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Today, I was mind mapping another session at a conference and once of the speakers stood out head and shoulder above the rest because of her enthusiasm and passion but…

She started of well, coming away from the lectern and standing centre stage. She used no visual aids and she challenged the accepted norms of her audience. She had something really important to say and she said it with passion and belief but she could have done so much better.

Why? Because her presentation lacked structure and WIIFM.

Now I’ve talked about WIFFM before in fact I’m passionate about it. WIIFM means what’s in it for me. In other words - the need to quickly establish relevance in the heads of the audience.

So what about flow? Well frankly this lady’s presentation rambled. It did have a good summary but it lacked both an effective opening (complete with WIFFM) and a logical supporting structure. Don’t get me wrong, the information was all there, but it took a lot of hard work to follow it. Now my rule of thumb is “don’t make your audience work too hard”. If you do, too many of them will give up and switch off.

Now I can’t do anything about this lady’s presentation (although I will ask her if she wants feedback!) but what about you? Do your presentations flow?

If they don’t then I recommend you read Cliff Atkin’s wonderful book - Beyond Bullet Points.
It will teach you how to turn your presentation into a story that wins the hearts and minds of your audience. Alternatively you can contact me directly via this blog.

Go with the flow!

I’ve been mind mapping the proceedings of the annual APM conference in London and there has been some excellent content. The only problem is that far too many of the speakers use too small a font on the slides!

It may be readable on your laptop, but from the back of a conference hall it ain’t! I recommend a minimum of 20 point Ariel and Verdana to ensure readability!

Last week I started to talk about the power that limiting beliefs to make us ‘Reluctant Presenters’. In Part 2 of this article I want to share with you a simple yet practical technique for defusing your old limiting beliefs and empowering your new resourceful ones…

NB:If you haven’t done the exercises in part 1 of this thread, I suggest you go back and do it first as the rest of this post will then make more sense and you’ll have something useful to work with.

I often find metaphors a powerful tool for exploring and understanding things. Imagine that a belief was like a table top. In order for the table top to remain in place it needs legs to support it. In the same way, in order for a belief to remain active it needs evidence to support it.

As a simple example, consider the belief in Father Christmas that most children held at one time in their lives. The evidence that supported your belief in Santa was most likely something along the lines of ;

• My parents (whom I trusted) told me he was real
• I saw him in the local department store and on TV
• The biscuits, drinks and carrots I left out for him and his Reindeer had gone when I awoke on Christmas morning.
• There were presents in my stocking or under the tree

QED - Father Christmas is real!

Now consider what happened to undo this once extremely strong belief. I’m sure you didn’t just wake up one morning and say “Oh gosh, how stupid I’ve been , of course Father Christmas doesn’t exist.” No, the belief changed gradually as you started to question its authenticity because the evidence that supported it started to get shaky. Your friends or older siblings told you it was a fairy tale. You started to wonder how he could be in so many different stores at the same time. You started to consider the consequences of him eating all that food and drinking all that alcohol on a singe night. You stayed up and caught your parents putting the presents in your stocking. I’m sure you get the picture - Right!

Well, the same process can be used to tackle your own limiting beliefs about presenting.

Step 1: Identify the limiting belief (See previous post on this topic)

Step 2: Examine the evidence that supports this limiting belief. (Often when you do this, you will find that the belief is based on just one critical experience). Imagine you are a detective or investigator interested only in the facts!

Step 3: Look for counter examples. - When and where does this belief not hold true? Are there certain times in certain contexts where you have presented well? Have you ever had even a little bit of positive feedback about a presentation or speech you have given? The more counter examples you collect, the shakier the old belief will get.

Step 4: Repeat Step 2 for the new belief you would like to hold. Gather evidence to support it and look for opportunities to practice so that you can create new supporting evidence.

Have a go and you will see how you can eliminate your limiting beliefs and unleash your potential to be a confident communicator. What are you waiting for? Isn’t it time to took action?

The latest advances in computer technology allows us to produce high quality video content for a fraction of the cost of just a few years ago. How important is it that we jump on the video bandwagon and start utilising video clips in our presentations…

Last week I was fortunate to listen to a presentation by a video producer friend of mine, in which he outlined the use of video on the Internet as a small business marketing tool.

In order to demonstrate the impact of video, his 40 minute presentation (produced in Apple Keynote rather than PowerPoint, because of the Keynote’s superior video handling capabilities.) was packed full of high quality video clips.

The problem for me, and for other members of the audience too was that, too much video is as bad if not worse than none at all. In the same way that too many animations and effects distract us from the key messages of the presenter and quickly flip us into boredom. I believe that too much video does the same thing!

Now I know that my friend was “selling” the power of video and that he absolutely needed to have video clips in his presentation. The problem was that his own enthusiasm for the medium ran away with him and he forgot the effect that too much of any one medium has on the audience.

Another thing about watching video clips is that, to me at least, it appears to be a pretty passive process compared with watching a live presenter. When the video clips came on, the audience settled back and went into “observer mode” rather than “participant mode”. Think about what happens when you veg out in front of the telly and “switch off”. Is this the type of reaction you really want to provoke in your audience?

So my advice is, use video sparingly. less is more! It is a powerful tool, but too much of it at a time undermines the quality of the communication.

Many reluctant presenters have one or more limiting beliefs that hold them back from developing their full potential. If you’d like to learn some simple ideas to break through this self imposed barrier, read on….

