When I ask the people who attend my workshops what is the difference that makes the difference between and average speaker and a great speaker they often come up “presence”.
When I go on to ask them to be a bit more specific about what they mean by presence, they tend to struggle.

So what exactly is presence? And more importantly how can anyone develop this quality in themselves? Well I am not sure I know all the answers but I have some ideas to get you thinking.

Presence is the label we give to someone who displays a number of distinct qualities:

Confidence in themselves
Being comfortable in their own skin and in the location
Charisma
A sense of deep connection with thier audience
A relaxed but focused approach
Being fully present I.e. Grounded in the present moment
The ability to flow with whatever is happening

I am sure you could add your own labels.

Presence is undoubtedly very important but is it something that can be learned? I think it can and in the next article I will be exploring some initial thoughts on how to cultivate it. I would also love to hear from you.
What does presence mean to you?
What behaviours create a perception of presence?
What sort of mind set is needed to allow someone to demonstrate presence?

Go on, don’t be shy, your opinions and ideas are valid and other people would love to read them so post your comments below.

Gavin Meikle
The Presentation Doctor.

The other day I attended a talk on procurement by a university lecturer who had vast experience in the corporate world.  The talk could have been really interesting but wasn’t.  Why? Because he assumed that his audience were all larger companies with full time purchasing and procurement departments.   In fact we were the opposite and had he done his homework he could have turned the talk around 180 degrees and looked at ways that smaller organisations can negotiate effectively with the buyers in larger companies.

He had all the knowledge and experience needed for an immensely useful talk but his chosen approach was not relevant to the audience.  What’s even worse is that he found out this mismatch early on in the presentation and did nothing about it.  he just stuck to his plan and thus continued to alienate his audience.

So what can we learn from this situation:

1) Do your research – understand your audience before you speak – don’t assume!

2) Tailor your message yo suit the needs of your audience – make it relevant.

It’s not rocket silence but yet still thousands of presenters fall into this trap every day!   I hope you won’t after reading this post.

Let me know your thoughts by posting a comment now!

I do a lot of networking and one thing I have noticed recently is how  many small businesses are starting to expect the worst from the current economic situation.  Their heads are going down and they are in danger of creating a self fulfilling prophecy.

We can’t avoid it given the amount of negativity around in the media but we can do something about it.   And I don;t just mean stopping buying doom laden newspapers and listening to less news (although that is not a bad start and is a philosophy I practice myself).  One of the great things about being human is the gift of free will that allows us to choose our response to a given stimuli.

Jim Rohn, the American personal development guru once said that the most important lesson he learned when he was a young struggling buisnessman was that it was not the economy that was holding him back it was his philosophy!

Our thinking patterns and approach are the key to our survival in these challenging times.   The good news is that you can do something about them.   It’s a simpler three step process!

Step 1:  Notice when you are thoughts are holding you back

Step 2:  Re-tune your mental radio to a different, more empowering station.

Step 3: Take action from this more resourceful mindeset.

It is that simple but I didn’t say it was easy!   It takes time and effort but it can be done.   I guess the question is do you want to put in the effort and take control of the wheel or are you happy to followthe masses.  I know what I am going to do and I invite you to join me.

I spent some time in George Best International airport in Belfast recently coming back from a fundraising workshop with the charity Concern Worldwide UK

When I entered the airport departure lounge I saw the usual television screens with departure and arrival information but I also saw something I had never seen before…

Normally, when your flight has not been called, the screens show the message “Please wait in lounge”  but in Belfast airport thy had a different message!   Somebody had clearly thought about the impact of words and had harnessed their knowledge to see if they could increase the amount of money people spend whilst waiting for their flight.

Can you guess what they did?

They changed the message from “Please wait in the lounge” to “Relax and shop”

To me this is a classic example of how changing the words people read can have a major impact on their behaviour.   If you want your audience to do something, then tell them what it is you want them to do!

How could you use this simple lesson to become more persuasive and influential

I’d love to hear your examples or comments!

Why is it that so many business presentations are dry, dull and innefective? Well it could be the presenter’s delivery style or it could be the tedious and wordy powerpoint slides they insist on using but I think there is an even more dangerous principle at work here.

