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As part of a recent presentation skills coaching programme for a large client, I have been reviewing videos of some of their top directors presenting at a company conference. Some presenters got it right and got great evaluations and others clearly didn’t and,as an external observer the reasons for the latter were clear

• Lack of connection with the audience
• Lack of clear purpose (as perceived by the audience)
• No obvious audience benefit
• Presenting only lists impersonal statistics, facts and figures with no clear structure, point or flow
• Wooden, unexpressive “professional” performances. If the presenter doesn’t appear to care about the subject why on earth should the audience?
• Boring word dense, image scares bullet point slides. Written text is a poor excuse for a visual aid!
• Lack of audience involvement

So if you have a presentation to give in the next few weeks or months what can you do to ensure that you win the audience attention and motivation stakes?

Preparation:

• Have a clear purpose for your presentation. What are you trying to achieve as a result of this speech and what do you want the audience to do at the end of it?
• Establish the relevance of your content to the audience early on in the presentation. What is in it for them? Why should they listen? And don’t forget to tell them early on in your presentation?
• Design your presentation as a story which has a logical flow and emotional content to support it.
• Keep your visual aids clean and simple. Ban the bullet point and have only one idea per slide. Replace those words with an attention getting or emotive photograph. Read presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds if you need some inspiration.

Delivery:

• Avoid reading a script or auto cue. This will reduce eye contact and therefore connection with your audience. It will also make you sound dull, stilted and boring. Spoken English is different from written English. If you must have a script, record your speech first as you would like to say it and then have the recording transcribed.
• Don’t be afraid to show your emotion, Yes it is a business environment but human beings are hard wired to be driven by emotions. If you don’t evoke an emotional response in your audience they will not be motivated to follow your recommendations.
• Use your full vocal range to engage and enthral the audience - Everything from a roar to a sotto Voce whisper is at your disposal. Don’t be afraid of exaggeration in order to stretch your comfort zone and show your passion , enthusiasm or disappointment. Oh yes and don’t forget the power of a well placed silence too.
• Use your body language to reinforce your messages and project confide3nce and the appropriate degree of gravitas. An open upright posture, large open gestures, plenty of facial expression. Make sure that your body is sending out the same messages as your words and voice otherwise your audience won’t believe you.
• Be willing to experiment and accept that as a result you will make a few mistakes along the way. Perfection isn’t connection and your audience will empathise with you if you show that you too are human.
• Be present and in the moment during your presentation. If you are remembering the past or worrying about the future then your mind is not in the here and now and the audience will notice it.

Good luck!

Gavin Meikle
The Internet Presentation Coach

Charisma, some people have it and some don’t! How often have we heard that comment. everyone agrees that is an important and desirable characteristic whether you are a salesperson, a team leader, a presenter or a teacher but it seems such an intangible thing. Wikipedia, the online reference source defines it as follows:
The word charisma (from the Greek word χάρισμα (kharisma), “gift” or “divine favor,” from kharizesthai, “to favor,” from kharis, “favor”: see also charism) refers to a rare trait found in certain human personalities usually including extreme charm and a ‘magnetic’ quality of personality …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma

If anything this definition just serves to reinforce the belief that it is rare and “god given”. Well I happen to disagree. I believe that everyone is intrinsically charismatic but that, through conditioning, many of us have learned to suppress our natural charisma. In my workshops I use a range of methods to help people rediscover their own innate charisma but I’d like to share with you three ideas to get you challenging your own limiting beliefs about how charismatic you are.

Tip 1: Stop telling yourself that you are not a charismatic person.
The language we use when we talk to ourselves is much more powerful than we think. If you keep focusing on your lack of charisma and reminding yourself of it, should you really be surprised when you seem to be repelling rather than attracting others.

Tip 2: Mimic some of the physical behaviours of people you consider to be charismatic.
If you were at a networking event and you walked around with your shoulders slumped and your head down would you be more or less charismatic? If you gave only fleeting eye contact to others, gabbled nervously, and spoke inarticulately how will others rate you in the charisma stakes? Act as if you were charismatic by observing what charismatic people do and then emulating some of those traits. You will be amazed at the effect it has, both on others and on yourself!

