With a constant cycle of proposals comes a constant stream of scheduled presentations. With that constant stream of presentations comes traps that are very easy to fall into because everyone is busy running around. That leads most presentation teams into dreadful traps, but you can avoid presentation disasters. Haven given and coached well over 1,000 presentations and witnessed countless more, take my word for it, you don’t want to fall into these traps. 4 Traps to Avoid Presentation Disasters The entire time is spent babbling about information that is written in the physical bid. This is one of the worst traps because the selection committee was so looking forward to meeting and getting to know the team and the company only for it to be a huge letdown. And not just one letdown, but one that repeats over and over again as the four or more teams come in and
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Once you have been asked, or volunteered, to give a presentation, fear may begin to bubble up causing your stomach to hurt. I suggest to think of presentations this way, you are just talking to new friends, a presentation is just a conversation and it’s time to think about what to say. So do not fear when you’re booked for a presentation. Just prepare yourself for success. Remember that psychologists agree that preparation can cure up to 75% of stage fright. The beginning stage of nervousness just means that you will have to give some extra thought until you are certain of yourself. The extra thought I’m referring to is the strategy behind your presentation. If you are now thinking, “Well I don’t know where to begin?” let me help. Once booked for a presentation, start by asking basic questions of the contact person. Even if the contact person is
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I was talking to a friend the other day that explained that she had just met a massage therapist that was holistically assisting people to overcome fears by reprograming the brain of sorts. She went on to explain that through massage and deep thought, you can train yourself to associate relaxation and positive things with whatever once caused an individual’s fears. Stop, this sounds familiar to how I talk about overcoming the fear of public speaking. So, what is the root of presentation fear? Let’s first understand where fear comes from. Fear is a response to something that is perceived as being threatening, dangerous, or harmful and fear can cause a person to feel nervous, anxious, and even impair bodily functions by interfering with thought and speaking abilities. Humans are born with two instinctual fears, falling and sudden loud noises. Learned fears, such as the fear of public speaking, begin
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After reading my last blog post about not reading your notes when presenting, my husband shared a story with me of a famous presenter that always kept his notes close by. Actually, he isn’t a presenter, but go with me on it. Billy Joel, the world-renowned pianist and singer, always has a binder of sheet music on top of his piano. He admits this crutch during his concerts and says it is a security blanket for him. Billy Joel writes his own music and he has sung many of his songs for decades now, but he still has the sheet music available to him. He also says most of the time he doesn’t use it and you’ll catch him periodically flipping through numerous pages because he didn’t use it for the past few songs. So, is it okay to have your presentation notes in hand? Why am I sharing this
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When I was in high school, we were required to take a full year of speech class. High school speech class wasn’t the best preparation for presentations, but it’s better than nothing. It taught us the basics of preparation and gave us a place to practice speaking in front of peers, what nerves feel like, and the guts to overcome them. When I went to college, we were again required to take a speech class. Again, it didn’t teach us everything we needed to know, but it was still a base of information so one wouldn’t embarrass themselves during a presentation. Since this was my experience, I assumed that today’s students were also taking speech classes and getting some training, at least getting the basics– turns out they are not. Even my husband didn’t take speech in high school or in college, but instead classes required presentations on research papers.
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