I think that most business presenters think that emotions are left at the door when one walks into the office. People want facts right? Disspassionate, rational arguements supported by lots of data right?

NO! No! No!
It is impossible for us to check our emotions in at the door. Human beings are by definition emotional and therefore no matter how logical we like to think we are, emotions are at the heart of our decision making strategies. If you want to “motivate” your audience to do something as a result of your presentation then you have to engage their “emotional brain”.as well as their logical and analytical side.

Sometimes these emotions will be positive and you can have them imagine what it will feel like when they are experiencing the benefits of your recommended course of action.

And, as I have commented before in earlier posts, sometimes you need to arouse negative emotions such as fear or discomfort. “Imagine what will happen to the company if we don’t adapt to the recent technological changes sweeping our specialism?” “Will we still have a business in two years time if we don’t act now?”

So, realting all this to your own presentations in the future. Think how great you will feel when you can clearly see that your audience are following your arguments and you can tell from the smiles on their faces and the nooding heads, that they are ready and indeed eager to implement your suggestions as soon as they get back to their desks.

Of course you could just keep on doing things the way you have always done them, relying on cold hard facts to do the job on their own. But can you afford the failure rate that such a one sided strategy will inevitably bring? Sure it will work sometimes but is that really good enough in todays tough business climate? Only you can make the call.

I heard my good friend Jim Culverwell use the phrase “pitching beyond the room” last night whilst discussing his approach at networking meetings like BNI and Peer Group Learning.  I loved the phrase  because it sums up a truth that most people who network seem to completely ignore and I had to share it with you.

Many people join networking groups because they just want to sell to the other people in the room.  The challenge is that most groups are full of other people in the same position and in truth, few either need or can afford your services.   So should you give up on networking?  Absolutely not.   What you need to do is remember one simple fact.

Understand that everyone in the room has a huge  network of their own consisting of friends, family, neighbours, colleagues, clients, ex colleagues, social club members, sporting partners and almost certainly some of those people would love what you do and could afford to pay for it if they knew what you did and how you could help them.   In order to capitalise on this inescapable truth , you need to design your pitch to  be attractive to those people who are not in the room but who are connected to those that are.   You also need to help your audience to make the connection in their heads between you and their friend, colleague or client.

How can you do this?  Well one classic way is to verbally paint a picture of the type of person you would like to connect with.  For example I might ask the audience to think of anybody who they know has recently been promoted to a position where they have to stand up on their hind legs and speak in public.   Perhaps they have a friend or neighbour who has been complaining to them about how uncomfortable they feel having to fulfil this new responsibility.   If they have someone like that in mind then II ask them if perhaps they would do both of us a favour by simply making an introduction.   Think of the goodwill that helping a  colleague or client will bring you and all you need to do is put me in touch with them.

So that’s what I mean by pitching outside the room.   Firstly you need to make the mindset shift and realise that the people in the room are not your prospects however they can become your gateway to the type of people you really want to connect with.

Secondly you need to structure your presentation so that you help them to identify potential people who might genuinely benefit from what you do.   It’s all just common sense really but I see people ignoring it every day and I know that their short sightedness and inflexibility is costing them dearly!

Thanks Jim for the timely reminder

Today I was phoned by a guy who I have met on a couple of occasions at local networking events.  he works for a company called the disc directory, a local on-line business directory covering Portsmouth and Southampton.

Now I’m pretty hard on tele-sales people but his approach was so refreshing that I just had to post on it.   He called me up, started by saying something like ” Remember the good looking guy who’s been bumping into  you around the local networking scene regularly> – Well that’s not me!  I’m the ugly one and I promised to call you”  – So far so good, he made me laugh and his tone and delivery were congruent.

Then he said”   I’m going to be really direct, it’s Friday afternoon and I’ve got my targets to hit  so I am prepared to offer you a great deal.  Three categories for half price?  How does that sound?”

I paused and he said ” I know you are just wondering which of my arms you are going to bite off to take this great deal.  Well I can tell you that they are both equally tender so it doesn’t have to be difficult.  What do you say?”

Again he made me laugh and I was hooked and after a bit more discussion I agreed.

Now I am not saying that this irreverent and cheeky approach is the one to use all the time but it has it’s place.  He had ready my right and decided to give it ago and it paid off!

