7 Ways to Make an Instant Impact on Your Audience when Presenting

Want your presentations to have more impact? Here are 7 ways you can create impact with your audience and give your public speaking skills a boost.

1.      Make the stage yours. You are in control of what happens up there, so take control.

2.     If you are being introduced by someone, say thank you as you take the stage. Make sure you have supplied the intro material so that you know what is going to be said. Don't leave it to the last minute.

3.       Centre yourself on stage. Make sure that your feet are grounded and face your audience. They may well be as nervous as you are so show them you are not nervous but excited to be there.

4.       Make eye contact with one or two people. If possible, work out beforehand who you are going to connect with initially. And stick to them at the beginning. Once you start speaking you can allow yourself to send one line of your presentation to each person in the room. Try making a figure of 8 across the room as you look to make sure you don't favour one side more than the other.

5.       Have a powerful opening. Make your first words a startlingly fact, an attention grabbing headline or (if you dare) a joke. When writing your talk, think about it as an inverted triangle. The key point  comes first and it may be controversial. The rest of the talk is about justifying  why you opened with that statement. A newspaper report can be a good template to use.

6.       Use humour if you know you can do it well, otherwise stick to the facts.

7.       Have a powerful opening story about yourself so that the audience can connect with you. You are interesting and you are an expert in your subject so it is very powerful if you can combine the 2 aspects.


Want more ideas about how to create successful presentations? Visit Cherrystone

Presentations should never be boring again!

Presentations should never be boring again!

How many boring presentations have you sat through? Be honest, how many have you given? What is it that makes presentations boring? The material? The presenter? The space that you are in?

Ok, so you may have limited options over the latter but you do have some control over the former. And if you follow some basic rules you are a fair way to being there.

1. Make it personal. After all it is YOU that is standing up there. You're not boring are you? You are someone with an opinion, full of knowledge that you want to share with your audience. So when you are preparing for your presentation, think about how you can use your personality, your thoughts and opinions to bring it alive.

2. And making it personal also applies t the audience. Why should they listen to you? What has it got to do with them? What are they going to learn and why is it important?

My 15 year old daughter regularly asks the questions of her teachers "Why do I need to know this stuff? How am I going to use it later in life?"

A difficult question sometimes for a teacher to answer, but one which they don't often have an adequate reply to. But it is a question that you need to consider because without it your presentation is a NICE to have not a NEED to have.

3. Too many words! How often do you come across a presentation with too many words! Words on slides - lots of them! Words in the script - too directive, instructive, patronising, jargon filled. Remember your audience want to be engaged. Using pictures rather than words maybe a cliche, but that is because it works!

4. Start at the end. When planning a presentation I will think about where I want the audience to be at the end and the call to action that I am going to raise. The rest of the presentation is then a journey to get them there. There may be highs and lows, questions and answers, but they should all be leading one conclusion.

Enjoyed this? You might like to read Stand and Deliver, Improve Your Presentations at Work, part of the Cherrystone Collection

 

Does Presenting Put You in a Spin?

For many people the stress of presenting is the worst part.

Your heart rate increases, you get sweaty palms, and you would rather be somewhere else.

But remember:

No one wants you to fail!

Everyone, including your audience wants you to succeed.  After all why would they choose to listen to a poor presentation?

Here are a few ideas to help you overcome that stress.

Deep breathing

When we are nervous, we tend to need more oxygen to help us to relax. Try this exercise before you need to speak.

• Sit straight in your chair with your hands loosely clasped on your laps and with your eyes shut
• Slowly breath in as you slowly count to three 
• Then breath out – again to your count of three
• As you breathe out allow your shoulders to relax towards the floor
•  Repeat twice then breathe gently for a moment or two before opening your eyes in your own time
•  This is an excellent  remedy for panic! It can be used whenever things seem to be racing out of control

Visualisation

When you are preparing for the presentation spend a little time with your eyes closed and visualise the presentation going really well. Most nervousness is caused by our negative inner voices telling us that this will not work. Replace them with positive affirmations.

Take on a character - but be yourself!

We all hide behind characters sometimes. Doing a presentation maybe one time when that is a useful trait.  Don't lose what makes you special,  but you can copy ideas from people you admire.

Be prepared

Know what you want to say,  how you are going to say it,  plan for any questions. Knowing that you are fully prepared will give you more confidence. If you have the opportunity, rehearse - it is amazing how different it is in practice to being on paper.

Reduce the importance

If this presentation goes wrong, what is the worst that can happen? Most presentations are over quite quickly so think about what you are going to afterwards to celebrate how well it went!

Rescue Remedy

Rescue Remedy can be a solution for some people. Made from flowers it is available in all good chemists!

Check your Equipment!

One of the most common concerns is that the presentation equipment will fail, leaving you in the lurch. It has happened to me on occasions! So you need to develop a backup plan. Have your presentation on a memory stick as well as your lap top. Can you transfer the core information if you needed to flipchart? Having a backup plan will make you feel more confident that you can carry on whatever.

Creating Your Own Stories for Business and Presentations (Part 2)

Looking to create stories for your business? Stories are so powerful as they combine emotion, action, heros and villains and can really bring your business and presentations to life.

To start with you need to ask yourself a series of questions.

◦             What is the goal of your story? What do you want to happen as a result of telling your story?

◦             What’s in it for the audience? Why should they be interested? Why is it important that they listen?

◦             How much do they already know? If an audience is new to an area, how can you make your story simple enough to introduce them to a brad concept when they don't have the detail?

