The Best Word To Describe the Best Presenters

What word would you most want your audience members to use to describe you as a presenter?  I have presented thousands of speeches, workshops, trainings, etc. to over one million audience members over two decades.  I believe the word POISED should be your goal.

P - Prepare fully for the speech, training and/or event. Understand what the audience needs and wants and prepare your content and yourself accordingly.

O - Open eyes wide for opportunities to exceed each audience member's expectations.

I - Eyes are always on me - on stage and off stage.  Your on-stage self should simply be an enhanced version of your authentic self.

S - Serve the audience and my fellow presenters. Be care-ismatic, cordial, friendly, etc.

E - Expect and manage gracefully bumps. Flexibility is the key here.  

D - Deliver more than expected. Except in regards to time, of course.  Start strong, stay strong, end early.

Take a look at your habits before and during your presentations and make sure they are focused on making you a more POISED presenter.  Good luck.

Simple Technique To Control Nerves

Step 1: As early as possible, know your content up one side and back down the other.

Step 2: The morning of your program, take your mind totally off your presentation.

Step 3: Before your program, listen to whatever you can to make yourself laugh intensely. Laughter fills your blood and brain with good chemicals that make you feel great, relax you and put you in an awesome mood.

Step 4: Nerves are normal. Don't worry about them.

A Few Techniques for Improving Your Presentations

I use Evernote exclusively for note capturing, saving and referencing.  It is a powerful tool for anyone in the business of content creation and sharing. One of the nice parts of having a few days off of the road is I get to peruse my (over 5,000) Evernote notes to discover content I haven't taught or shared in awhile.  I stumbled on this piece that I haven't shared on this blog.  This is seven pieces I put together a few years ago while working on my first presentations skills training book.  Enjoy.  I hope you find them valuable.

What is the engine of your speech? What is driving/fueling the interest for the listener? This is essential for you to discover early on in your preparing and then drive everything in your presentation back to it.  I suggest your engine be the one or two actions you expect the audience to take as a result of your presentation.

How do you look visually? Where is the connection with your message? If I video recorded you speaking and played it back without the audio, would I pick up any visual cues that illustrate your passion, conviction or even interest in your own topic?

I used to have a terrible time trying to remember what type of toothpaste I use. I would just put toothpaste on the grocery list and then get there and have no idea what type I used. Finally, I devised a plan. My  favorite toothpaste is Aquafresh Extra Fresh. I made a strong mental note of that phrase and it was easy to do because both words ended with "fresh." This catchy and memorable product name made it much easier to remember what type of toothpaste I like. If you want your audience to remember key thoughts and points, put a catchy title to them.

I love Oklahoma State University athletic events - basketball and football especially. OSU was playing Gonzaga at the Ford Center in OKC a few years ago. Both teams were in the top 15 and the event was packed. After the game, all 15,000 people were leaving and trying to cross a very busy intersection. There were two traffic cops out in the middle of the intersection "directing" traffic with red wands and whistles. There was a lot of waving and blowing going on, but not much understanding going on. The drivers, as well as the walkers, were totally confused as to when to go and when to stop. The traffic officers meant well and were there for our safety, but their communication tools were not effective. More than once, an accident was one red wand and whistle from happening. Make certain that the audience can clearly and effectively understand your communication tools. The red wands and whistles were a good idea, but some simple voice commands and arm movements would have served everyone much better.

For many summers I worked with 90 of the nation's best high school basketball players at a summer camp. We work on leadership and communication skills. Everyone is in camp attire, so I always dressed just one step above with khakis and loafers and a polo shirt. One year I stepped it up with dress slacks, a nicer polo and my nice dress shoes. The response from the coaches (who are the same every year) was interesting, but not surprising. They treated me with more respect and with higher regard because they're perception of me was in direct relation with how I dressed.  A quick way to give your credibility and "perceived expertise level" a boost is to dress sharp.

