Great Speaking Coach

Power Point - 7 Ways to Improve Your Power Point Presentations

Have you got a Power Point mindset that’s comfortable as an old shoe for you but causes your audience to zone out? You can increase your comfort level and excite your audiences with these 7 tips for using Power Point.

1)    Stop bullet overload. Two or three short phrases that you bullet are more than enough for any one slide.

TIP: Write phrases that capture the essence of the thought and are easy to read quickly. Then the audience will turn their attention to you for the complete content.

2)    Forget the bells and whistles. Flying text, builds, and other slide effects distract from your message. When you use them, you are essentially commanding the audience to get their kicks from the slides rather than from your content. Your audiences are not at the movies or on a video-game console.

TIP: Enhance the business environment and your status by avoiding these effects.

3)    Minimize the template. Templates make the graphic designer or the marketing department happy but they distract the audience.

TIP: Create a well-designed cover slide and then use a small piece of that design on each slide to create a sense of the brand without the design repeating over and over.

4)    Avoid image only slide decks. Images are attractive but just like anything that’s overdone, a slide deck that is all images loses its appeal. The audience has to figure out what you intend the images to convey, which is extremely tiring.

TIP: Combine images with short text to make it easy for the audience to get your idea—then elaborate with your spoken content.

5)    Don’t open with corporate overviews or “why us” slides. The audience easily can get this information online; it delays the “good stuff” or the meaningful content too long, during which time the audience will tune out; and it’s hard for the presenter to talk about.

TIP: Open your deck with a colorful description of the problem that’s on the audience’s mind.

6)    Avoid summary slides at the end of your deck. When people hear or read the word ‘summary’ they think “I’ve heard this already” and mentally they move on to the next thing in their day.

TIP: Your closing should be a call-to-action that excites the audience, so they leave thinking “Yes, I’ll do that!”

7)    Stop using slides when you don’t need them. Not every bit of your spoken content needs to be covered by a slide. There are times when a blank screen will be astoundingly effective compared with yet another content slide.

TIP: Insert some blank blue slides into your deck at the places when you’re going to tell a story or use a prop or invite audience participation.

Bonus Tip - I wonder what would happen if you used just one of these solutions in your next power point presentation? And now I invite you to get a free article that tells you how to create a “Blockbuster” when preparing your next Power Point presentation by visiting http://www.susantrivers.com. Learn more about how to become a Great Speaker with two resources in the “Great Speakers Guide: series: “Business Storytelling” and “COOL Speaking.”

Brought to you by Susan G. Trivers, MBA, Great Speaking Coach and inventor of Speakonomics! ^TM

Public Speaking: Make More Money Even if You're Not in Sales

Every time you speak or present, you can either make money or lose money. How is that possible, especially when you're not even in sales?

Selling means that someone or a group of people decide they want to have what you're offering and they take action to get it. They will spend money to get it if there's a price tag. If they can have what you are offering without paying anything, you've made a sale as well. So generating action or motivating the listener is completing the sale.

The converse is that no one wants to take action, for money or not, which means you have lost money.

There's an old saying "nothing happens until someone buys something." So you must make the sale.

Your knowledge, the efforts you put into a speech or presentation, and the time you and the audience devote to attending the presentation are outlays of resources. To make those resources generate a return, you must get the audience to buy or take action.

Three tipstaken from advertising principles will help the audience buy, or take action, after your presentation:

Advertising Tip: Advertise benefits, not features, and address the prospect from the 'you' perspective.

Presentation Tip: Help listeners imagine themselves in your stories and enjoying the fruits of their actions.

Advertising Tip: Tell the truth in a dramatic way.

Presentation Tip: Colorful, textured language; no reporting; no jargon.

Advertising Tip: Sell with stories.

Presentation Tip: First person and third person stories make your key points memorable

Become successful at making the sale--getting the audience to take action--every time you are in front of an audience.

Share you selling tips through our comment link.

Public Speaking: Does Your Expertise Get Lost Behind Inexpert Delivery?

Two experts had the main stage at a recent conference. They had an enthusiastic audience of people eager to learn more and to spend money to do so. While these speakers have valuable expertise, it was diminished because of their decidedly inexpert presentation skills.

One had a handful of notes and read word for word what she had written on them. If this is her area of expertise, a few words listed on an index card should have been sufficient for her to speak from.

The other speaker was more fluid in her delivery but directed the audience to every bullet point on her slides.

They took turns speaking but it came across as stiff and stilted. One would speak and then say the other person's name, and vice versa. Doing that disrupted the flow of their content, causing the audience's attention to be diverted then dragged back again.

They told their story as reporters: a list of time frames and activities that had little color, suspense, drama or passion. Stories are great motivators--when crafted effectively and delivered with artfulness.

