This is our newsletter which is updated every day of the week. Each day is devoted to a different theme - Mondays is writing presentations, Tuesdays is about body language for presenters, Wednesday is about confidence, Thursday is on presentation performance and Friday is our recommended reading guide.
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How to deliver knockout presentations
Knockout Presentations is a knockout book. The book has been described as essential reading for everyone who ever has to make a business presentation, which is most people in business these days. Not only does it guide you through the process of making a great presentation, the book is also an easy and enjoyable read. Indeed, every single reviewer at Amazon has awarded this book the top five star award - there's praise. Plus the book is no slouch - it is 300 pages long, roughly twice as long as the average paperback. There's a lot of value in those pages.
Speak with authority to really engage your audience
Audiences like their presenters to "be in charge". They prefer it if the presenter is authoritative, without being too "head teacher" in style. The reason for this is it makes the audience more comfortable. Audience members feel anxious if the presenter is unsure of themselves.
So how can you come across with authority, without sounding like a school teacher? Firstly it's about where you stand. People who are in authority tend to stand in the middle of the group they are addressing so they are relatively equidistant from each member of the audience. They also stand still when they are making important points. So, when you have something important to say stand right at the front of your "stage" area, in the middle and still.
People in authority also make plenty of eye contact with their audiences and use "iconic" gestures - hand movements which provide images for the audience.
The stance you take is also important - head up, looking forwards, no stooping. Shoulders straight, chest "puffed out" are all signals of authority and you need to be standing upright if you are to be seen as authoritative by your audience.
There is one "trick" you can play, though. When you reveal some personal vulnerability it appears that the audience will accept your authoritative position even more. Including some personal references in your presentation, admitting to errors or mistakes on your own behalf for instance, can increase your authority position within the audience. The body language cues you provide help, but the audience only accepts authority if you also come across as "human".
Keep a journal to boost public speaking confidence
People who are worried about speaking in public or making a presentation often are unaware of what led to their feelings. Even though there are biological and psychological factors that lead to a lack of confidence in public speaking, often these arise because of a set of circumstances.
Keeping a daily journal can help identify things that cause the fear of public speaking and make your presentations more difficult. You don't need anything fancy or any technology to do this. All you need is a notebook.
Each day, write down the date and list down all the things you have done during that day and your thoughts as you did them. Keep a note too of your emotions and feelings. Whenever you give a presentation, make a note of how it went and what you felt about it.
Every now and then, look through your journal and find any common factors. For instance, it may well be that in the day or two before each presentation you have noted a particular emotion or done a specific activity. These may be influencing your confidence when you come to make your presentation and hence for future public speaking engagements you can prevent any lack of confidence by dealing with such issues in advance.
A daily journal will help you focus on what to do to pre-empt any lack of confidence and deal with it before it can have any kind of impact on your presentation.
Whenever you make a presentation it is a good idea to use gestures freely. You do that in normal conversation, yet many presenters appear to try and restrict their hand movements. Indeed, some presentation skills trainers tell you to keep your hands still. They have no idea why they are saying this, other than some theory that hand movements can be distracting. Nonsense. All the research suggests that lack of hand movements and gestures are much more distracting.
So, use gestures as you would normally. However, there is a way of using hand gestures that can make your presentation have more impact and make you more believable. This is called the "iconic gesture".
Rather than just randomly waving your hands about, an iconic gesture provides an image. For instance, let's imagine you had to talk about "chopping the budget". If your hands made a chopping motion at the same time, your audience gets the message more clearly. Similarly, if you had to talk about the biggest opportunity your company has had in years, holding your hands wide apart would make this have more impact. In other words, if your hand gestures draw a picture in the audience's mind. you are much more effective as a presenter.
The Presentation Business is now on its summer break. The newsletter items will resume on 28th August. Have a great summer holiday time, speak to you again in a couple of weeks.
Presenters need to be credible. You can do everything you like on your stage to improve your connection with the audience, make them positive about you and engage with you. But to truly come across as a credible speaker you need to demonstrate your expertise in your subject.
You can do that in several ways. One is obviously by speaking about the subject, as you do in your presentation. Another is to invite interactivity so that you can answer questions and lead discussion on your topic. A third way of establishing speaker credibility is to have some handouts available.
These help confirm your expertise and act as a permanent reminder of what you said. However, there are handouts and there are handouts. Simply giving out a copy of any slides you have used does not do the trick. Indeed, studies show that these actually work against you. They remind people of what they did not remember in your presentation, confirming in their mind that you did not get your message across.
The best handouts are those which add to the presentation. These can be in the form of checklists, reports, white papers and so on. Something in depth usually helps, focusing on one aspect of your talk. In other words provide a handout that is "extra" material. Also, people like these handouts to contain web site addresses where they can go for even more information. So, handouts like these add to your credibility and make it even more likely that your messages get across.
You will be a nervous presenter if you say you will
I was working with a client today who said she was really nervous and that she "knew" when she had to make a presentation she would be nervous. She repeated several time the "fact" that she would be nervous when she made a presentation.