If the penmanship is horrible and can't be read, the words become meaningless. Learn how to clearly and succinctly communicate your message to each audience.

Generating Enthusiasm Out of Thin Air

You never quite know what state of mind the audience will be in.  After 20 years of speaking and training I have developed a good sense on it, but I still am purposeful about planning in techniques to get the audience as engaged as possible.  This is vital for two main reasons:

1. The audience walks in with baggage.  Thoughts, experiences, feelings, relationships, projects, etc. from the previous week, day or even hour.  It is your responsibility to give them a compelling reason to check out of those and into the moment.

2. The audience needs time to ramp up.  You've been (hopefully) thinking about your content and how it applies to this audience for days, weeks, even years. However, your audience is just now getting it for the first time.  They need time to get up to speed.  Taking a few moments at the first of your program to get them engaged is effective at accomplishing this.

So, what are the techniques I use consistently to generate enthusiasm from the audience for today, this program, this content, this moment, etc.? Following is my standard checklist.

Lights - Either very bright or very dark with a very bright focal point (video, stage, etc.)

Temperature - The room should feel chilly when it is empty. It depends on the size of the room/audience, but I normally ask the facility to set the temperature at 68. Colder equals higher attention.

Music - Upbeat, age appropriate, etc. Have it playing before anyone walks into the room and use it throughout your program.  I have many moments where the audience is working with a partner and I always play music while the chatting or working is going on.  (Click here to view an image of my lists.)

Seating - The closer to the front and the closer to one another the better. If you have to assign ushers, rope off sections or take out chairs, do it.  It is that influential.

Me - Be nice, even care-ismatic. You can't yell people into getting excited. Reward whatever involvement they do give. Don't say things like "come on guys - you can do better than that." Smile. Look like you are enjoying the moment. Talk quicker. Walk quicker. Look and sound excited yourself. Don't overdo it though. Develop a sensibility of how much is just enough.

Level Awareness - This one is critical.  If I am walking into an evening session, I know the enthusiasm is most likely already at a 7 or 8. My job really is to just keep them there.  However, if I am walking in to a morning session or a traditionally boring session, they might be at a 3 or 4. My job then is to get them to a 5 or 6. I need to remember that they will probably never get to a 7 or 8 and I shouldn't expect that or work to get them there.

Be Specific with Instructions - You can't just tell a group of people to get excited. You have to tell them how you want them to act. ask them to... Yell, clap, stand up, high-five your neighbor, etc. Be specific.

If you have a specific situation or group of people you commonly deal with or know is coming up and you want some ideas, just email me.  owner (at) yournextspeaker.com.  I'll reply back quickly and with some ideas.  Good luck!

Big List of Tips from Recent Training

Following are twenty plus tips that were listed by the audience as the biggest take-aways from our two-day intensive effective presentation skills training.  This is a great list to bookmark and keep handy as a reminder before and during your next presentation planning moment.  


Top Learning Lessons from a Recent Effective Presentation Skills Training


* CAKE - The four techniques for controlling nerves. 
* http://authenticityrules.blogspot.com/2008/07/nervousness-its-piece-of-cake.html

* PowerPoint Upgrading - Less content, full-bleed/high-res images, keep lights on, use stark contrast in colors between font and background. 
* http://authenticityrules.blogspot.com/2008/01/tips-for-putting-together-powerful.html 
* http://authenticityrules.blogspot.com/2007/08/putting-power-back-into-powerpoint.html 
* http://authenticityrules.blogspot.com/2007/10/10-no-nos-for-powerpoint-use.html 

* Give Larger Packet At The End - This helps with focus. If you need to give them something during the meeting, give them pads to take notes and/or a one-sheet with the most important content over viewed in bullet-point form. 

* It’s Always My Fault - Take full responsibility for whatever happens in the presentation room. Never blame the audience, the time of day, the environment, the projector, etc. Learn how to leverage and make the most of every situation. Remember the example I gave about giving a presentation at the end of a conference where only 25% of the attendees are left. Celebrate that - those are the committed ones. 

