As a career success coach, I often help my career success coaching clients with their presentation skills.  Presentation skills, along with conversation and writing skills are an important part of my Career Success GPS system.  I discuss the importance of being a dynamic communicator – especially a great presenter — in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Star Power, I Want YOU…To Succeed, Your Success GPS and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.

Presentations scare a lot of people.  Do you have a fear of speaking in public?  Or does it come naturally to you?  Please leave a comment telling us about your adventures and misadventures in public speaking.  Presentations are an opportunity to shine and to create your career success.

Today, I’d like to tell you a little story about one of my clients named Pat. 

Pat was very good at her job. So good in fact, that she was asked to make a presentation to the President of her Division and his direct reports on a project that she had brought in on time and under budget.

Pat knew this was a big opportunity to strut her stuff for senior management and propel her toward the career success she wanted. She spent hours writing and rewriting her presentation. Then she memorized it. She was confident that she would do a great talk and be on her way to a promotion and even more success.

However, Pat made the mistake of assuming that the President wanted all of the details of her project. She put together a 45 minute presentation. Her PowerPoint slides went into great detail.

A few minutes into her talk, the Division President said, “Pat, we don’t need all of these details, please give us a high level overview. We allowed 15 minutes for your presentation. We have only 10 minutes left.”

That knocked Pat for a loop. She had memorized her talk, and had real difficulty in deviating from it. She went right back to saying what she had practiced, not what the President had asked her to do.

After a few minutes, Pat’s boss stepped in, and presented the highlights of her project, somewhat saving the day. Pat however, was devastated. She thought she had blown her one chance to make a favorable impression with the President and his direct reports.  She thought that she would never become a career success in her company.

She came to me for some career success coaching on how to become a better presenter. I worked with her closely. One of the tips I gave her right at the start was to always make sure she understood what the audience wanted and expected from her presentation. If she had done this prior to her talk for the Division President, she wouldn’t have prepared and memorized a 45 minute talk. She would have come up with a shorter talk that hit the highlights of her project.

Pat got a second chance. By then, she had worked hard at becoming an excellent presenter. She wowed the President and his direct reports in her next talk, and eventually got the promotion that propelled her to a successful career in her company.

The common sense point here is simple.  If you want to become a career success, you need to become a top notch presenter.  Effective presentations begin with a thorough audience analysis.  Before you put pen to paper, or begin creating PowerPoint slides, you need to take the time to get a complete understanding of your audience.  Who are they?  Why will they be listening to your talk?  What do they hope to get from your talk?  How long are they expecting you to speak?  If you spend time getting the answers to these questions, you not only find it easier to design your presentation, you’ll give a better talk.  Once you get to know your audience, all you have to do is meet their needs and wants and you’ll become known as a dynamic presenter and communicator – and be on your way to becoming a career success.

That’s my take on how a thorough audience analysis will make you a better presenter and improve your chances of becoming a career success.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your best presentation success secrets.  Thanks for reading – and writing.

Bud

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.

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