Great Speaking Coach

Public Speaking - No One can Write Your Speech Like You Can

You're traveling non-stop and you've got a speaking date coming up soon. So you ask a couple of people in the office to write your presentation slides for you. You figure you can add a few of your own notes the day before the presentation and you'll be fine. This is a huge mistake!

Remember that the audience will be expecting that you'll be giving them a perspective and ideas that are yours, derived from your expertise and your unique world view. No one else can formulate your presentation content like you can.

I believe this mistake comes from the modern practice of defining "presentation" as "slide deck".

"Presentation" must be defined as the "delivery of interesting content that moves towards a call-to-action for the audience." Slides are only a means of delivering your content.

When you have a clear call-to-action in mind for your audience, you then identify two or three key points that will persuasively drive the audience to take action on your call-to-action. Make your notes on paper or in a word document and see yourself delivering the ideas rather than presenting slides.

Visualizing the presentation as a series of notes, handwritten or keyboarded, will change the way you develop the content around the key points and will radically improve the way you deliver your ideas to your audience.

Stand in front of the audience with note cards, and speak to them as if you're in a conversation with them.The audience will be engaged and you'll feel more comfortable, knowing all the content is your own, fully derived from your knowledge and expertise. There is not a single slide or fancy technological feature that can persuade an audience as effectively as your own speaking voice filled with passion and commitment to an idea.

Try this for your next three presentations. Ask the audience what they learned. Check with them a few days later to hear what they retained. I believe you'll get better results than you've ever gotten after a slide presentation.

Share your thoughts about power point presentations through our comment link below.

Power Point - 5 Tips to Ensure Your Power Point Presentations Are Easy to See and Read

There's a huge difference between what looks great on your computer and what projects well. I see it every single time I work with a client on a power point slide deck.

Keep these 5 tips in mind as you design your color palette and write your slides.

#1) Fonts: 12 point or larger; no italics; use two or three fonts throughout the presentations to keep it interesting but not distracting.

#2) Use light text on dark background for high contrast between the background color and text color. If you will be using a shadow effect on text or objects, select a color for Shadows that will be a shade darker than the background color

#3) Use large graphics and photos. One visually powerful image makes a bigger impact than several small ones crammed into a slide.

#4)Keep in mind the emotional meaning of colors. Blue, purple, green, yellow and white have positive emotions associated with them and should be used in large areas. Black, orange, gray, red and brown are either too passive or unpleasantly aggressive and should be used in moderation.

#5) Avoid color combinations that don’t work well together: red and green clash with each other and are very hard to read. Orange and blue when next to each other seem to vibrate unpleasantly. Red and blue don’t have enough contrast to be seen well when used together, especially when projected.

Bonus tip: What if you used just one of these tips to improve the readability of your slides? Then you can work on using other tips over time, eventually reaching the goal of beautifully designed slides that are easy to read.

Effective presentation skills and public speaking tips are my bread and butter. Learn how to make yourself highly confident and polished. Then enjoy the status that comes from being known as an excellent presenter.

 

Power Point - Avoid Special Effects in Your Business Power Point Presentations

The IT folks who develop Power Point get their job satisfaction from creating more bells and whistles. Special effects belong in movies, not in your business power point presentations.

Keep these 5 tips in mind when you're writing you power point presentations so you don't distract the audience form your real content.

#1) Special effects take the focus away from your expertise and ruin your ability to deliver a compelling presentation that works for your audience (see "What does your audience care about?").

Keep it simple—no builds, no flying text, just lots of white space surrounding your carefully thought out short list of short bullets and simple graphics.

#2) Builds are insidious killers of quality presentation style. They make you read each bullet one at a time, which is not the way people speak naturally.

#3) Builds insult the intelligence of the audience—the message is that you, the reader, can't possibly read and understand more than a few words at a time. Give them all the content on the slide at once because when they put a little effort into figuring out what is being shown, they will remember it better.

#4) No useful purpose is served by flying text or images. Everything in your power point deck should be there for a good reason, such as increasing the power of the message and helping the audience retain that message.

#5) Become more interesting yourself and add interesting elements such as props, exercises and handouts. The more you get the audience to participate, the stronger the impact.