* Pay The Debt - Leaders give unconditionally and step up with a smile on your face and love in your heart to help where others can't or won't. 

* Simple is Good - Keep the moving parts of your presentation to a minimum. Only include a prop, PowerPoint, handouts, etc. if it is the absolute best way to communicate that portion of the presentation. 

* Small Things Add Up - Everything in the room either adds, subtracts or distracts from your credibility. 

* SPG - Debrief/processing technique. Solo, Pair, Group. Most times when I use it I leave off the Solo. 

* Use Beliefs and Values as Evidence - If you need to convince someone to implement a change in meeting or presentation technique, you will need evidence that is convincing. The best kind takes you and that person out of it. 

* Positive Self-Talk - Biggest barrier for most professionals to take their speaking abilities to the next level is the words, "I am not good in front of people." Stop using these words. If you can't stop, just add the words "right now". I am not good in front of people right now. You can get there. 

* 7-Minute Rule - Most important single strategy to increasing audience engagement and content retention. 7-Minute Rule - Change the way the audience inputs information every seven minutes or so. Options: listen to you, listen to a peer, think, take notes, read notes, read flip chart, watch video, watch PowerPoint, do an activity, partner talk, group work, etc. 

* Have a List Goal When Flip-Charting - When getting group ideas on a flip chart, set a goal for the number of submissions the group needs to give. This creates an open loop in the room that everyone will naturally want to help close. 

* Emotional Connection - To increase engagement, include the human element in every presentation. Tell a story, let us know you better, etc. 

* Engagement Options - Emotional, Intellectual, Social, Physical. 
* http://authenticityrules.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-to-get-keep-manage-attention.html 

* Just the Right Amount of Data - Less is more. 

* Metaphors - Use easily recognizable metaphors to explain concepts that not many people in the room (or the elevator) understand. 

* Put Yourself in Their Shoes - Think about how you would like to be approached or spoken with if you were an audience member. Also, plan your presentation according to their barriers, understanding level of your content, how they can connect with you, what you have in common with them, how they will want to or need to apply your content, etc. 

* CVS - Every time you see this pharmacy, you will think of this tip. CVS - Concrete, Visual, Simple. Keep your content and presentation structure simple and easy to follow. 

* Know Your Enemies - Understand what will be barriers to the audience checking in fully and plan strategies to leverage these. 

* Hook it - Use acronyms, list, etc. to provide the audience a better chance to remember your content a week later. Give them hooks to hang your content on. 

* Have a Clear Purpose - Start with this. Why are we here? What is the purpose of today's meetings or presentation. Be specific and audience-focused here. 

* 30/7/90 - The three Flow time rules. 30-Seconds - The audience decides in the first 30-seconds whether they want to fully check-in or not. 7-Minute Rule. 90-Minutes - Take a full break every 90-minutes. 

* List of Questions - http://authenticityrules.blogspot.com/2012/12/questions-to-ask-before-your-next.html 

* 7 Authenticity Rules 
 * Gravity Rule - Know your self 
 * Iceberg Rule - Know your content 
 * YourSpace Rule - Know your audience 
 * Surgeon Rule - Know your tools 
 * 7-Iron Rule - Know your flow 
 * Mask Rule - Know your enemies 
 * Mavericks Rule - Know your difference-makers 

* Misc. Resources Mentioned

 * http://www.AuthenticityRules.com 
 * http://plileadership.blogspot.com 
 * http://www.YourNextSpeaker.com 
 * http://www.evernote.com 
 * http://www.DropBox.com

How to Build a Keynote

Follow the tips below the next time you are preparing to deliver a keynote.

1. Make only three main points. If you can, give each point equal time. Additionally, make all of them tie back to the one Big Idea of the keynote - an opening belief/concept/philosophy/etc.

2. Begin with a moment of engagement. 3-5 minutes. Physical, social, emotional, etc. Get them purposely engaged in the presentation at the very start.

