Name the three best speakers you know.
Are *you* on your list? If not, are those other speakers better than you?
If you ask your clients to name the three best speakers they’ve had at their meetings, are you on *their* list?
Top speakers are continually looking for ways to be even better, to have more impact, and they have learned to look to show business performers for clues and techniques.
How do the skills of master performers translate to speakers? What do Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres, and Jerry Seinfeld do in their performances that you can apply to your presentations?
Bill Stainton has won numerous Emmy awards. He knows what comedy and TV stars do to stay on top, and he’s going to share that knowledge with us.
Virtually all of the speakers who are making serious money in the speaking business have one thing in common: they are amazing on the platform! Everything else springs from that: referrals, spin-offs, product sales — everything. If you want to make it — really make it — as a speaker, you have to be as good as, or better than, the best. Bill will share the secrets he’s learned from the people who have really made it in comedy and television, and translate those secrets directly to the world of speaking.
You will learn:
• How to structure your presentation for maximum engagement
• How to utilize predictable unpredictability to keep your audiences awake and interested
• A simple rule to help you plan your openings and closings
• How to use the secrets of comedy writers to make your speeches and stories come alive
• How to rehearse properly (most speakers don’t!) to set you apart from the competition
more information here … http://bit.ly/i9AeFR
PowerPoint problems run rampant in presentations, from busy, overdone slides that are impossible to read to poor usage where the speaker talks
to the slide or blocks the screen. While there are lots of ways to improve slide quality and enhance PowerPoint usage, there is one little known, but powerful, strategy that can improve any PowerPoint presentation and put the focus more on the speaker, where it belongs.
=> http://bit.ly/eRhWK3
Last week I posted about defining the wow – the impact you want your presentation to make. And part of that definition has to be what you want your audience to remember of you. What image do you want them to take with them?
Everything the audience sees needs to reinforce that image – clothes, facial expression, stance and gesture. At its most basic this means projecting confidence and sincerity. Unless you decide otherwise, the audience needs to know that you are comfortable with your message and believe in it.
If you are also using this presentation to present yourself as the face of your business, or as a candidate for a position, then take that into account as well. You need to be seen as trustworthy, competent, at ease with your material.
Actors want to direct. Directors want to produce. And consultants want to be kick ass speakers. And why not? The pay is good. It doesn’t take much time. And it’s a lot less heavy lifting than most consulting gigs.
Easier said that done, however. Delivering a kick ass kick ass is not as easy as it looks. If you want to get into the game, begin by reviewing the following guidelines to see if you have what it takes.
Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences
by Nancy Duarte
Reveals the underlying story form of all great presentations that will not only create impact, but will move people to action
Presentations are meant to inform, inspire, and persuade audiences. So why then do so many audiences leave feeling like they’ve wasted their time? All too often, presentations don’t resonate with the audience and move them to transformative action.
Just as the author’s first book helped presenters become visual communicators, Resonate helps you make a strong connection with your audience and lead them to purposeful action. The author’s approach is simple: building a presentation today is a bit like writing a documentary. Using this approach, you’ll convey your content with passion, persuasion, and impact.
- Author has a proven track record, including having created the slides in Al Gore’s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth
- Focuses on content development methodologies that are not only fundamental but will move people to action
- Upends the usual paradigm by making the audience the hero and the presenter the mentor
- Shows how to use story techniques of conflict and resolution
Presentations don’t have to be boring ordeals. You can make them fun, exciting, and full of meaning. Leave your audiences energized and ready to take action with Resonate.
When you first begin to prepare your presentation, you defined an image that you wanted to present. “What do I want them to remember of me?”
Who are you? How will you be remembered after this presentation?
Everything the audience sees needs to reinforce that image – clothes, facial expression, stance and gesture.
At its most basic this means projecting confidence and sincerity. Unless you decide otherwise, the audience needs to know that you are comfortable with your message and that you believe in it.
If you are also using this presentation to present yourself as the face of your business, or as a candidate for a position, then take that into account as well. You need to be seen as trustworthy, competent, at ease with your material.
Volumes have been written about the skills needed for successful sales presentations. Advice abounds about how to present benefits, not features; how to conduct product demos; how to use influencing techniques; how to establish rapport; how to close; and more.
Top sales performers embrace not only these sales skills but, most importantly, this fundamental of effective presenting: focus on the audience. They are clear that a sales presentation should be a dialogue between salesperson and audience. Most sales presentations typically involve small enough numbers of people to facilitate this.
more => http://bit.ly/g8lwH7
The impact of your presentation is not an accidental by-product of a presentation. It is something you create deliberately.
And the first thing to do is to define what it is that you want to create. What exactly is the impact going to be? In other words, you need to define:
How will your audience respond to your speech or presentation?
What will they take away with them and remember?
What will they remember of you?
Why will they think “Wow what a fabulous presentation!”?
Start by defining the purpose of your presentation or speech. What do you want its impact to be?
You may even want to have several– in different parts of your presentation. But they must not be left to chance or you risk creating “Ho-hum …” rather than “wow!”
Then define the message; the central message of your presentation – what one thing do you want the audience to take away? This message – you need to be able to state it in one sentence. That way you will stay focused on that outcome when you are planning
The second of the questions was “What do I want them to remember of me?”
Who are you? How will you be remembered after this presentation?
You cannot be someone you are not, when you present, unless you are prepared to be a performer for the entire production. Insincerity will detract from your speech as quickly as a joke in bad taste. But you can present a side of yourself as the highlight – the side you want your audience to remember.
And the most powerful choice you will make is how you get that image to support your message – how you
put the two together.
This package, this combination of impact, message and image are what people take away from your
presentation. They are the wow you create.
But the pivotal word, there, was “choose” – the impact you choose to make, the impact you choose for your presentation to make.
Whatever you may be trying to achieve, don’t let the impact of your presentation be an accident. Right from the beginning, it needs to be part of the planning. When you are visualizing your production, toying with ideas and possibilities and first drafts, make the impact of you as a person and of your performance an integral part of that process. Visualise it and work it into all aspects of your production planning.
Then you have the foundation for creating the “wow” factor.
Laurence Clarke Powell said … “Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow…”
Public speaking is just that – speaking, right?
And we focus on what we will say and how we will say it; on how we will stand and how we will move and how we will use eye contact, but always we focus on the saying – the speaking.
Sometimes we forget the value of silence.
Maybe it’s because we have had drummed into us the dreadful crime of using an um or an ah, or a y’know to fill the silence while we think. So we focus on fluency, on continuing to talk, and on the next point and the next … to the conclusion.
And sometimes, in the midst of all that focus, we forget the power of the pause.
…
the power of the pause!
It can refocus audience attention. (Remember how it felt in school when suddenly you noticed that the room was silent and the teacher was looking at you?!)
At the least it interrupts the flow of that continuous speech we were using so that that audience attention is refocused on what we have to say next.
A pause will then add power to your next point … because that attention is so newly focussed.
A pause will build your confidence, simply because of the power, but also because you had the gumption to stop the flow of speech.
If it is a pause to let you think, then the audience should recognise that and value that you are giving your best to your presentation.
A pause is a powerful way to change tack. You can change from a supercharged, rapid fire delivery style to one that is quieter, slower, more reflective. Again the power is in the change of attention, and in the fact that you have given your audience variety. But the pause has also allowed you to add power to the change of direction.
For all of these reasons … and there are many more … you take your public speaking to a higher level when you use the power of the pause.