What was especially disappointing to me is that I had enrolled in a teleseminar series with them and from that information and their telecoaching I was able to make great progress in the area they taught. Speaking in front of a live audience is very different from delivering a teleseminar, and they clearly haven't made the transition effectively.

Your expertise is the foundation of a great speech or presentation but it is not enough. Get coaching before you speak to a live audience. It is the expertise delivered expertly that impacts an audience and gets them to take action.

Share your ideas about the presentation of expertise through our comment link below.

Public Speaking: Speaking Trends to Avoid Like the Plague

"I didn't hear you!" "You can do better than that!" "What did I say?" These were three really obnoxious phrases shouted to an audience I was in recently by different speakers. They were loud themselves, held their hand up to an ear and exhorted the audience to yell back to them some words or phrase.

My reactions?

1) These techniques make me feel that you're scolding me like a recalcitrant kid. I've already invested my time and effort to be there and I resent being scolded.

2) It's your obligation to get the audience to pay attention by your own speaking skills. Making the audience do the work of keeping themselves engaged is lazy.

I was surprised about this because these are experienced speakers who get paid to deliver their expertise to business audiences. I hope this is not a trend. Making the audience feel ashamed and having them do the work the speaker should be doing can only hurt the reputation of speakers in general.

Here are three quick tips to engage the audience, keep them paying attention for over an hour, and get them to take action at the end of the speech or presentation:

1) Know the audience: what they have in common, what their pain is, and what they wish for. When you talk about what the audience cares about (rather than what you care about) they will stay engaged.

2) Speak about your passion and let the audience see it and feel it. Don't phone it in. If you aren't excited and engaged about your content, the audience won't be either.

3) Persuasion results when you help the audience help themselves. Whatever you are selling or promoting, if it's in the audience's interest because it reduces their pain, they will take action. If it's only in your interest, they will not do a thing.

I'd love to hear your pet peeves about speakers you've heard recently. What trends are you seeing? Anything stand out as a great technique? Share your thoughts through our comment link.

Public Speaking: Speak to Brains and You'll Capture Minds

Your brain has a mind of its own! Yes, even though you think (with your brain) that you actively control your brain, brain science continues to prove that the brain is wired to work in ways that are beyond your control. Not all thought is deliberate on your part.

One effect of the brain's independence is its desire to be efficient. That means it wants to reduce its thinking efforts and it relies on catalogs of past experiences to do so.

This is a huge deal for speakers and presenters! Every time you speak the same way as everyone else, the brains in your audience zip to their catalogs, recognize many similarities to tons of previous presentations, and close the catalog with a snap--been there, done that, no need to waste energy listening to this one.

So how do you sell your ideas or your products or services, or generate enthusiasm and responsiveness to working towards a vision?

Do NOT do the same old thing. Do NOT fall into the trap called "this is what the audience expects." Do NOT rely on years of experience. In short, do NOT do what everyone else does.

Here are three To DOs:

1) Make of short list of expectations (slides, bullets, standing off to the side in the dark). Next to each of these write down something that is the exact opposite.

2) Start with the end in mind. What do you want the audience to do after your presentation? (buy from your company, follow a new plan, save money, collaborate). The only justification for a speech or presentation is that you ask the audience to take an action afterwards.

3) Use techniques that aren't typical in business speeches or presentations: stories, props, exercises, unique handouts, movement. The audience will pay attention because their brains don't have a catalog of these. And these are endlessly variable so the audience can never develop a catalog.

How do you keep your audience paying attention? Share your ideas through our comment link.

Public Speaking: Do Your People Trust You?

You need your executives and employees to support the company now more than ever. You need them to work hard even though they're worried about everything, and you need them to be more creative and innovative. Pablum is for babies. Tell them the truth about the challenges facing the company and paint some vivid word pictures about future scenarios and their role in those.

This difficult time requires more than facts and figures that everyone already knows. Remind them about the company's values and brand promise with stories. Inspire them with springboard and future stories. Excite them to work together with stories about collaboration.

Fear and lack of confidence are causing economic turmoil around the world. Notice that it is fear about what might happen that is causing panic selling. And no one these days seems to be able to deliver a message that reduces the fear of the unknown.

What would you do in similar circumstances? If you start to tell the truth at the time of a crisis, that is already too late. Your audience, whether it's employees or investors, will believe you if you have given them cause to mistrust you over time in the past.

Leaders must tell the truth clearly and with a transparent agenda at all times. How many times have you heard a CEO say "we're working on solutions. Just keep doing what you're doing and things will be fine" only to learn some time later that there were no solutions or that things couldn't ever be fine again? That CEO will never be trusted again.

How do you deliver difficult and truthful messages? Share your ideas through our comment link.