3. Bridge that opening moment of engagement to your Big Idea. Present one challenge or question or leadership strategy that all your points will tie back into.

4. Use personal stories.

5. Help them think application.

6. If you are going to use a prop, video, music, crowd interaction, etc., keep it simple and practice beforehand.
Follow the 7-minute Rule. Reference this post - http://authenticityrules.blogspot.com/2007/02/be-smart-presenter.html

7. Save your most emotionally charged or intellectually amazing message for the last.

8. Leave them with momentum; end your presentation with application action points. How do expect the audience to act differently because of your message?

394720 or Bob

(This is a repost of one of my most popular posts...)


You enter a room labeled The Numbers Room. You see fifty people walking around with name tags on and they look like this...

394720
273427
394751
404816
591233
92751
11982
821873

You then leave and enter a different room labeled The Names Room. You see fifty different people walking around with name tags. Only this time the name tags look like this...

Bob
Steve
Julie
Rick
Tom
Jennifer
Will
Ashley

Question: In which room would you expect to remember more people's names? The answer, of course, is The Names Room. Remember this the next time you need to deliver a message that you want to stick. The people in The Numbers Room might very well be thoroughly and accurately labeled, but the chances their names would be remembered is slim to none. To deliver a "rememorable" message, leverage the hidden secrets of the Names Room.

1. Short. Less information is more.

2. Easily Recognizable. Short names and unique faces work for humans. Give your message a short name and only show its "unique face" and you have a winner.

3. Easily Recallable. Look away and spell Bob in your mind. Now look away and "spell" 394720 in your mind. Big difference. Use simple words and phrases to "stickify" your message.

4. Easily Transferable. How many Bobs have you ever heard of?

5. Overcomes the Knowledge Gap. You probably have never seen 394720 as a name before. So, your mind has to work harder to try to remember brand new information. However, you have heard, seen and dealt with the name Bob all your life. Find a way to take pre-existing words, concepts, or labels and give new meaning to them; instead of creating words from scratch.

Video Answers to Five Questions

Following is a link to a cool short (8 minutes) video of me answering a few basic presentation skills questions with another speaking expert.  Enjoy!

http://www.finaldrivetv.com/blog/?p=263

How to Get, Keep & Manage Attention

Great speaking, teaching, training and presenting is strongly influenced by great attention management. The best content in the world can be missed by even by the best audience members if attention is not managed properly. The following four keys should play a major role in each of your presentations. When you implement these strategies, make sure you mix it up and add variety in how you use each.

1. Intellectual Engagement - Any great presentation gets people thinking in a new, fresh, and unique way. This is the meat of the talk and you have to have it, but to really engage the brain you have to give new information, tell a unique story, package the info simply and creatively, etc.

2. Emotional Engagement - This is the Ying to the Yang of intellectual engagement. People are driven by and pulled around by emotions. If there is no heart or humor in your presentation, you are missing a key engagement tool. So, get them laughing or tell a heart-felt story. Get the human element in your presentation, even if you are delivering dry, serious content.

3. Physical Engagement - All physical movement, from high-impact ropes courses to a simple knuckles bump, creates a boost in energy. Leverage this simple principle and include an appropriate amount of physical movement in your presentation. For more content heavy presentations, this movement could include: giving a high-five to a partner, turning your chairs forward, standing up and switching partners, standing up and interacting with others, etc.

4. Social Engagement - This is one of the easiest techniques to pull off and yet so many speakers do not use it. Get the audience interacting with each other. This could be as simple as, "Turn to a partner and teach them the lesson you just learned using your own words." If all the audience is doing for 30/45/60 minutes is just listening to you, you are not effectively managing their valuable attention resource.

5 Keys to a Successful Presentation

Here are five key elements great presenters and facilitators consider paramount to a successful performance:

• Tight content flow. This includes the first few seconds, how points connect, how much time is spent on a point or activity, the length of time until the audience changes the way they input information, a tight connection between activity/story - point - personal application, the closing, etc.

