The other day, I was at a workshop and one of the speakers was clearly nervous.  He began his talk by telling the old story about the survey that asked people to name their greatest fear.  Public speaking came in first, by a large margin.  Death was fourth.  So, if you believe the results of this survey, most people would rather die than stand up and give a talk.  He was one of them.  He urged us to be kind to him because he was nervous doing this talk.

He was suffering from what is known by a number of names: presentation anxiety, stage fright, the jitters.  Whatever you call it presentation anxiety can be the death knell for an otherwise great talk. We all get nervous before a talk, but being nervous doesn’t have to mean you’ll do a bad talk.   Presentation anxiety is a response to fear of doing a poor talk.  It shows ups in a number of ways: blushing, shaking stuttering, preparing.  At its worst, it will lead you to feel as if you’re not making sense, or worse yet, to lose the thread of your talk.

Presentation skills are one of the three communication skills that are part of my Common Sense Success System.  I discuss them in detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success; Star Power; I Want YOU…To Succeed; Your Success GPS; 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.

I make speeches for a living, and I get nervous before every one of them.  In fact, if I’m not a little nervous, I start to worry that I will be flat and deliver an unenthusiastic talk. Over the years, I’ve developed a few tricks that I use to calm my nerves before a big presentation and make them work for, not against me.  Check them out…

Practice your talk out loud. This will help you get comfortable with your material and your delivery.

Think good thoughts.  Imagine yourself succeeding beyond your wildest dreams.  Imagine that you will get a standing ovation for your talk.  This is what visualization is all about.

Get there early. In this way, you’ll be able to set up your computer and run through your slides one last time.

Greet people as they arrive; exchange a few words with them. This will help you make a good first impression with members of the audience. It will also help you get control of your nerves, because you’ll feel more comfortable speaking to a group of people you know rather than a group of strangers.

Take a deep breath before you begin.  This will calm you, help center you and give you enough air to get through your opening.

Move. When you begin your presentation, move around. Use body movement to help release some of your nervous energy. Don’t get trapped behind the podium.  It can inhibit you from releasing your energy.

Just chat with the audience. Think of your presentation as a conversation. There might be 10, or 25, or 100 people in your audience. But in terms of real communication, there are only two people in the room: you and a single listener.

Tell stories to illustrate your main points.  People like listening to stories and they tend to remember points illustrated by stories.

Ask questions during your talk. This will help you build a dialogue and a participatory feeling. I try to make at least one quarter and as much as one half of my talk a discussion with the audience. In this way, it’s less of a speech and more of an expanded conversation with every person in the room.

Don’t worry if you make a mistake.  To begin with, most people won’t realize that you made a mistake.  Second, realize the audience is with you.  They’ve all been there and know that presenting can be nerve wracking.  Most people in the audience will be pulling for you to do a good job. 

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are dynamic communicators.  Presentations are opportunities to shine – to demonstrate that you are a dynamic communicator.  Stage fright is the biggest enemy of presentation success.  Don’t let stage fright rob you of your opportunity to shine.  One good presentation can make a career.  Presentations are the best ways to get noticed and have your name at the top of the list when promotional opportunities come up.  There are several ways to deal with presentation anxiety: be prepared, know your stuff cold; think of your talk as a conversation with the audience; tell stories to illustrate your points.    However, there is one piece of advice that trumps all when it comes to delivering dynamic presentations: practice, practice, practice! 

That’s my take on dealing with stage fright.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Competence is one of the four keys to career and life success in my Common Sense Success System.  I also discuss it in some detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success; Your Success GPS; and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to succeed you need to develop four basic, but important competencies: 1) creating positive personal impact; 2) becoming a consistently high performer; 3) dynamic communication skills; and 4) becoming interpersonally competent. 

There are four key competencies that will help you become a career and life success:

• You have to be able to create positive personal impact.
• You have to be become an outstanding performer.
• You have to be a dynamic communicator – in conversation, writing and presentations.
• You have to build strong, lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the important people in your life.

Dynamic presentation skills are a crucial competency to develop.  More than one career has been made on the strength of one or two really good presentations. 

Darren Hardy is the Publisher of SUCCESS Magazine.  I love SUCCESS.  It is full of very useful and usable information every month.  Darren also sends very informative emails to subscribers.  A while back he posted a great piece covering his best tips for delivering dynamite presentations.  He was gracious enough to allow me to repost it here…

Darren Hardy’s 10 Tips for More Compelling Presentations:

1. Prepare. Nothing beats great preparation. I usually write out a presentation word for word, then I reduce it to a skeleton outline, then bullet points, then just key words on paper in case I need to quickly glance down at trigger words to guide me along, but I will rarely use the notes. Just going through the process is my process for learning the presentation.

