Public speaking: it is considered one of the most common phobias. Three out of four individuals suffer from a phobia of public speaking. On average, those unable to present or speak in public have a salary of 10% less. This is a tremendous difference. As business students we are looking to market ourselves. It is important for our careers that we overcome any fears of public speaking and become strong presenters.

The Plus3 Transfer: Ireland Program requires students to do several presentations. Most recently, teams that led Q&A sessions at each site visit created presentations — tailored for Dean Murrell — on the value of the program and their site visit specifically. Today was the last of the presentations, focusing on Bord Bia, Amazon, and Enterprise Ireland. My group led the presentation on Amazon, and while I think we did well overall, there is always room for improvement.

First, I would like to discuss the strengths of our presentation. We engaged students throughout with a live-drawn timeline of Amazon’s history, a game, and a surprise of the student’s photos by their majors. Dispersing attention-grabbers is an effective way to ensure the audience stays engaged for the duration of the presentation.  Next, our agenda was comprehensive. We live in ambiguity, yes, but a timeline is always appreciated by audiences. Finally, we took the big ideas from the trip and boiled them down for the audience into easy-to-digest pieces of information. Presenters should always strive to do this in order to have their message stick with the audience.

Areas to improve upon include group cohesiveness and overall understanding of the audience. The presentation was never going to be perfect, as we are doing this all on the fly. Still, I think if we had tried to get together a few more times before presenting to run through, it would have been beneficial to the group. We could have tailored it further to Dean Murrell. In the end, I am happy with our presentation and feel that I benefited from the recap that each group provided on the company. It made the “information overload” of the trip more manageable.