Later on in the day she had to make a presentation and guess what...! She was nervous. Just as she predicted she was nervous. Admittedly I haven't done a scientific study, but there are too many coincidences for this to be anything other than true. But, whenever someone says they are going to be nervous, they always are nervous, often big time.
When you say out loud you are going to be nervous, you are not just preparing your listeners for something less than good. But your body also "hears" what you say. You are effectively telling it to get ready to deal with the nervousness. So, it does. It changes your hormone patterns and within seconds you can feel sick, shake, sweat and generally feel dreadful. And all those signs of nervousness and lack of confidence as a speaker have come about because you have told your body to be nervous.
Tell your body that you will be confident and feel good - and guess what it does? It prepares your hormones so you do feel good. If you want to be confident on stage as a presenter or public speaker, you need to keep telling yourself you will be confident and it will believe yo.
Presentations depend upon you reading body language
Presenters and public speakers often worry about their own body languages - what to do with their hands, for instance. But the best presenters don't concentrate on their own body language. Instead they concentrate on the audience's body language.
Reading the body language of the audience is an essential skill for any presenter. You need to be constantly alert to the body language of all of your audience, so that you can adapt what you are doing.
For instance, if they are all leaning forward, eyes open, eagerly looking towards you, then you know they are hanging on your every word. This means you can carry on doing what you are doing - it must be right. But equally, if they appear disinterested, are looking away from you, or they are failing to make any eye contact with you, then you know you are not connecting and you need to change direction.
Audiences may fidget, suggesting you need to do something to make them active, such as some kind of practical task. Or they may open their mouths from time to time, suggesting they wish to talk - so invite questions.
You need to keep a close eye on your audience; their body language will help you improve your presentation so it matches more closely what they want at that moment in time.
Let your brain take the strain to write a presentation
Your brain is highly efficient and once set a task can usually get on with it quietly, in the background - if you trust it. For example, many people see someone at a meeting or party and cannot remember their name. They give up trying to remember and carry on with the meeting or party. But the next day, usually at 4am, they wake up because they have just remembered the name!
What has happened is that the individual's subconscious brain has continued to work on the problem in the background. Whenever you need to work out what to say in a presentation you can use the same tool that your brain provides you with. Here's what to do.
Start off by planning your presentation as best you can. Make some notes, mind maps, rough out some slides and so on. Then do something else. Your unfinished presentation will continue to be mulled over by your subconscious. Then, suddenly it will come up with the answer for you.
That moment might be inconvenient though. You might be woken from sleep, you might be in a meeting, you might be in the bath. However, once your subconscious has provided the answer to your conscious mind it gives up. So, if you do not make a note of your ideas at that moment, it will be lost forever. So, always have notebooks by the bed, in the bathroom, in your pocket, so that you can immediately jot down the ideas.
If you can't get a notebook or it's difficult to write, use your mobile phone. Simply call your own number - it will be engaged - and leave yourself a voicemail message.
This is a really great little book that has all the essential information you need to know about making effective presentations. The pocket sized book is written in an easy to read style in short little sections, with plenty of colourful pictures and diagrams. You can skim through this book and get everything you need to know.
You don't need to spend much time with this book, it's a quick read. But even so, it covers all the basics in an easily digested form. A good read if you need to prepare a presentation quickly or you are worried about an impending talk you have to give.
Audience research is clearly a necessity if your presentation is to go well. However, don't always take what they say as necessary or important. They can sometimes give you answers based on mis-information or incorrect perceptions.
For instance, what if your audience says you should limit the number of slides you use? That makes you focus your preparation on a set number of slides, rather than focusing on getting your message across. Your audience research may show a specific number of slides because they are under the illusion that there is some kind of psychological "two slides per minute" rule. Or they may simply be fed up with presentations of loads of slides and just want the "essentials".
However, if you used the timed animation techniques of PowerPoint you could produce a presentation that lasted just a couple of minutes but used 400 slides. To the audience it seems like movie. But if your audience research said "no more than ten slides" how would you change it?
In other words, use your audience research as a guide - not an instruction. If they provide you with "rules" challenge them - ask why does that rule exist and what purpose it serves. Once you have an answer to that you'll be in a better position to decide what to do about it.
Presenters rarely know how well they have done. If you knew how much your audience appreciated what you had presented you would feel more confident next time. You can boost your confidence by collecting feedback from your audience each time you present.
To do this produce a one-sheet feedback form which asks your audience to rate your presentation on a scale of 1 to 10 for the benefits it has brought them. You can also ask how interesting it was and how much value it provided to them. Also ask open questions such as "what will you change now as a result of listening to this presentation?" or "what was the one thing you learned that you can apply to your work straight away?". Give people a chance also to freely comment on your presentation.
When you go through the forms you will be able to see what you did well - and this will give you a confidence boost for future presentations. Also, you'll find out what you did not do so well, meaning you can change this for future presentations ensuring you are more confident you are doing the right things.
Trainers often ask for feedback at the end of training sessions, but speakers and presenters rarely do so. However, feedback sheets can be an effective way of demonstrating you are doing well - and that will boost your confidence as a presenter.