Bonus tip: What if you used just one of these tips to avoid using special effects in your presentations? Then you can work on using other tips over time, eventually reaching the goal of delivering effective business power point presentations because of your own presence.

Effective presentation skills and public speaking tips are my bread and butter. Learn how to make yourself highly confident and polished. Then enjoy the status that comes from being known as an excellent presenter.

Power Point - Use Effective Presentation Skills to Avoid Too Much information

Power Point presentations seem so open-ended that it's easy to be seduced into including too much information. Your extensive expertise also tricks you into making mistakes about how much material to include.

Keep these 5 presentation skills tips in mind as you prepare your business power point presentations.

 #1) Go back to your answer to the question "What does the audience care about?" Then only give them the information that provides a solution to the issue they care about.

They do not care about your history or an overview or the background. Just the content that is narrowly focused on addressing their current problem or issue.

#2) Deliver both in bullets and in your spoken content, benefits that show how you are addressing their problem/pain. Long lists of features are meaningless.

#3) When you're telling a story or sharing a testimonial, think like a story teller, not like a reporter. This helps you pare the information down to its most important pieces. Storytellers select the most meaningful details and put them together with drama and impact.

#4) Use rhetorical questions to introduce your content. These grab the audience's attention and allow you to deliver a more conversational answer.

#5) Keep in mind that most business presentations are about leading the audience to respond to a call-to-action. This is different than teaching them to do whatever you know. Limit your information to the essentials that make the call-to-action clear and compelling. Know when to stop!

Bonus tip: What if you used just one of these tips to improve your presentation skills and not give too much information? Then you can work on using other tips over time, eventually reaching the goal of effective business power point presentations.

Effective presentation skills and public speaking tips are my bread and butter. Learn how to make yourself highly confident and polished. Then enjoy the status that comes from being known as an excellent presenter.

 

Power Point - Simplify Templates and Graphics for Business Presentations

Effective presentation skills do not require slides filled with complicated graphics. The more adept at drawing them a presenter is, the more likely he or she will use graphics even when they aren’t needed.

Here are 5 tips to simplify your power point presentations and help the audience at the same time.

 #1) Get way to up to 50,000 feet. Show your audience the lay of the land. Then use your speaking time to tell the full story in an interesting and compelling way that is based on your expertise.

#2) For technical information: keep it simple. Think of your role as convincing the audience that you know all about it—rather than trying to teach the audience how to do it. If your audience really needs to know how something works, one detailed slide will not be sufficient and that is a whole other workshop or learning experience.

#3) For concepts: flows or processes can be represented by graphics that are much less detailed than is the reality. You will generate more enthusiasm for a concept by your own conversation about it than by drawing it and then pointing out each detail on the slide.

#4) Before you begin to create a graphic, ask yourself what the benefit is of the thing the graphic will represent. The benefits of an IT solution or concepts are much more meaningful that the construction of those solutions or concepts. You may find that a couple of well-written bullets are better than a complicated graphic.

#5) Slide templates should be unobtrusive and leave a lot of empty space on the slide. Have a great cover but then adapt the cover for the template and pare it way down. If the template is too strong (and detailed) it distracts the audience from the speaker and the actual content.

Bonus tip: What if you used just one of these tips to simplify the graphics in your slide deck? Then you can work on using other tips over time, eventually getting your power point graphics and templates down to a simple design the audience can quickly and clearly understand.

Effective presentation skills and public speaking tips are my bread and butter. Learn how to make yourself highly confident and polished. Then enjoy the status that comes from being known as an excellent presenter.

Power Point Presentations - Put Your Bullets on a Low-Word Diet!

Power point presentations configurations typically allow a slide to be projected for 1-2 minutes. The audiences can't make heads or tails of long bullets in that short time, so they simply stop reading. If you want the audience to actually read your bullets, make them short and sweet.

Try these 5ways to make your bullets the quick read they are supposed to be.

#1) Convey only one limited thought in each bullet.

#2) Use only nouns and adjectives. "Highest quality help desk" says a lot more than "We offer highly trained help desk staff and the help desk is staffed 18 hours per day."

