Ace English: Nail Your Next Meeting Presentation!

Would you like to know how to ace your next meeting presentation? Meetings/presentations are a given in most industries nowadays and are very important to get right and to be understood. To complete successful presentations and meetings it is crucial to have English proficiency. Continue reading to gain tips and strategies to improve your English communication during business meetings.

Pre-Meeting/Presentation Preparation

Vocabulary building

In order to give a great meeting/presentation it is key to know some industry-specific language. This will help you to convey the accurate meaning and data you need to provide to your colleagues so they all understand what you want from them. Before a meeting/presentation, try to include some specific vocabulary that is specific and accurate to your industry. Below are some examples for some common industries:

Engineering:

Prototype - an initial working model of a design.

Feasibility - the practicality and possibility of completing a project.

Risk assessment - evaluating and mitigating potential problems.

Infrastructure - basic physical systems of a business.

Root cause analysis - determining the underlying cause of a problem.

Finance:

Liquidity - the ease which can asset can be turned into cash.

Equity- represents ownership.

Portfolio - collection of financial investments.

Derivatives - financial instruments whose value is derived from an underlying asset.

Due diligence - investigation into a person or business before signing a contract.

Information Technology (IT):

Algorithm - set of rules or instructions that a computer follows to solve a problem or task.

Cloud computing - delivery of computing services over the internet.

Cybersecurity - protecting systems networks and programs from digital attacks.

Planning and Structuring

It is important to have a clear plan for a meeting/presentation but it is crucial that that plan is in a logical order. If the meeting/presentation isn't delivered in an organised way, it can be confusing for colleagues and messages and information may not be clear enough. Having an organised structure will ensure the meeting/presentation is clear and information is understood.

It is also essential to know your audience. You may have to do different meetings/presentations with different colleagues of different status from apprentices to managers. Knowing who you are presenting to will ensure you are fully prepared and have the opportunity to deliver a variety of information in different ways.

A plan outline:

• Welcome and introductions

• Review the agenda

• Main discussion

• Time for questions

• Next steps

• Summary

• Meeting end - thank participants

Practicing and Rehearsing

Practicing aloud is important as this can help boost confidence and help you feel more prepared. The more you rehearse, the more you can feel better knowing how prepared you are. There are some scenarios during meetings/presentations that you cannot predict or anticipate. Questions from colleagues is one, you may be faced with an unexpected question that you don't know how to answer on the spot so be prepared to listen to the question and discuss it after the meeting has ended.

There are a couple of techniques which you can try to rehearse with. One is to record yourself, watch it back and make notes on how you could improve or do differently. Second is to practice with a partner, this could be a colleague or a friend you don't work with but is happy to help you.

During the Meeting/Presentation

Clear and Concise Language

It is essential to use simple, clear, concise and direct language during meetings/presentations. The worst thing to happen is for your colleagues to not understand fully or misunderstand what you want. In order to be clear and direct, try avoid using jargon or really complex sentence structures. Try to focus on the active voice structures as these focus on the subjects and the actions you're colleagues must do which makes instructions clearer.

Effective Delivery

To deliver an effective meeting/presentation it is important to keep eye contact with your audience, and watch your body language. Try to keep open and positive body language such as not folding arms, and not turning your back on your audience. This can ensure you keep a welcoming engagement with your colleagues and make everyone feel comfortable. Make sure you keep eye contact when looking towards your audience, particularly if it's a smaller meeting or meeting room, as this can help maintain interaction and engagement. To deliver an effective meeting/presentation, your tone of voice is important. You don't want to sound monotone because this sounds boring and people may switch off, try to change your pitch and tone throughout your delivery. This can keep engagement and therefore colleagues can feel the importance of the agenda and data.

Try to provide visual aids wherever possible, this will help keep the focus and attention of your colleagues but can also alleviate some pressure off you knowing that people won't be looking at you the whole time (which can add to stress), but if they have something to look at whilst listening to you, it can help you to manage stress and nerves.

Other ways to manage nervousness is to practise some breathing techniques beforehand and just before you start. Breathing techniques help to relieve the body of any stress and help to calm from within. This can, therefore, help to maintain composure during the meeting.

Active Listening and Responding

Active listening refers to a 2-way conversation where if you are not the speaker, you are responding to the speaker by nodding, using short interjections (occasionally), or facial expressions. This shows the speaker that you are hearing them and you are actively engaging in what they are saying. This is important in any business setting, but essential during meetings/presentations as you want to know your colleagues have listened to you and they need to know that you are listening to them. Below are some good (occasional) interjections and phrases to use to show active listening:

• I see

• Okay

• Nice/Good

• Perfect

• Tell me more about that.

• Let me make sure I've got this right. (repeat what the speaker said)

• Please give me more details.

• Am I understanding correctly? ...(repeat what you think you understand)

Interruptions and questions can happen unexpectedly during meetings/presentations and these can sometimes throw you off, so it is important you handle these situations carefully. If you have specified time in your agenda for questions, then make this clear to your audience at the beginning of the meeting/presentation that you will only be taking questions at specific times but also stress that their question will be heard. Encourage your colleagues to write any questions they have down, make notes and you will ask for them when the time arrives. This will also make sure your meeting/presentation finishes in a timely manner and there's less occurrence of over-running. If a colleague still proceeds to interrupt with a question or comment, respond politely and directly, with something like, 'as mentioned at the beginning, questions and comments will be taken very shortly, don't worry, I will answer your question promptly when the time comes, thank you'.

Managing Q&A

Before your meeting begins, anticipate which questions people may have. This can help you to answer confidently during the meeting because you can prepare an answer for it. Sometimes, questions cannot be anticipated, if you have a clear answer straight away, speak confidently and clearly to answer it, using any data or information in the meeting to back up your answer. If you don't feel confident answering in the moment, answer it at a later time after the meeting.

• I want to ensure I give you the most accurate information. I'll follow up with you after I've had a chance to review it more thoroughly.

Sometimes, the question might be negative, 'Why didn't you meet the target last quarter?'

Changing the narrative of this question into a more positive one is better. Accept the last quarter wasn't met, but then focus on the positives of last quarter and the current quarter adding any changes or progress you made to show you have realised what didn't go right and how you are trying to rectify it. When anticipating questions beforehand, always anticipate a range of questions, positive, negative and challenging ones.

Post-Meeting/Presentation Follow-Up

Following Up with Participants

It is important to not forget about a meeting/presentation, particularly if there were actions to perform following it. So, it is crucial to follow-up with colleagues who attended the meeting/presentation asking for updates and any actions/tasks which have been completed or in progress. This keeps you up to date with what is going on. You can send follow-up emails, calls or ask for materials based on the meeting.

Reflection and Improvement

It's not only important to reflect and give feedback to colleagues but you have to reflect on your own performance during meetings. Self-evaluation can be good practice to improve performance and communication with the whole team. After each meeting/presentation, spend a little time to jot down some things you think you did/handled well, things that didn't go well and things you want to improve for next time. This could be split into different areas; communication skills, colleague engagement, meeting/presentation delivery, for example. Once you have your notes, give yourself a target of a couple of these to do better next time. Then after the next meeting/presentation, make a new list and compare it to the previous. The more self-reflection you do, the better you can perform and identify where to improve and what can be done better.

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To conclude, delivering effective meetings/presentations can be difficult as there are a lot of areas to focus on but they are very important and a big part of the job so delivering them correctly and effectively is key. Remember, continuous practice, self-evaluation and improvement is important to continually better perform and get the best out of you and your team.

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