What’s the cheekiest sales pitch you have used or had used on you that has worked?

Even the most experienced managers can be paralysed by nerves.    I see it almost every time I run a course and I know that, with the help and support of a good coach and fellow students this  fear can be overcome.  There are lots of techniques to help including;

• Deep breathing
• Visualisation
• Holding a little saliva in your mouth
• Acting as if…

The problem is that most of these only provide symptomatic relief.     In order to get to the root of the problem once and for all we have to explore what causes the fear to build and grow.    I notice that all nervous presenters have at least one thing in common (apart form their fear that is!).    They all can vividly describe the symptoms of their fear and how it develops.   For some it’s flushing spreading up from the chest to the face, for others it’s a dry mouth and so on.   Interestingly I and the other observers can see little or no outward signs of these apparently huge and uncontrollable symptoms.

I believe that this ability to describe the symptoms that are almost always invisible to the audience holds the key to the problem.   In order to be able to give these vivid descriptions, the sufferer must be paying exquisite attention to their own internal feelings and physiology.  And of course, the more we pay attention to something, the bigger and scarier it seems to get.    I’m sure you can remember being awoken in the night by a strange noise in your house.   The more you listen for it, the more your mind paints a picture of scary burglars armed to the teeth and determined to hurt yo and your loved ones.  Of curse, if you do manage to pluck up the courage to get up and investigate, you inevitably discover that it was just a creaky pipe or an open window banging.  Energy flows where attention goes. 

So, if that’s the problem, what is the solution?

You have probably worked it out for yourself already.  You need to start paying exquisite attention to something else, and, in the case of a presentation, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the audience is the place to go.   When you start paying attention to them, you stop paying attention to yourself and the nerves start to dissipate.

I was running an influencing skills workshop earlier this week and part of the course involved a presentation by me on Prof Robert Cialdini’s six principles of influence.  (NB: If you haven’t read professor Cialdini’s book on Influence, you really should!)

One of the principles is called consensus and it embodies the idea that we are more likely to take an action if we hear, see or read about other people like us doing the recommended action.    During the Q& A one of my delegates asked a great question – could one use this principle to change the culture of an organisation?  In other words, could you use the consensus principle to change the current predominating group consensus?                                

Not immediately knowing an answer, I opened the question up to the group for discussion, and together we decided that yes it probably could.    The trick would be to identify “rebels” “mavericks” and “early adopters” who were already demonstrating some of the principles of the new, desired cultural approach.  Having identified these internal “champions for change” one would need to consistently raise the profile of their activities, especially to people of a similar role or grade.

Over time the idea would be, that by giving repeated attention to the “role models” , the others, who were stuck in the “old approach” would be influenced to change simply because others like them were doing it.   

Do you have any examples of this principle in practice in your businesses?

Tonight, after the regular Toastmasters meeting, a few of us met in the pub for a pre-Christmas drink and an expected turn in the conversation led me to my topic of this post.  It’s all about how you can use your presenting space as a metaphor  for some of the concepts you are conveying verbally.

Imagine for a moment that in your speech you are going to be talking about three time frames.  Let’s say that you are going to start talking about the past, when you will explain a little about the history of the project you are presenting on and how it got started. Then you will talk about the present day status of the project and what sort of results it is already delivering  before finally talking about the future and the exciting new developments of this project just around the corner.

One way you could use your presenting space is to use three different areas of the ‘stage’ to talk about each of the three areas.   Let’s say you you decided to stand at the left hand side when speaking about the past, the centre when talking present, and the right hand side when talking about the future.   If you set up these spaces as triggers or anchors in your introduction, whenever you walk to that area of the floor, your audience will immediately and probably without being aware why, shift their focus and know the context of your words before you even start to speak.

There are lots more ways in which you can use this principle to great effect but I’ll keep those for another post.  In the meantime here are a couple of ideas to help you understand this concept.   Firstly, whenever you are looking at a professional speaker or presenter, look out for them using this technique and see how well it can work.   Secondly, why not try it out yourself.

Have fun and keep on raising your game, your audiences will thank you for it and it’ll pay dividends for you in all sorts of ways.

Gavin