Strategy

10 Body Language Tips To Make Your Next Presentation Great

malcolm gladwell ted
Popular author Malcolm Gladwell always appears comfortable on stage. TED
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Once you finish your written speech or PowerPoint slides, you're only halfway done preparing a great presentation.

When you're in front of an audience, a lack of confidence can compel you to nervously rush through your material, forgetting along the way that the purpose of a presentation is to benefit your audience.

By not only committing your presentation to memory, but also practicing proper body language you'll appear more relaxed and in control.

The experts at SOAP Presentations in São Paulo, Brazil, compiled the following presentation on the most important body language techniques to look like a natural in front of your boss, colleagues, and clients.

We've published the slides here with SOAP's permission.

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Now check out which gestures to avoid:

nervous presenter
Comedian Eugene Cordero pretended to be disastrous presenter "Colin Robertson" at TED2012. YouTube/TED

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Richard wrote for Business Insider's Strategy vertical, where he oversaw the Better Capitalism series. He was also the host of Business Insider's podcast "This Is Success." At Business Insider, he investigated Dan Gilbert's multibillion-dollar project in Detroit, analyzed the highly unusual management cultures at Bridgewater and Zappos, and examined Wall Street's love of Transcendental Meditation. In 2016 he helped launch Business Insider Italia in Milan. He joined Business Insider in 2013, and is an alumnus of Boston College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He left the company in 2020 to become editorial director at Just Capital.