#3) Bullet the benefits rather than the features:

Write this--

Our widget is: (benefits)

·         Faster

·         Cheaper

·         Better

Instead of this--

Our widget features:

·         Unlimited speed

·         Made of long lasting but inexpensive materials

·         More bells & whistles than the competition

#4) Ghost the competition briefly

·         Security exceeds industry standards

·         Rated #1 in top-25 lists nationwide

·         Highest customer satisfaction ratings

#5) Take a page from advertising slogans. The best ones are short, active and memorable.

 

Bonus tip: What if you used just one of these tips to shorten the bullets on every slide? Then you can add other tips over time, eventually getting your power point templates down to 3 well-written bullets that the audience will consume with pleasure.

Effective presentation skills and public speaking tips are my bread and butter. Learn how to make yourself confident and polished. Then enjoy the prestige and status that accrues to likeable presenters.

Share your thoughts about power point presentations through our comment link.

 

Power Point - Avoid Too Many Bullets in Your Power Point Presentations

Power point presentations are ubiquitous in business presentations and overwhelmingly disliked by the audience. One of the main turnoffs is too many bullets. You load your slides with bullets because you don’t want to forget something or you believe (erroneously) that the audience wants to know every possible thing you know.

Try just one of these 5 tips to reduce bullet overload in your next business presentation.

#1) Be ruthless determining what the audience really needs to know. They will not be tested on your content.

#2) These famous sayings still apply: "less is more" and "a picture is worth a thousand words."

#3) Use note cards to help you remember everything rather than relying on too many bullets to remember to cover the material.

#4) Take a tip from graphic designers--leave lots of white space on your slides so they audience can digest the few, important bullets quickly.

#5) Accept that audience retention wanes quickly. A few powerful and meaningful bullets will be remembered more than loads of bullets they can’t begin to process.

Bonus tip: What if you used just one of these tips to reduce the number of bullets on every slide? Then you can add other tips over time, eventually getting your power point templates down to 3 well-written bullets that the audience will consume with pleasure.

Effective presentation skills and public speaking tips are my bread and butter. Learn how to make yourself highly polished and very happy to be asked to present.

Share your own tips for power point presentations through our comment link.

Power Point - 7 Barriers to Power Point Presentations that Your Audiences Don't Hate

Do you automatically open your Power Point templates every time you get ready for a presentation or speech? Power Point has become the medium of choice of speakers giving business presentations today yet most audiences will say they don’t like it.

Here are 7 common barriers to making your Power Point presentations work for your audiences and how to overcome them.

The starting point for every presentation you write is to ask the question: "What does the audience care about?" The answer must be about a pain or difficult situation they are facing and how you can help them face it. Once you know the answer, you can overcome the barriers to bad Power Point presentations.

#1) Too many bullets: You load your slides with bullets because you don’t want to forget something that the audience needs to know.

Solution: Be ruthless in examining whether they really need to know it all. They will not be tested on your content. Remember these sayings still apply: “less is more” and “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

#2) Bullets are too long: You write full sentences with two or three thoughts in each one.

Solution: Make your bullets short and comprised of only nouns and adjectives. "Highest quality help desk" says a lot more than "We offer highly trained help desk staff and the help desk is staffed 18 hours per day."

#3) Complicated graphics: your graphics depict every detailed step you would talk about if you were training someone in the process.

Solution: Get way to up to 50,000 feet. Your audience will get the lay of the land. Then you spend your speaking time making the full story interesting and compelling and based on your expertise.

#4) Too much information: you are teaching not presenting

Solution: Go back to your answer to the question "What does the audience care about?" Then only give them the information that provides a solution to the thing they care about. No history or an overview or the background. Just the content that is narrowly focused on addressing their current problem or issue.

#5) Special effects: the IT folks who developed Power Point get their job satisfaction from creating more bells and whistles.

Solution: Special effects belong in movies not in your presentation. They force you to distort your expertise and ruin your ability to deliver a compelling presentation that works for your audience (see "What does your audience care about?"). Keep it simple--no builds, no flying text, just lots of white space surrounding your carefully thought out short list of short bullets.

