"Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in life has a purpose."
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
For the rank amateur to the ignorant professional, audiences create the same effect no matter how small they are to a speaker. Fear and anxiety.
From a single person to a crowd as big as the fans in the Super Bowl, speaking in front of a serious listening audience is the true test and baptism of fire.
Despite this, audiences are predictable. Audiences listen to you because they want to learn something from the speaker.
Following this logic, the speaker would do well to follow the strategy of making it informative as well as interesting to listeners to see your speech through till the end.
Here are some tips on how you can have the audience listen in rapt attention.
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We can all use more laughter in our lives. Laughter is one of the simple joys of life! Take a few minutes to enjoy the movie, Laughter is an Instant Vacation. This is the perfect way to bring a well deserved break to anyone's day .... laugh, chuckle and take a little stress out of your day.
“Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.”
Doug Larson
Have fun sharing the joy of laughter with your team, friends and family.
Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.
Benjamin Franklin
"You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can."
President Jimmy Carter Jr.
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One of the easiest ways to be a better presenter is by organizing your content clearly and logically. It sounds so simple, yet many presenters don't organize their material; instead, they just throw everything at the audience, all jumbled together with no clear indication of how things relate to each other or to the overall message. Then the audience is stuck with the messy task of figuring it out.
As a presenter, your goal should be to make it easy for the audience to understand your content. Here are four ways for you to create a presentation that is clear and organized:
HAVE AN OVERALL MESSAGE
The message is the one thing that you want the audience to remember from your presentation. It's the point or the takeaway. Every statistic, story and slide that you use should relate to and support your message. If it doesn't, cut it out. Sure, you can have extra material in your notes or in handouts, but don't clutter your presentation with it; extraneous material distracts from your message. And if you're not clear what your message is, you're not ready to present
USE AN INTRODUCTION, BODY AND CONCLUSION
You may remember this outline form from writing essays in English class. It's an easy and effective way to ensure that your presentation has a beginning, middle and end. This outline is also known as "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them." In the introduction, capture the audience's attention, introduce your overall message and remind them how long you're going to speak. In the body or main part of your presentation, include your supporting points - examples, data, etc. In the conclusion, summarize your points, give one final reminder of your message and explain any expected follow-up actions from you or the audience.
HAVE AN OVERALL ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE
The overall organizing principle is the link which ties all your points together. For example, you might present a specific number of points: three goals the team has achieved, four major project risks or three reasons you outperform your competitors. Or, you could present a timeline of events, debunk myths about your topic or present a series of dos and don'ts. It helps you focus and sets the audience's expectations for what comes next. And sometimes, you can even include the organizing principle in the title of your presentation. For example, the title of my upcoming presentation at the National Speakers Association annual convention is "Improv Comedy Rules! Applying the Five Rules of Improv Comedy to Make Your Presentations More Powerful and Engaging."
BE THE GPS AND ROADSIGNS
When you're driving someplace unfamiliar, how do you know how far you've come or if you're going in the right direction? The road signs and your GPS (Global Positioning System) tell you how far you've traveled and how many more miles or kilometers you have to go before you reach the end of your journey.
When you're presenting, you have to be the GPS and the road signs for your audience, especially at the intersections and transitions between points where they can get lost. One sentence is all it takes to get the audience safely from one point or section of your presentation to the next. For example, you might say, "The fourth and final major project risk is..." or "Now that I've summarized the history of the company from our founding to the initial public offering in 2003, let's look at what has happened since 2003."
Following these four tips will help you create a presentation that is clear and organized. Your audience will be grateful for the clarity - and a grateful audience is more likely to understand and remember your message. If you do nothing differently other than organize your presentation, you will still be a better presenter!
To get more tips you can use immediately to improve your presentation skills, sign up for Gilda Bonanno's free twice-monthly e-newsletter by visitinghttp://gildabonanno.com/newsletter.aspx and entering your email address.
You'll also receive a FREE Special Report, "Six Mistakes to Avoid in Public Speaking, So Your Presentation Sparkles."
Gilda Bonanno is a speaker, trainer and coach who helps people from all walks of life improve their communication and presentation skills. Copyright (c) 2010
Even if you’re severely artistically challenged, you can add content and excitement to your presentations by creating wonderful, memorable cartoons in real time. Anyone can do it and Mike will show you how.
Why create your own cartoons instead of using clip art? Because you can make them appear as your audience watches. You can customize them specifically to your audience’s industry or application and you can draw them in response to audience input and feedback. You will stand out as not showing overused “bean” people or other clip art some audiences consider hokey. The result: an audience that is engaged, informed and entertained.
Mike will walk you through some simple images and have you draw along with him real-time. He’ll show you easy-to-draw people (not stick figures) and how to adjust their facial expressions to match the emotion you want to convey. You’ll draw as he demonstrates so you walk away with new tools to integrate your drawings into keynotes, trainings, facilitations, and even webinars.
In this webinar you’ll learn how to:
- visually represent concepts such as leadership, cutomer-centric, diversity, and empowerment
- integrate industry jargon, keywords, and cliches to make your points visually
- use visual humor to surprise and delight your audiences
- apply these cartoons to sales, marketing, production, HR, customer service, finance
- enhance your audience’s problem-solving skills by helping them change perspective — literally!
- draw simple cartoons to help people/groups communicate better with each other
- utilize these techniques to break down rigid thinking and bad assumptions
- access a $100 tool for you to draw on your PowerPoint slides
Special note: To view this webinar, you’ll need to be in front of an Internet-connected computer. You don’t need anything else but a pad and pencil to draw along with Mike.
More information? Click here
"The big rewards come to those who travel the second, undemanded mile."
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Bruce Barton |
from Alison Croft
I love Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling for many reasons. There are a lot of little things that add up to make it a fantastic book but I’ll pick three big reasons.
Find out ALison's three reasons