• Great questioning. If your presentation includes any calls to action, you must include great questions to lead the audience where you want them to go. Great questions result in a challenge, context setting, creating a gap for the audience to fill with future behavior or information and personal application.

• Strong material. It is true that how you look and how you talk are important, but strong material is very compelling. Great content is fresh, creative, story-based, true (or truth glorified), personal, and joined at the hip with your key points.

• Content knowledge. Great presenters know their material top to bottom. The key understanding is that you have to practice to be natural. You can only hold one thought in your head at any given time. This one thought cannot be what to say next. This is also one of the key challenges with many coaching environments I have seen - trying to coach delivery when the speaker doesn't know the material top to bottom. You can't work on body language or even demonstrate your true speaking ability if you are preoccupied with remembering what to say.

• Positive and flexible frame of mind. This is the key value point between coaching to perfect and coaching to performance. The real world of presenting is unpredictable and messy. Your best laid plans are going to get dominated by an angry audience member, an AV glitch, having less time to present, etc. The best presenters cultivate a mindset that is naturally positive and upbeat and is spontaneously pliable. When things go off-course, they go with it. Literally!

 

10 Fresh Leadership Activities

Just got home from another tremendous PLI trip to California for the annual CADA state convention. What an amazing group of activities directors, teachers, administrators and staff. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of the CADA family.

Click here to download my handout from my Saturday Meet The Pros roundtable.  It contains ten of my newest leadership activities that I lead in my own keynotes, workshops, camps and conferences.

Enjoy and remember - you can have the best ingredients in the world, but the only way to ensure it doesn't come out tasting like Play-Doh is to become a master chef. These activities and the impact they can create are only as powerful as your skill in leading them allows.  Good luck.

How Are You Fueling The Fire?

We had a traditional, old-school, masonry fireplace put in our new home and I love it.  We have it lit all the time.  My three primary fuel sources are great metaphors for the fuel sources we have at our disposal as presenters, teachers and trainers to set our audiences on fire:  firewood, Duraflame logs and cardboard.  If you want to have your group begging for more, make sure you have a good mix of all three.

Firewood - The long-lasting, primary fuel source that is the meat and potatoes of the fireplace fuel.  A fire without firewood would be weak, quick or non-existent.  This fuel source represents your "base content."  The stuff you have studied, practiced, refined, rehearsed, massaged and delivered over and over again.  This is the content you know makes a difference.  It comes in many different styles (stories, activities, formulas, lists, concepts, etc.), but it is all meaningful, connective and the main reason why the audience is there in the first place. Keep stocking up on this energy-rich material.  

Duraflame Logs - We are on propane and in our town you can't install a propane-fueled, open-air fireplace; primarily because, unlike natural gas, propane is not scented.  It could be running and you'd never know it.  So, Duraflame logs provide the chemical spark to get the fire going and the good ones provide energy to fire up those tree logs for up to four hours.  This fuel source represents any material, bits, activities, etc. that serve the sole purpose of bringing energy and combustibility to the room.  You can't rely solely on this fuel source (its not meaty enough), but it is necessary to get the fire burning hot in the audience and ready to receive and accept your big content. Where variety and quantity are the keys to the firewood content, you need only find two or three magic Duraflame log bits that hit a homerun every time to really take advantage of this fuel source.

Cardboard - Oh how it burns bright and hot and awesomely... but only for a few seconds.  This is a totally case-by-case (no pun intended) fuel source.  If we happen to have some extra boxes around, I will tear one up, use it as kindling and watch it burn!  It does go hot, but quick.  Cardboard represents your use of "in-the-moment" content.  Examples are headlines, recent news, current audience information, something that happened earlier at the event, etc.  These little tidbits have little long-term value, but can serve to peak the audience members' attention and help you kindle their desire to check in to your main message.  So, watch for these, insert them where you can, but don't rely on them.