What we believe about ourselves can imprison us or set us free. It’s a choice. Typical limiting beliefs of Reluctant Presenters include:

• I’m not good enough
• I’m a poor presenter
• I’m too nervous
• I don’t have anything new or interesting to say
• I’m not experienced or smart enough

Typical beliefs of Confident Communicators on the other hand include:

• I’ve got something that my audience want or need to hear
• I’m good enough
• Practice will make me better
• I’m an expert in my field
• I have a unique insight into the topic

So step one is to ask yourself what might be the limiting beliefs that are holding you back from being a confidence communicator? Get out a piece of paper and write them down. Don’t analyse at this stage, just do a brain dump of all the things that you say to yourself about your ability to present that are less than supportive.

Step two is much more fun. Create a list of all the things that you would like to believe about yourself that would help you to be a better presenter. What would you need to believe? What do confident presenters believe about themselves or their audience? Again, don’t analyse or judge, just write.

In my next post I’ll cover how to discharge the old belief (s) and power up the new one(s)

Enjoy your day.

Gavin.

P.s If you haven’t already done so, go to www.reluctantpresenter.com now to download my free booklet.

Like it or not, all the great presenters I have met have one thing in common. They practice their craft. Do You?

So many people who come on my presentation skills workshops admit that they don’t practice enough. When I ask them why I get a range of excuses including.

• I don’t have the time.
• I like to be spontaneous
• There’s nobody to practice on
• I don’t make presentations often enough to justify the time

Well, I can guarantee one thing. If you don’t practice you’ll never get better. You need to make the time and create the opportunities.

You can also make use of local public speaking clubs such as Toastmasters. They provide both the opportunity to practice but also the structure and constructive feedback which is vital to developing your skills. Alternatively, you can set up your own club or group within your community or workplace.

There is no substitute for practice to make it your goal to do more of it.

As an NLP Master practitioner, I am ialways interested in modelling excellent presenters to uncover what is the difference that makes the difference between the medioce and the best. Recently I was reminded that some of the best presenters present naked…

Hope I’ve got your attention now. Naked presenting? Has Gavin finally lost his mind. Well no, not really. What I mean is that the best speakers I have seen are all ‘authentic ‘when they present. They don’t put up any artificial barriers between themselves and their audience.

Contrast this on the other hand with presenters who think that, in order to be effective, they need to ‘put on’ some sort of alternative persona. This seldom if ever works. The reverse is true. The more you can strip away the psychological barriers between you and your audience, the more authentic and persuasive you will be.

Who are your favourite presenters? Can you think of any that are inauthentic? Please send me your examples and I’ll share them with the rest of my readers.

If your PowerPoint presentation is a disaster don’t blame PowerPoint…

It seems these days that everyone is condemning this powerful tool without taking any responsibility for the fact that they created and delivered the slides that put their audience to sleep !

As a child I was taught that “A good workman never blames his tools” and to me PowerPoint is just a tool to help me deliver my messages. Sometimes it is not the right tool to use and sometimes it is the right tool but we don’t use it in the best way.

A great craftsman doesn’t just be a set of great tools and magically become a master. He works hard, he studies the masters and through experimentation and practice learns how to his tools properly.

Contrast this with how few business people have had little or no training in PowerPoint yet use it all the time. I it any wonder that there are so many bad PowerPoint presentations out there.

Hello again.
As part of the launch of my new brand ‘Reluctant Presenter.com’ I have updated this blog with a fresh look and feel and added a special offer of a free booklet. I hope you like it. As ever your comments are always welcome.

I have also got a special offer for all you ‘Reluctant Presenters’ out there - A free booklet with the essential tips for improving your presentations.

All you have to do is visit http://www.reluctantpresenter.com/ and enter your first name and email address. We’ll then send you a link to download the book. We’ll also add you to our newsletter list and send you an occasional email newsletter full of useful information, special offers (only available to our subscribers) and the latest news on our programmes.

I hope you’ll sign up now. Please also help us by by forwarding the link to anyone you think might possibly be interested. I am passionate about helping as many people as possible overcome their fear of public speaking and presenting and you can help me achieve my mission by spreading the word.

Thanks for your help.

Gavin Meikle

Many reluctant presenters (and many experienced ones too!) make the simple mistake of placing all their attention on themselves as presenters. Effective communicators on the other hand do it differently…

When you are presenting to an audience, be it one person or a thousand, you must remember who the most important people are. Who are the protagonists in your story? Who is taking the action when the talking has finished? It’s the audience - assuming your presentation has a clear outcome which involves the audience doing something as a result of your presentation. (And if it doesn’t, what’s the point of making the presentation or speech in the first place!)

So if the audience are the most important people in the room, doesn’t it make sense that you should be placing at least 80% of your attention on them.

• Physically and mentally engage with them - They won’t do anything if they don’t have some sort of relationship with you.
• Make and hold eye contact with them. Not only does this raise your own projected authority, it is also an essential source of feedback as to how they are responding to your messages.
• If they are not responding in the way you would like, don’t just ignore this valuable information - do something different. Ask them a question. Get them to give you examples.
• Ask them rhetorical questions and use pauses to give them the time to consider their answers.

There is one other, perhaps more unexpected benefit of placing your attention on your audience.

Many presenters get very nervous and this technique can also help you reduce those nerves dramatically. There is an old principle that goes “Whatever you focus on, grows.” So if you are focusing internally and paying attention to your own nervousness, guess what. You tend to get more nervous.

If on the other hand you pay attention to your audience, you start to forget about your nervousness and it subsides naturally!

So good luck with your next presentations. Put this tip into action, see the difference, and if you feel like posting a comment then I’d love to hear from you.