences. Most people end up speaking too fast when they feel nervous, so intentionally slowing down and taking time to pause can prevent tripping over your words which is a lot more noticeable.

Tip #3: Write Your Headings, Not Your Entire Speech

If you have to talk for over five or ten minutes, it can be difficult and incredibly time-consuming to prepare every single word of your speech and memorize it. Many professional speakers instead choose to just write major topic headings so they understand the structure, order, and the flow.

When you practice your presentation (which should always be done), note the places where you trip up. For these sections write out few sentences or bullet points you can refer back to during your presentation. The easy parts of your speech will continue to flow and you can be thoroughly prepared to handle the harder parts.

Tip #4: Don’t Distract With PowerPoint

PowerPoint slides are the standard for most business presentations. But remember that as a speaker you want the focus to be on you. Slides should enhance your presentation, not we the primary focal point. If your audience can get all the information they want from your slides why are they going to listen to you?

If you watch any presentations done by hugely successful speaker and marketer Seth Godin, you quickly notice how many of his slides are nothing more than a single image or word. These slides enhance the message he is trying to convey but they don’t steal the spotlight or distract the audience.

Oh, and one final tip, smile. To a large extent your audience will take on your tone and manner and if they feel you are having fun they’ll be much more likely to enjoy and recall what you have to say.