Best of luck setting fires in 2012!

The Packaging Makes a Difference

Apple is known for its remarkable packaging.  The shipping boxes are perfect (minimal, simple, etc.), but its product boxes are the best - stylish, eco-friendly, cool. I have kept many Apple product boxes and repurposed them because of their design and weight.

Yet, I don't buy Apple products because of the box.  I buy them because they are awesome.  However, when it comes to your work (speaking/training), the packaging does make a big difference.  Case in point, I recently keynoted a massive student leadership conference.  Thousands of students flooded into the convention arena. Before my keynote was a welcome and a greeting from state education officials.  One of them stretched a 5-minute greeting into a 35-minute mini-keynote - leaving me 8-minutes for the actual keynote.

It wasn't a total train wreck.  He did have a good message and a compelling story.  Yet, this was the opening session and many students were already tweeting how boring the conference was. The rub was that he just stood behind the podium and talked. The problem was packaging.  He stood and talked at them for 35-minutes. This package type does not encourage, inspire or enable audience engagement. It chases it away.  Its a shame, too, because his content was important and powerful.  But after 7-minutes all of it fell on deaf ears because of inappropriate packaging.

Packaging Options for Audience Engagement:

• Audience interacting with each other
• Audience interacting with speaker
• Emotional stories, quotes, thoughts (humorous, inspirational, dramatic, sad)
• Music
• Properly-designed Power Points
• Variety in pace, tone and volume
• Speaker physically moving around the stage/room

Great speakers and trainers understand that simply saying something doesn't equate to someone else hearing it, understanding it or acting upon it.  You must package the delivery with an Apple-like caring eye for detail and design.  Best of luck.

New Delicious.com Tag: Speaking Tips!

Our Delicious links database continues to grow!  We are up to 1,493 bookmarks.

These bookmarks cover ten different leadership areas (communication, relationships, goals, etc.), specific ideas for fellow speakers/trainers (activities, books, videos, etc.) and, as of today, a new tag titled Speaking Tips.  This category already has over 100 bookmarks covering everything from building a speech, engaging an audience, storytelling and much more.  Check it out!

http://www.delicious.com/pliblog/speaking_tips

Facilitation Techniques

A collection of the best facilitation techniques I teach and practice.




- Posted from the road using my iPhone.

Attention Points

Attention Points are credits you get or lose from the audience. There are many ways to earn them and many ways to lose them. When you speak, your audience is giving you two of their most important resources - time and attention. Take this fact seriously and learn to respect it, leverage it and make the most of both. You can't tell them, demand them, expect them or assume they will give you their attention. You must earn it. Following are the short lists of methods for earning and losing Attention Points...

Earning Methods

• Your Professional Title
• Your Life Accomplishments
• Your Life Story
• Likeability
• Audience Interaction
• Telling Stories They Relate With
• Heart-filled Content
• Compelling Data
• Inherently Necessary Info (ex. How to exit a burning building)
• Shocking Content
• Hilarious Content
• Authenticity
• Humility
• Brevity

Losing Methods

• Be Mean
• Be Boring
• Be Dry
• Be Lengthy
• Be Presumptuous
• Be Inappropriate
• Be Dishonest
• Be Predictable
• Be Overly Repetitive
• Use Someone Else's Material
• Use Outdated or Overused Quotes, Stories, Jokes or Data Points

If you are thinking "I am naturally dry" or "I have to give lengthy presentations", that's ok. You just need to implement more of the Earning Methods to get your Attention Points account into the black.

Good luck and email me if you need more detail or have a specific situation or presentation you need help with - rhett (at) yournextspeaker.com.

Coaching to Perfect vs. Coaching to Performance

If you are in charge of coaching speakers, trainers or facilitators, you need to consider your approach. Are your strategies designed to get them ready for perfect or for performance?

Coaching to perfect means getting them to talk and look exactly how you want them to today.
Coaching to performance means getting them to master the most important elements to use tomorrow.

