Things are going well with the launch of my new self-guided presentation training program, SpeakU. As a small celebration, my husband (confidant, advisor, designer, editor, cameraman, director, & dog walker) made this precious image and shared it on LinkedIn. It is a quote from one of my videos and he said it captures my SIMPLE message. Feel free to share it yourself on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Erica
When you’re developing your talking points for an upcoming presentation, you want to stick to sets of three. I’ve seen the impact this has had when evaluating presentations for my hands-on coaching clients and from feedback from my SpeakU graduates, it is a game changer for the flow of the presentation. Utilizing threes works because it is “sticky”. Three is the maximum the human brain can handle information at a time. Also, it makes audience members feel they received the complete message because one or two points is not enough. (Think how many movies have trilogies and the fourth movie seems useless and greedy.) Many people think “More is Better”, but you amplify your message by simplifying it. Decluttering your talking points puts more emphasis on the each of the three points.
“Successful presentations must be audience-centric, not about you [the presenter].” – Erica Olson, founder of Speak Simple.
I’m very excited to announce that I’m launching a new presentation training program this summer called SpeakU! I’ve been working on this for months now and I’m on track for the launch in mid-June. I”m creating SpeakU as a self-guided presentation training program because I can’t help everyone; there are just 24 hours in the day and I need some sleep once and awhile. With SpeakU being self-guided, I can share the same training program I use with my in-person clients, but at your pace and your schedule. The curriculum covers 2 years of my training and is the only comprehensive training covering everything you need to develop amazing, profitable presentations from strategy to physical delivery, including how your audience learns and how to engage your audience for maximum retention and profit. Email me if you want to be first to know when SpeakU is available.
An easy way to confuse your audience is to use multiple pronouns. Instead of telling people that “Sally sold seashells to Melissa”, you say, “She sold them to her.” Many presenters utilize stories in their presentations, which is a good thing to do. A problem that usually occurs is that the presenter knows the story so well, that the presenter oversimplifies the story by using pronouns. In my short example, it is confusing to the audience who she and her are and what was sold. This can be near impossible to catch for a presenter because the presenter is visualizing what is being said instead of merely listening to the story. Another reason for this challenge is that many presenters do not practice their stories. In practice, when they get to the story portion of their presentation, they simply skip it because they already know the story. A good way
I watched a presentation recently with two presenters and they only had one remote. This happens all the time because most computers can only sync with one remote and having two remotes can cause multiple accidental jumps because both presenters hit the remote to advance the slide. So what do you do with two speakers, one remote? In this case, their exchanges to hand the remote from one speaker to the next became a distraction. Each time a switched needed to happen, they walked near the projector and their hands crossed the projector blocking out the screen. This distraction kept taking the audience’s mind off track and made a few awkward pauses in the presentation. So, what should you do if you are in this instance? I suggest one speaker using the remote. The two presenters should practice enough to know when the next slides need to be switched. You
What happens when you are supposed to present in a large room set for 300 people, and you have an audience of 75-100 people? This may sound absurd or a rare instance, but it happens all the time at conferences. To save costs, conference organizers will use the ballroom where everyone gathers for keynote addresses as a room for breakout sessions. So, what do you do in this instance? Many presenters will ask everyone to still near the front of the room. This can still create a problem because you have a very wide room to speak to making it hard to engage audience members on the edges of the room. If the room has a two screens flanking the stage, I suggest turning off one screen and setting up around the other screen. Don’t worry about the stage and lectern (podium), which would have only made it harder to
I developed Speak Simple because I wanted to help people to feel comfortable speaking, connect with their audiences, and for their audiences to understand complex topics. What I quickly learned is this “soft skill” of communicating well delivers hard cash! I’ve seen how strong speaking skills increase sales first hand with all of my clients, my husband, and myself. When professionals are better speakers and comfortable speaking, they do two things: Appear as the Expert – Whether you call it a subject matter expert or a thought leader, presenting well positions professionals as leaders in their industry because audiences and prospects perceive them as experts. Experts are comfortable with sharing what they know, even to their peers, and this expertise increases the firm’s billable rate and professional’s salary. Close More Deals – Strong presenters engage their prospective clients and make them feel at ease when listening to a good
My new client read my recent blog post about our conversation regarding increasing his firm’s hit rate (What is a 10% Increase in Your Closing Rate Worth? and Cost of a Bad Presentation) and told me about the soft costs of winning proposals. He had an addition to the firm’s increase in revenue – morale. He said the company’s 20% hit rate was depressing. They dreaded preparing for presentations because they didn’t think they’d win and that they were just wasting their time. This made for worse presentations and the problem perpetuated itself with each failed presentation. Since working with me this past month, they are already 2 for 2 with their presentations. The presentation team is confident and morale at the firm is at an all time high! He said the increased revenue from the new work is great and that they’ve already passed on two opportunities because they don’t