2. Know your audience. Find out the demographic mix of the audience. Find out who the key players are so you can use their names during the presentation. Understand core aspects about their company, cause, products, ideals, etc. Understand the trends, competition and key issues that the audience faces. If they know you know who they are in the first few minutes, they will be your ally for the rest of the presentation.

3. Sell it. Not necessarily you or what you are promoting, sell your presentation. Open up with an attention getter. Imagine the format of an infomercial. Explain the grand benefits they are going to get by listening raptly to the information you are about to share.

4. Package it. Tell them what you are going to tell them (through benefits, outcomes, the difference this information will make in their lives), tell them (deliver the goods), then tell them what you told them (post-sell the benefits so they know you have just given them great value).

5. Be entertaining. Yes, you need to be informative and enlightening, but you are talking to humans—they are bored easily. If people are entertained, they are engaged and are more apt to actually listen to what you are saying.

6. Be visual. I think in pictures, so I talk in pictures. I use visual aids and talk in word pictures and metaphors. People seldom recall words, but they do remember pictures.

7. Tell stories. I am not a natural storyteller. I have to force myself to break off and tell a story, but the best speakers, lecturers and influencers the world has known were all great storytellers. Collect them and get good at telling them. BUT, make sure they are relevant to the point you are making. I dislike gratuitous storytelling for stories’ sake in a keynote. I can read a book or go to a movie for that. Make sure the story is on point.

8. Overdress. My grandmother taught me this. People look at you before they listen to you. How you show up communicates 80 percent of whether someone should (or will) listen to you or not. During the first 5 minutes people will assess you up and down and draw all sorts of conclusions. Make sure the conclusions they draw are: professional, polished, credible and sensible (at least).  Whatever you think the dress code will be dress at least one or two steps above it. There is nothing worse than being underdressed—it’s disrespectful. You are going to be onstage; people expect that you respect that position and dress UP for it.

9. Be Yourself. Don’t try to be Zig Ziglar or Tony Robbins. Me? I don’t like beating on my chest and yelling, having the crowd jump up and down on their chairs, run around the stage or drop to my knee for dramatic effects. You will never see me do that; it’s not me.  My best advice for you is to be you. Be onstage as you are offstage. Be real, authentic and communicate through your true feelings and conviction—it is from that place you can be persuasive, rousing and influencing.

10. See the ‘O.’ I always spend a few minutes before each keynote visualizing the presentation and the audience response: the rapt attention, the awe-inspired looks on their faces, their laughing and having a good time, then the rousing standing ovation at the end. It helps me get into the ‘zone’ and raise my emotional energy before getting started.

Hopefully there are some tips you can borrow and utilize to improve your own presentations. I hope that I’m standing and clapping in the audience of your keynote presentation soon.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are competent in four areas: 1) creating positive personal impact; 2) performing at a high level; 3) dynamic communication; and 4) relationship building.  Dynamic communicators are competent in three basic communication skills – conversation, writing and presenting.  Darren Hardy, publisher of SUCCESS Magazine suggests that there are 10 things you need to do to become a master presenter. 1) Prepare.  2) Know your audience.  3) Sell your talk.  4) Package your talk.  5) Be entertaining.  6) Be visual.  7) Tell Stories.  Overdress.  9) Be yourself.  10) Visualize yourself doing a successful talk.  These are 10 common sense tips for becoming a great presenter.  Use them and you will succeed.

Those are Darren Hardy’s 10 tips for creating and delivering great presentations.  What are your best presentation tips?  Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing them with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

For the record — this content was republished with permission from Darren Hardy, Publisher of SUCCESS magazine. For more great insights, tips and strategies on success and achievement go to http://DarrenHardy.SUCCESS.com More about Darren Hardy can be found at: http://DarrenHardy.SUCCESS.com/About

Competence is one of the four keys to career and life success in my Common Sense Success System.  I also discuss it in some detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success; Your Success GPS; and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to succeed you need to develop four basic, but important competencies: 1) creating positive personal impact; 2) becoming a consistently high performer; 3) dynamic communication skills; and 4) becoming interpersonally competent. 

There are four key competencies that will help you become a career and life success:

• You have to be able to create positive personal impact.
• You have to be become an outstanding performer.
• You have to be a dynamic communicator – in conversation, writing and presentations.
• You have to build strong, lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the important people in your life.

If you want to become a dynamic communicator, you need to become an excellent presenter.  Presentations are an important communication tool.  Many careers have been made on the strength of one or two good presentations.