Coaching to perfect is judging readiness based on a rigid metric.
Coaching to performance is judging readiness based on moving targets.

Coaching to perfect is easier on the coach because the target is the same all the time.
Coaching to performance is more difficult for the coach because it involves making judgement calls based on each presenter and their target performance, audience, content, personality and experience level.

If the presenters are going to be delivering in unpredictable environments (which every presentation is except those where the speaker simply walks on stage, talks at the audience and sits down), then coaching to perfection is actually doing more harm than good. Primarily because time is wasted in practice working on things that aren't going to significantly make a difference in the actual presentation.

A prime example of this is some of the national and state student organizations I work with and their facilitation coaching strategy for elected student leaders or in-house presenters. There is too much time invested trying to get their presenters to eradicate every filler word (uh, um, etc.), saying a phrase an exact way, standing in a certain place, etc. These techniques are valuable to understand, but not critical to their end goal - the future audiences having a great experience and learning important information.

Let's use filler words for example - they are a natural part of human dialect. A presenter should certainly be aware of any they overuse, but time doesn't need to be spent coaching these entirely out of a speaker's cadence. There are two primary reasons:

1. Just because I say them less in a sterile, environment-controlled practice room doesn't mean I won't say them in the real world. It just means I'm not saying them today.

2. That time in the coaching room should be spent on items more important to good facilitation that will transfer better to the real world: content flow, great questioning, how to handle off-plan moments, debriefing, etc. Even 20-minutes spent on each of these would prove more valuable later than spending 60-minutes counting how many times someone says um.

Point two follows the thinking of a coach interested in coaching to performance. Ask yourself this question when preparing your development game plan, "Will this strategy, learning point, tip or technique significantly improve their ability to perform or is it just simple to coach?" To aid in shaping your thinking, here are a few key elements great presenters and facilitators consider paramount to a successful performance:

• Tight content flow. This includes the first few seconds, how points connect, how much time is spent on a point or activity, the length of time until the audience changes the way they input information, a tight connection between activity/story - point - personal application, the closing, etc.

• Great questioning. If your presentation includes any calls to action, you must include great questions to lead the audience where you want them to go. Great questions result in a challenge, context setting, creating a gap for the audience to fill with future behavior or information and personal application.

• Strong material. It is true that how you look and how you talk are important, but strong material is very compelling. Great content is fresh, creative, story-based, true (or truth glorified), personal, and joined at the hip with your key points.

• Content knowledge. Great presenters know their material top to bottom. The key understanding is that you have to practice to be natural. You can only hold one thought in your head at any given time. This one thought cannot be what to say next. This is also one of the key challenges with many coaching environments I have seen - trying to coach delivery when the speaker doesn't know the material top to bottom. You can't work on body language or even demonstrate your true speaking ability if you are preoccupied with remembering what to say.

• Positive and flexible frame of mind. This is the key value point between coaching to perfect and coaching to performance. The real world of presenting is unpredictable and messy. Your best laid plans are going to get dominated by an angry audience member, an AV glitch, having less time to present, etc. The best presenters cultivate a mindset that is naturally positive and upbeat and is spontaneously pliable. When things go off-course, they go with it. Literally!

Great presentation coaching is based on two premises:

1. Future success is the ultimate goal, not in-the-moment success

2. In-the-moment success does not directly coorelate to future success because of the unpredictable nature of the work.

All strategies and techniques should be built around this philosophy and prepare presenters to perform with excellence, not practice with perfection.


* Hat tip to Dr. Bill Moore and his concepts on coaching in the sports and music fields for inspiring this post.

Slide Show Upgrades

Using PowerPoint or Keynote to improve the audience's learning and engagement experience is an art form.  View this PowerPoint to read and see a few key strategies...

(View in SlideShare to view full screen.)

YourNextSpeake Slide Show Upgrade Example

View more presentations from Rhett Laubach.

