The other day, I saw this great article on LinkedIn from Inc. entitled, “Great Presenters Do 1 Thing That Most of You Don’t, Science Says.” The first thing that I loved about this article is that they didn’t just talk to a “talking head” expert or keynote speaker that is friends with the author, they spoke to a psychology professor at UCLA about his research study. If you’ve read my blog before, you know I’m big on proving tactics and strategies with facts (science), many of which come from psychology research. Dr. Mehrabian found great presentations came down to Visual, Vocal, and Verbal elements (not surprising), but what he stated that great presenters do differently than most presenters is astonishing. [It also reminds me of what my favorite football player does, which is timely since the regular season starts this weekend.] First of all, Dr. Mehrabian found that the Verbal elements
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I’ve worked with dozens of companies preparing team presentations, sometimes for thought leadership presentations and often for bid presentations. Over the years, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t for team presentations. Here are my must dos for team presentations to be successful. 3 Steps Professionals MUST DO for Team Presentations Brainstorm Together – I’ve stated before that you don’t want someone else to write your presentation because it isn’t in your voice, not your expertise, and you don’t prepare for it the same way. This advice extends to team presentations as well. Some teams will assign one person to create a PowerPoint and have that person email it to the team a few days before the presentation for review. This old school tactic doesn’t work because audiences want more than canned presentations with little thought put into them. Audiences want to get to know the team and they want to
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In the last few emails to my subscribers (sign up for my free newsletter here), I asked who are the most annoying presenters. I wanted your thoughts because everyone has a different opinion and multiple perspectives make us all better. So when I asked for your thoughts on the most annoying presenter, boy did you respond. Your opinions and bad experiences rolled in and I feel bad how often people see bad presentations. (Please share my posts with everyone you know so you don’t have to sit through another annoying presenter again.) Most Annoying Presenters These attributes are in no particular order, but each characteristic had multiple votes from my modest list of email newsletter subscribers and social media followers. Ummmers – These are the annoying speakers who fill every pause with filler words like umm, uhh, you know, and so. Breaking this habit of speaking with crutch words is important
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You’re probably doing this annoying public speaking habit and do not even realize it — pacing. I’ve spoken about how many speakers pace to “work the stage” and it forces your audience to follow you back and forth like watching a tennis ball at a tennis match. As always, I try to build on my experience of doing over 1,000 presentations and coaching hundreds more and research why pacing is so annoying for audiences. Why do Speakers Pace Anyway? Think That is What the Pros Do – Many presenters see professional speakers that get paid a lot of money to deliver keynote addresses pace, but there is a big difference between working the stage and pacing, I’ll explain below. Engage the Audience – Other speakers think pacing back and forth allows them to engage their audience, instead, it does the opposite. Anxiety – Some speakers bounce back and forth because they are nervous and
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Today’s workplace has three distinct generations – Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials (and some count the microgeneration “Xennials“). As I’ve mentioned before, public speaking is one of the best ways to portray your expertise and an amazing way to generate new prospective clients, but how is a young professional supposed to speak to older audiences? 9 Keys to Speak to Older Audiences Self-Confidence – First of all, realize that you know things that others do not and you have knowledge to share. You do not need to be near retirement age to be knowledgeable enough for public speaking. For example, TED Talks feature numerous young professionals with strong messages. Speak About What You Know – I always suggest that you should speak about what you know, so you are confident in your message. When you’re younger than most of your audience, this advice is even more crucial because you don’t want
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We’ve all sat through a boring presentation where we don’t understand a word the speaker is saying because he is speaking in code and he might as well be speaking in a foreign language because no one understands him anyway. (You’ve probably sat through more than one of those presentations; I know I’ve seen dozens of them.) I always tell people to simplify their message and avoid speaking in jargon (aka “code”) because speaking over your audience’s proverbial head is fraught with problems. Even using the word “fraught” in my last sentence can be too complex for some audiences to understand, so I should say that speaking in code is full of risks. Changing your vocabulary does NOT mean you’re “dumbing down” your message and language, instead your sharing your message with more people and ensuring it is understood. After all, when you’re presenting, you want people to understand what
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You’ve heard me preach to “practice, practice, practice” your presentation, so logically, you may ask, “Where should I practice my presentation?” Does anywhere and everywhere answer your question? The key is to practice your presentation as many times as it takes to be comfortable with the material so you don’t need to read your notes, allowing you to engage your audience and enjoy your presentation. You need to talk out loud because just going through the presentation in your head doesn’t help you remember your wording and you think faster than you speak, so your timing is off if you silently go through the presentation. Secondly, you need a place with some privacy so you’re not self-conscious about interrupting others, therefore a plane, subway, or coffee shop will not suffice. During your practice, you need to talk out loud because just going through the presentation in your head doesn’t help
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Last week I while writing a guest post for a content marketing blog about developing presentations, I realized that I always write about creating presentations from scratch, but sometimes that isn’t necessary. Sometimes, when appropriate, you can reuse presentations, which will save a lot of time creating presentations. Before I dig into reusing presentations, remember that the content needs to be audience-centric and if you have similar audiences and topics, it may be okay to reuse past presentations. An easy way to repurpose a past presentation is to use the same thesis and talking points, but this time use different examples or dive in deeper if you have more time available or the audience is already more knowledgeable about the topic than your previous audience. Don’t recycle a past presentation because you’re being lazy or waited too long to properly prepare for a presentation. When I was still at the zoo, I
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I don’t think anyone would disagree with me that sleep is important, but how are you supposed to sleep well the night before a big presentation? That’s a tough one because most people fall into one of two camps: Can’t Sleep Because of Their Nerves – Most people fear public speaking, that isn’t anything new, and even seasoned professionals have some anxiety about presentations. (It’s a good thing actually.) Sometimes these nerves get the best of us and make it difficult to sleep the night before a presentation. Can’t Sleep Because Mind is Racing – Many presenters continually go over the presentation in their head throughout the day when they are not rehearsing and it is difficult to sleep because they’re still rehearsing, even silently in their head. When these presenters try to turn off their brain to relax enough to fall asleep, their brain keeps running through the presentation. 9 Tips
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I love blowing people’s minds with something so simple. You see, I’ve coached hundreds of presentations including keynotes, thought leadership, and high-stakes bid presentations as well as done thousands of presentations myself, so I’ve made observations about presentations including a simple technique for presentations with multiple presenters — step forward when speaking. Let me explain the importance of this subtle, yet powerfully simple technique. Whether you have two, three, or five presenters, the presenters need to come across as a unified team so you need to do some things alike, but not everything. When one member is talking, that person needs to be the expert and be the focus so the audience keeps their eyes on that presenter. (That speaker should step away from the lectern too–last week’s post.) Regardless the size of the stage or area you’re working with, you need to add some subtle spacing between the person
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