Tip 3: When speaking to others have the intention of raising their status and self esteem.
Charismatic people don’t only look and sound confident and authoritative, they also naturally build up the status of others whenever they interact with them. Bill Clinton is an excellent example of this. I know someone who met him and described vividly how, when he spoke to them, he gave them his full attention, listened intently and then responded with a comment that validated and built upon whatever they had said. He never tried to put them down. He knew the secret that when you raise the status of others in this way, you raise your own status too in a non threatening and magnetic way.

So there you have it. Some thoughts on how to develop your own charisma. Imagine the effect it could have on your own career or business success. I know these ideas work because I have personally used them myself. So do yourself a favour and give yourself a charisma transplant today.

At my local Toastmasters club tonight one of our newer members asked me how I memorised speeches. Now that’s an intriguing question especially for me since I don’t normally think consciously about “memorising” memorising speeches at all. When I questioned him further on why he wanted to know, he said that he wanted to deliver interesting and informative talks that would be entertaining AND would motivate his audience to visit his upholstery shop.

My advice was as follows:

• Start with a clear outcome - know why you are speaking and what you want your audience to do as a result of your talk. Having a clear goal will serve as a powerful compass for your creative unconscious and help you create an appropriate narrative “on the fly”. Once you learn to trust this process, giving speeches becomes a lot more fun for you and your audience.

• Set yourself realistic milestones. I’ve been speaking in public for more than 30 years so I have learned a few tricks along the way and have developed a lot of self belief about my ability to speak without notes. Start my working with a an abbreviated script and then , each time you speak, cut down your notes a little at a time until you have proven to yourself that you can speak with just key words or bullet points on index cards.

• Don’t be too self critical, particularly to begin with. It’s all too easy to remember what you forgot to mention but it’s often much harder to notice what was good about your presentation. Learning to focus on your strengths rather than your weaknesses will build your confidence, squeeze out your errors, and grow you skill much faster than focusing on your shortcomings.

• Experiment with different memory systems. For example the great Greek orators understood the power of storyboarding. They would divide their speak up into key segments and then assign a mental image to each section. They would then link these images together in a sort of mental chain or sequence. It is much easier to memorise a sequence of images than a word filled script, yet each image provides the key to unlock your memory to the verbal content surrounding each theme. In modern times, Well chosen images displayed on a PowerPoint can help the audiences memory as well as your own.

If you any other suggestions, please let me know and I’ll happily share them with the rest of the on-line community. Just post a comment below.

I thought that rather than assuming you would want to read about the topics that I decide to blog about, I might put myself in the firing line today.

Have you got a questions, burning issues or comments that would like me to blog about?

If so all you have to do is either post a comment below or email me at blog@inter-activ.co.uk and I’ll respond via this blog!

In my book there is no such thing as a stupid question and, if you ask the question, there will be hundreds if not thousands of other readers around the glob who will be eternally grateful to you for having had the courage to ask the question.

Go on, I dare you!

This morning I was chatting to a friend called Bob Jury whom I met at a breakfast networking meeting in the lovely little town of Hartley Wintney in North Hampshire.   Despite the early hour, Bob was on top form as usual.  We were discussing how people “sell” themselves at networking events and in particular the impact they make by the way the say their “elevator  pitch”

Bob is in the business of website design and produces easily update-able websites however he explained that he has also worked in the world of entertainment for many years.  “As a performer, If you start of with a bang and finish with a bang then it doesn’t really matter what you say in the middle!” said his words hold a lot of truth for me.  

I don’t mean that your content isn’t important but, if you don’t hook your audience’s attention quickly, your message is unlikely to stick no matter how well crafted it is.   Also, if your presentation fizzles out at the end like a faulty firework, guess what your audience will remember!

How do we start with a bang? Here are some ideas to get you going:

• Establish relevance - clearly establish how your audience will benefit from the content of your presentation.
• Identify a relevant problem that your content will solve.
• Tell a short and relevant story that set’s the scene and arouses their curiosity. 
• Pose a question.
• Say something controversial.

How do we finish with a bang?

• Restate the problem and summarise your solution.
• Tell a punchy story or anecdote that sums up your key messages in a memorable and interesting manner.
• Tell your audience what you want them to do next and ask for a commitment from them to do it.
• Be passionate and enthusiastic.