A lot of people suffer from presentation anxiety.  Public speaking can be frightening, although it doesn’t have to be.  Presenting is like any other process, there are a series of logical steps to follow.  Here are five steps to making effective presentations.  These steps have served me well for over 35 years. 

1. Determine your message. 
2. Analyze your audience. 
3. Organize your information for impact.
4. Design supporting visuals.
5. Practice, practice, practice.

Ask yourself these questions to help you determine your message:

• What do you want or need to communicate?
• What information does the audience need?
• Why do they need it?
• At the end of the presentation, what should the audience: Understand? Remember? Do?

Determine the best way to communicate your message by analyzing your audience.  Ask yourself these questions:

• Who is the audience for this presentation?
• Why are they attending?
• What is their general attitude toward you and the topic?
•  What is their knowledge level on this topic?

Use the golden rule of journalism: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, Tell them, Tell them what you told them” to organize your information.

• Begin at the end.  Prepare your presentation ending first.  This is helpful, because it keeps you focused on where you’re going.
• Prepare your presentation beginning.  A good beginning has two things: a hook, and an outline of your talk.
• Fill in the blanks with your content.

Design visuals to support and enhance what you are saying.  Good visuals support the points you are making, create audience interest, improve audience understanding, save you time – a picture is worth a thousand words, and are memory aids

Practice, Practice, Practice.  There is an old saying, “practice makes up for a lack of talent”.  Prior to getting in front of an audience say your presentation out loud – several times.  Listen to yourself.    Consider videotaping yourself.  If you don’t have the equipment, practice in front of a mirror, or you spouse, or your dog or cat – just practice.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are competent.  Dynamic communication is an important success competency.  Dynamic communicators present with impact.  Many people are frightened by the idea of standing in front of a group of people and doing a talk.  Unfortunately, presentations can make or break your success.  You can conquer your fear of public speaking by following my five steps for making high impact presentations:  1) Determine your message.  2) Analyze your audience.  3) Organize your information for impact. 4) Design supporting visuals. 5) Practice, practice, practice.  If you follow these five steps – especially number 5; practice – you’ll become a confident successful presenter.

That’s my take on the importance of developing your presentations skills.  What’s yours?  Please take few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Competence is one of the four keys to career and life success in my Common Sense Success System.  I also discuss it in some detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success; Your Success GPS; and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to succeed you need to develop four basic, but important competencies: 1) creating positive personal impact; 2) becoming a consistently high performer; 3) dynamic communication skills; and 4) becoming interpersonally competent. 

There are four key competencies that will help you become a career and life success:

• You have to be able to create positive personal impact.
• You have to be become an outstanding performer.
• You have to be a dynamic communicator – in conversation, writing and presentations.
• You have to build strong, lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the important people in your life.

If you want to become a dynamic communicator, you need to develop three skills: conversation, writing and presenting.  The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines the word “dynamic” as, “Marked by continuous and productive activity.”  In many ways, this is a good definition for an effective conversation.  In a conversation, two types of activities occur simultaneously: speaking and listening.  In good conversations, both of these are continuous and productive.  In plain English, when you’re in a conversation, if you’re not speaking and providing information, you need to be listening and receiving it.

In previous posts I’ve pointed out that asking good questions is an important way to become known as a great conversationalist.  But to take full advantage of the questions you ask, you need to really listen to the answers and respond appropriately. 

Here are my top seven tips for becoming a good listener – and conversationalist.

1. Look the other person in the eye when he or she is speaking.  This demonstrates that you are engaged with him or her.

2. Listen to understand what the other person is saying – not to plan your rebuttal.

3. Listen really hard when the other person begins by saying something with which you don’t agree.

4. Know the words that trigger your emotions.  Don’t get distracted by them.

5. Be patient.  Some people take longer than others to make their point. Don’t interrupt.

6. Ask clarification questions when you don’t understand.

7. Repeat what you have heard the other person say – to make sure you got it right, and to show him or her that you were listening.

If you use these seven tips in conversation, you will become known as a great conversationalist and a dynamic communicator.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are competent.  Dynamic communication is an important key success competency.  If you want to become a dynamic communicator, you have to become a good conversationalist, clear writer and effective presenter.  To become a good conversationalist learn to listen well.  Listening, like a lot of success advice, is just common sense.  Show the other person you are engaged.  Focus on understanding, not on rebutting points with which you don’t agree.  Don’t get distracted by words that trigger your emotions.  Ask clarification questions to ensure you understand what is being said.  Repeat what you’ve heard.

That’s my take on listening.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your best listening advice.  As always, thanks for reading – and writing.

Bud