◦             What do you want your audience to spontaneously recall? What do you want people to walk away with?

o   That the lemon was orange? (ie not what they first thought.)

o   That the product is fun? (ie: it makes them smile when they think about it.)

o   An image of the bright red balloon? (ie. a specific picture.)

o  It made me sad, but happy? (ie. a specific emotion)

o A shocking fact (one that is difficult to shift from your mind)

◦             Where is the best place to use your story in the presentation?

o   The beginning - to capture attention and make sure that they have got the gist.

o   The middle - to recapture attention.

o   The end - to leave them with an emotional feeling to remember.

People's attention span is short. So using stories at strategic points cannot only be used to create contrast,  evoke emotion, explain difficult topics well, but it can also bring people's attention back to your narrative. Have fun with them!

Using Stories in Business (Part 1)

Using Stories in Business

I recently watched a comedian strutting his stuff on stage and was struck by his ability to tell a simple story and have the audience respond with gales of laughter. What was it he was doing that was so successful? After all he was only telling a story about buying Christmas presents with his wife. The trials and tribulations, the misunderstandings, the ultimate denouement and the punchline. The story itself was very simple and ordinary but what he was doing was very clever. He was tapping into other people's perceptions and experiences and turning them on their head. Like most great comedy, it was taking the ordinary, making it extraordinary and evoking emotion along the way.

For centuries we have used stories to pass on information. But in much of modern business life we have forgotten how to use them effectively. This is particularly true when it comes to presentations. We all know that there are millions of presentations made every day, the majority of them less than riveting. So what can you do to stand out from the crowd and make you presentations really memorable?

 Stories Stick

But why are stories so powerful? The impact of stories lies in the fact that they provoke emotion which is known to be a major influencer in maintaining interest and memory retention.

The brain processes meaning before detail. So starting your presentation with a story so that people get the gist of what you are going to say and then going into the detail improves both concentration and understanding.

It provides a series of hooks on which to hang further explanation. So you can refer back to the story and say "so when the comedian said....the audience rocked with laughter!"

By adding relevant stories at suitable intervals throughout the presentation it is possible to introduce new ideas and spark new interest and re-engage through emotion at a point when the attention might be flagging.

So next time you create a presentation, try starting with a relevant story. It doesn't have to be funny unless you are confident that you can make people laugh. If you can't immediately think of one, pinch a story line from somewhere else such as a movie or a fairy tale. Just make sure you create a relevant link.

Want to find out more about creating stories for presentations or training? We provide story telling coaching to help you find your own stories.  

7 Pitfalls when Making Presentations

Making presentations is one of the key business skills that many of us fear. Here are some thoughts on the pitfalls that can befall us and how you can overcome them.

Pitfall 1. Not being prepared.

Even the best presenters need to know what they are talking about and what they are going to say. You can be the expert in your subject, but if you haven't ordered in your mind how you are going to put that across, then you may well fail to engage your audience and fail to get your message to them. Take the time to do your preparation well and thoroughly. It is also worth checking where you are in the running. What is the speaker before you likely to say? Will it be easy to follow it? Can you incorporate it into your own material by reference?

Pitfall 2. Believing your slides will do the talking for you.

Spending too much time designing slides to support you and not enough time thinking about what you are going to say. There is nothing more boring than just talking through you slides. Make sure that you are the star of the show not them. That is not to say that your slides should be boring, far from it. You must make sure that you slides are simple, visible by your whole audience and use colours wisely. Use them to illustrate your talk, not dominate it.

Pitfall 3. Not thinking about your delivery.

Good presenters have variety - variety in their voice, their stance and their material. People judge you on your body language so it is worth thinking about how you stand - feet apart with your weight evenly distributed. Use your voice to introduce variety into the presentation. Think about which points require emphasis and then how you can use your voice. Slow down, speed up, louder or quieter. Watch what others do. Listen to some great speakers from the past.

Pitfall 4. Not checking about the technical equipment.

How often do you turn up to talk to find that the PC and the projector are not compatible? Or there is no extension cable? Will you be using a microphone? Is it fixed or mobile? Will you get a chance to practice? It is worth spending sometime find out as much as possible about the venue, the facilities and the organisers expectations as possible.

Pitfall 5. Not knowing who your audience are.

Expecting an audience who know your subject well and understand all the references and get an audience who are new to the subject? Or get a group of experts who are looking for something new of the subject? Expecting 300 and only get 30 or maybe the other way around? The size and knowledge of your audience can make a huge difference about how you are able to interact with them. So check them out beforehand if you can.

Pitfall 6. Failing to practice.

Regular speakers making the same speech may not need to practice much. But for the rest of us, it is important to practice to ensure you are familiar with the material. Check you material isn't going to cause to you overrun your allotted time slot. Or that you are not going to run out of material half way through. Also think through any questions that might be asked and how you are going to answer them.

Pitfall 7. Failing to have a backup plan.

What happens if your worst nightmare happens and things go wrong? By thinking through all that things that might happen and planning for them you will feel more confident and able to relax. If the equipment is not working, does it really matter if you know your subject and can talk about it with confidence and ease? If you audience is bigger than you expected, embrace the challenge and work with them. Good planning will ensure that you can get through your presentation with the least possible trouble.

Good luck!

Creating Great Presentations

Want to create a great presentation? Here are a few tips.

1. Know your subject - there is nothing worse than some talking about something they know nothing about. The audience will see through you. Do your research and you will feel much more relaxed.
2. Understand your audience - know who they are and what they want to get out of being there. Remember, your audience want you to succeed. Who wants to sit in a presenation that doesn't? So they are on your side.
3. Have a conversation. Keep the audience involved by getting them involved.
4. Dress well - make sure you look the part - looks really do count.
5. Speak up - if you have something to say make sure you can be heard otherwise your audience will go to sleep!
6. Don't overcrowd your slides - good visuals are so important in a world of constantly changing images being presented to us all the time.
7. Have fun - if you are having fun then the audience is more likely to.