 By the way you can find out more about my friend Bob by visiting his website www.fullmac.co.uk

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a keen mind mapper and recommend this powerful technique as a great way to develop presentation content and even to use as your notes.   A little while ago I reviewed freemind, a free open-source application that can be downloaded from the web.  

Well the other day I was sent a link to an an alternative product called bubbl.us

I’ve had a quick look and it’s an interesting little application with a simple and relatively intuitive interface.  To call it a mind mapping application is stretching the definition slightly as I would call it’s outputs bubble charts rather than mind maps but the basic underlying principles are the same.  

The current version doesn’t allow users to upload pictures, symbols or diagrams but you can save your “maps” and send them to others or embed them in a website or blog. See the example below.  It’s not perfect and I still prefer
mind manager but why not take a look at it yourself.

Every time I run a presentation skills workshop I get asked questions like;

• What is the “right” way to present?
• Should I use humour?
• Should I move or stand still?

My answer is always the same. “It depends!”

This is because I believe that there is no one right style.  What is much more important is that the presenter comes across as authentic.     If you try to be something you are not rarely works.

Interestingly though, this advice is not a “get out of jail free” card for nervous or reluctant presenters.    Nervousness is not your natural or authentic self, it is a learned response that is ultimately limiting and can be unlearned.

Being authentic actually means opening up to your audience and revealing some of the facets of your personality that you may have previously learned to keep hidden.   Your emotions, your passions, your sense of humour, your vulnerability.

The bad news is that you have to be prepared to take a small but real risk. 

The good news is that the rewards are massive!    

Being authentic has huge payoffs in terms of your ability to inspire and influence others and, perhaps even more importantly is helps dissolve much of the internal tension and stress that we create for ourselves when we try to be someone or something we are not.   

Do yourself and your audiences a big favour - bring more of your true, authentic self to everything that you do.  Remember, life is not a rehearsal!

In a slight digression from my normal posts, I’d like to share some thoughts about limiting beleifs and how they hold us back from realising our true potential, be that as a presenter, influencer, parent  etc.   I hope you enjoy this short (5min) audio podcast.

Just make sure your speakers are turned on and click on the little arrow below.

All effective speakers know that they need to take their audience on a journey. A journey from where they are at the start of the presentation, to where they need to be at the end in order to take the presenters desired action.

Occasionally you’ll be lucky and your audience will have already bought in to the concept’s that you are presenting. If they are, then recognise this and give them what just what they need. Remember you are pushing against an open door.

More often than not, however, they are not in full agreement with you. In fact they may even be sceptical or hostile. When this happens you have to work much harder.

From my experience, you need to map a course to get them from where they are to where you need them to be. If they are hostile, then you will need some intermediate stages that you need to lead them through before they become enthusiastic or converted. Perhaps they need to be curious, and then from curiosity you can lead them on to interest and then from interest on to openness and finally from openness into conviction.

Next time you prepare a presentation, start my mapping our the route needed and then consider how you are going to get them to each intermediate stage. Doing it this way makes it a lot easier and a lot more effective.

Happy New  to you all.  
I was wondering if any of you had applied the principle of setting New Years Resolutions to your Presentation and Public Speaking skills yet.    Here are some suggestions that might get you thinking…

I resolve to learn how to use PowerPoint effectively so that I don’t bore the pants of my audiences as much as I did in 2007!

• I resolve to “feel the fear and do it anyway” the next time I see an opportunity to present or speak in public because I finally realise the benefits that overcoming my fears can bring.

I resolve to seek help to overcome my presentation skills nerves.

• I resolve to think about my audience first when preparing my presentations.  I will consider who they are, what their attitude to my topic is and how I can make by content relevant to them in the first 30 seconds of my presentation.
• I resolve to always establish a clear outcome for my presentation or speech BEFORE I start to write it! Never again will I give a presentation that leaves the audience saying “What was that all about?”
• I resolve to give my presentations a clear structure with an attention grabbing beginning, a logical and emotional middle and a strong conclusion with a clear call to action.

I’m sure you can think of many others. Please let me know what your suggestions are and I’ll publish them on this blog!

Gavin