Why Are Presentation Skills So Hard To Learn?

People aren’t really born with great presenting skills. They learn them. An exceptional few acquire these skills early (high school debate, anyone?), while some just love performing (the benefit of being in the drama club). But for most of us, it is something we had to learn because the job demanded it – and we weren’t prepared. Strong presentation skills drive success. It’s a proven fact that these skills lead directly to increased earnings and faster career advancement.

To make it easier to get your arms around your skills, let’s examine four myths about learning and managing effective presenting skills.

1. You Will Learn On The Job. Most direct supervisors don’t have great presentation skills themselves, so they make less-than-optimal trainers. In most instances, you end up having to present without any real training. Sink or Swim here will not lead to success. It might even be detrimental. Don’t settle for anything less than specialized professional help to build these skills.

2. Your Organization Will Automatically Provide Training. Very few companies are forward-looking enough to have a regular cadence of presentation training. This means that most people rely solely on coaching from supervisors. Instead, go to your supervisor and HR to request this training. And if you talk four colleagues into joining this request, you improve the odds of approval.

3. All Presentation Training Skills Are Created Equal. You need to learn how to leverage your personal charisma style, map audience needs and strategies, create compelling narratives, build effective scripts, and engage audiences. The right training unlocks your personal potential. So choose a training approach that helps you understand your personal strengths and weaknesses, and enables you to build an authentic presenting style that persuades your audience.

4. You Are Set For Life Once You Are Trained. Presentation skills evolve over time. You and your content will become more sophisticated, and new tech capabilities will change how we present, both in person and virtually.  But with the fundamentals of charisma, storytelling, scripting, and delivery under your belt, it will be easy for you to adapt to new, more compelling ways to persuade audiences. Always look for sources of emerging capabilities and skills and learn them.

Keep your career progressing forward with momentum. Make sure your Presenting Skills are at the level you need them to be.

My consulting practice provides impactful presentation coaching for all levels of an organization, focusing on Charisma, Storytelling/Scripting, Deck Development/Design and Presentation Delivery. If you want to immediately improve your ability to present and persuade, then contact me. I can get you to where you need to go.