 #6) Hard to see: there's a huge difference between what looks great on your computer and what projects well.

Solution: Use the tried and true rules of the road: fonts 12 point or larger; no italics; light text on dark background; large graphics and photos; non-custom colors.

#7) Badly presented: Even the best written power point deck can fail to move the audience if the presenter is poor.

Solution:

Speak only about what you know

Double the amount of time you think you need to practice 

Do not use pointers. If you must call attention to something on the screen, gesture towards it with your hand.

Remember: you are the presentation and the slide deck is your back up. Speak towards the audience and tell them what is important or interesting

#7.5) Using slides when you don’t need them: Not every bit of your spoken content needs to be covered by a slide.

Solution:  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: What would happen if you tried to overcome just one of these barriers in your very next presentation? You would see an immediate improvement. Then you would start overcoming the rest of the barriers, one by one until you are writing and delivering Power Point presentations that make your audiences happy.

Speakonomics! ^TM Four Little Words You Must Know to Make More Money guarantees that you’ll increase the economic impact of your speeches and presentations for every audience every time. Susan Trivers is passionate about helping you get the rewards of Speakonomics! ^TM

Business Presentations - Give Them Your Lines to Increase Audience Participation

This great technique makes the audience feel they are helping you. When they help, they get a sense of ownership of your content. This in turn makes them more likely to respond to your call to action. When they absolutely, positively must be responsive, give them some of your lines.

Here are 3 ways to give them some of your lines.

1)      Let's say that you describe an event that made you say "I don’t believe it!" The first time you say this gesture to the audience to repeat it after you. Then when you use that same gesture several more times the audience will say "I don’t believe it!" at that time.

2)      Ask some questions that would have the same answer each time. The name of the company or their well known jingle or tag line would be good. Think of Coke's "it's the real thing". You can pose some questions and that tag line would be the answer, which the audience can shout out each time.

3)      Teach the audience a new refrain such as "Creating the Future". Then when you're talking about the challenges that lie ahead, you can give them opportunities to participate with that refrain. After they say it five times they'll be filled with excitement and energy and will leave committed to doing just that.

Bonus tip: What would happen if you used just one of these techniques in your next presentation or speech? You would get more attentiveness and enthusiasm than ever and you'd be encouraged to try another one the next time. Pick one way to increase audience participation today.

Speakonomics! ^TM Four Little Words You Must Know to Make More Moneyhelps you increase the economic impact of every speech and presentation. Let me know how it works for you by posting your thoughts through our comment link.

Business Presentations - Rhymes and Memory Tricks Increase Audience Participation in Business Presentations

We learn and remember rhymes and memory devices much more easily than straight text and the memories are stronger.  Using just one rhyme and one memory device in a presentation or speech will make your message stick.

Here are 5 simple ways to do this:

1)      Use a familiar short word whose letters could represent your key points. Stick to 3, 4 or 5 letters and make sure the letters are different. You can use a word that makes people smile or gives them a good feeling. C-A-K-E; L-I-V-E; M-A-T-H; I-P-O-D are some examples.

2)      Write new definitions of the letters in an alphabetic representation of an agency or a concept that the audience is familiar with. TSA is known by many as the Transportation Security Agency. What other words that are meaningful to your audience start with those letters?

3)      Use the letters in a familiar word to create a "cheer." "Give me an "S", give me an "A", etc will spell out the word S-A-L-E-S. This format also gets the audience to speak and perhaps to move if you get them on their feet during the "cheer".

4)      Rhymes are easy if you keep them simple. Think of key points in simple words and make lists of words that rhyme with those key words. Use a simple rhythm. Two or four lines that rhyme will be easily repeated by the group (getting them to use their voices too) and will be long remembered.

5)      Limericks are easy to create and people expect them to be a bit more funny, so enjoy the process and well as the teaching them to the audience.

Bonus TIP: What would happen if you used just one of these rhyming or memory device tips in your next presentation? You'll never know until you try it. Pick one you feel most comfortable with and just do it.

Speakonomics! ^TM Four Little Words You Must Know to Make More Money helps you increase the economic impact of every speech and presentation. Let me know how it works for you by posting your thoughts through our comment link.