Public Speaking: Keep Your Head When Times are Tough

If you've ever been tempted to think that what you say doesn't really matter, take a look at what happened in the US Congress recently. This was the topic of an editorial in the Washington Business Journal that maintains its circulation by its focus on the hard stuff (vs what people dismiss as 'soft skills' ) of business.

"Another leadership lesson from the week might be that, when tensions are highest, words can be most dangerous." This was in reference to the partisan dispute over the failure of the House to pass the bailout plan on the first try. Those who voted against it often cited a speech by the Speaker as their justification.

They should have voted on the substance of the bill and the Speaker should have been much more thoughtful about the words she used when talking about how we got to the current mess in the first place.

But it goes to show you that your words do matter. No slide show, no technology gimmick, no process diagrams, no corporate history, no graphs and charts, are more important than the personal power of the presenter and the words they speak.

Imagine what could have happened instead. The Speaker could have told a future story in which credit was flowing, albeit carefully, businesses were ramping up and the world was actively trading in goods and services. This would have inspired Representatives to vote in favor as they put their constituent ahead of their partisan squabbles.

How do you inspire action through future stories? Share your ideas through our comment link below.

Public Speaking: Words They Can Trust

If you ever think your words don't matter (the outrageous so-called rule of 38/55/7% that lazy people fall back on) think again. The global economy is teetering on dangerous ground. Most of the deep drops are the result of what people think others mean by what they are saying.

Loss of confidence and trust shake markets up and once these are lost it takes a long time to get them back. When a prominent leader is quoted a saying that it appears credit is drying up you can be sure many immediately jump to the conclusion that it is in fact drying up.

Tell the real, accurate truth to your audiences. There are many ways to say things that aren't technically lies, but they are also not real, accurate truth. Don't get caught in that spot--say only the real truth, no mincing words and no shading and no jargon and you'll increase the confidence in your leadership.

Is your business contemplating layoffs? Cuts in marketing? Reductions in production? Tell the truth and couple it with compassion and understanding:

"I know many of you are worried about whether you'll have a job 6 months from now. Here is our vision: increase productivity (e.g. fewer days and hours lost to wasted efforts), examine all income and outflow of money; maintain customer loyalty through extraordinary front line people; and make prudent decisions that are appropriate for the long term as best as we can see it."

This language puts the audience (employees) first and shows them what you're thinking about. No mystery, no jargon, no threats. You also haven't promised that everyone will be retained, but you have shown them where the priorities are.

How do you tell the real, accurate truth? Your words are the single most important asset you have--they lead to actions and to reactions. Do not waste them or treat them lightly.

Share your thoughts through our comment link below.

Public Speaking: How to Address Big Problems

The recent news is all about a $700 billion proposal for something called a rescue of troubled (dead?) Wall St. financial firms. What we hear from reporters, Congress, the White House and Treasury Department are dire predictions about credit markets, taxpayers, and the economy being at terrible risk.

I'm struck by how poorly the whole cast of characters is communicating. The figure bandied about - $700 billion--is huge. So most people would be suspicious. Instead of making the situation meaningful to the average American, these large numbers and dire predictions increase suspicions and mistrust. It's human nature to distrust and reject things we don't understand.

How could this situation be described in ways that you and I could understand so we could make a meaningful analysis of the situation?

First of all, the 'what' must be very clear. If it is a rescue, use an analogy for the rescue. Describe an accident or a natural disaster or a battle and compare the Wall St. rescue to that other event. Colorful word pictures will attract us in a way that the phrase "Wall St. rescue" does not.

Next, how big is $700 billion? How many houses in what city would that buy? How does that compare to the cost of the war in Iraq? Compare it to the payroll of all the football teams in the NFL. Give us some context to help us understand.

Third, what results will the money buy? Will it only clean up the debris left by Katrina, or will it rebuild all of New Orleans? How long will it take to get the results? What will we not be able to buy once that money is devoted to the financial crisis?

The people crafting the plan and promoting it are using their own technical language to sell it to the American people. Those against the plan are calling it a 'burden on the taxpayer' (i.e. you and me) and that it will give even more money to the 'greedy Wall St. big shots who caused the crisis.'

Which side is delivering a more compelling argument? The language of those against the plan grabs us and shows us in no uncertain terms what's happening. The proponents are expecting us to respond with clinical dispassion to a crisis that goes to the heart of our emotions--our safety, our well being, the welfare of our homes and families.

The vast majority of CEOs, key executives and other business speakers make the same mistakes. You write speeches and presentations that are based solely on logic and in rational business language and then you expect people to understand and to change their behavior.

The changes you want and the inspiration you hope for will never happen unless and until you use language that resonateswith the audience's non-logical sides-their emotions, their perceptions, their preferences.

How do you break big numbers and events into meaningful pieces your audience can comfortably chew on? Share your thoughts through our comment link.