To learn more, read Nancy Duarte's Slide:ology and Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen books.

Enjoy!

The Best of Both Worlds

I just spent a great week traveling the state of Oregon with Sara Nilles, Program Director of the Oregon Association of Student Councils.  They have over 190 member schools in Oregon and do a great job teaching, guiding and motivating middle school and high school student leaders in the ways of leadership excellence.  She invited me in to present three hours of leadership lessons each day at their Winter Regional Conferences. 

It was a powerful week for many reasons.  Engaged students, committed teachers/staff/advisers, the beautiful Oregon landscape, focused application of content, etc.  The feedback from the advisers and students was overwhelmingly positive.  One of the reasons was because of my training/speaking style.  They loved that I employ a teaching technique that I encourage you to try on if you don't already.  Its called BBW - the Best of Both Worlds.

BBW is when you take your audience to both extremes of engagement - intellectual and emotional.  This means you stir up their emotions (laughter, sadness, excitement, etc.) in a big way and then lead, guide and direct their thoughts with application points. 

If you engage the emotional side only, you aren't teaching - you are a cartoon.  If you engage the intellectual side only, you aren't teaching - you are a thesis paper.

Following is an example outline of one way I employed the BBW technique last week in Oregon:

1. I led them through an activity called Name That Tune.  As a team of 8-10, they have to guess what movie or TV show each theme song is associated with.  It is competitive, fast-paced and filled with fun songs.  My body language and verbal tones reflect excitement, engagement and humor.
2. After the activity I ask them a simple question to discuss as a team, "Why were you able to remember these songs?"  The key lesson is repetition.
3. Then I pull everyone close together near me (close proximity to you and each other creates attention and focus) and elaborate on this statement, "The most effective leaders repeat the right habits on a daily basis."  I give them a few specific, concrete, simple habits that will help them be a positive influence on their peers.  My body language and verbal tones reflect sincerity and importance of message.  Not preachy though.  The connection between the audience and me isn't parent-child, but coach-player.

Good luck rocking this skill. 

Only when you go to positive extremes with your techniques and words do you fully cut through the clutter and distractions in each audience member's life.

OSU Graduate Student Questions

Recently I presented my Presenters in Gear program on campus in Stillwater, Oklahoma to the Oklahoma State University Spears School of Business graduate students.  Following are a few questions they asked after the program and my answers.

How do you combat being nervous?

 

The most important thing to know about nervousness is that it is perfectly normal and actually necessary. The secret isn't to get rid of nervousness (that results in a blanching of emotion) - the goal is to control your nerves. You do this by knowing your content top to bottom, putting your full attention on the audience before and during the presentation and getting as much experience as possible.

 

How do you handle audience members who walk out in the middle of a presentation?

 

Do not worry about them. Don't bring any attention to them. Forget them the second you see them leave.

 

How do I recover my composure to successfully conclude my presentation?

 

If you ever need to recover because you mess up, forget something, etc., just move on quickly to the next portion of your presentation. Don't linger in the moment. The conclusion of your presentation should include one of the following elements:

 

• A call to action.  What do you want them to do with the information you just gave them?
• A re-cap of your main points.
• The most important/critical point/data/fact supporting your presentation.
• A brief Q&A (ONLY if you facilitate a creation of questions from the audience during your presentation.)
• A multimedia tool (video, self-running slide show, etc.) that puts an exclamation point on your presentation.

 

How to keep a flow going, connecting two slides?

 

Slides should follow the natural flow of your presentation. Transitions connect your main points (i.e. - slides), so as long as your transitions are tight, you should be fine with moving from slide to slide. The best transitions tie together a key element of two points. I.e. - So, as you can see, our global population's energy needs will be overwhelming over the next 20-50 years. This brings us to needing to understand why we must act now on mining the rich resources that exist below the ocean floor.

 

What are some great ways to get as many people as possible to make lasting behavioral change based on your communication?

 

Lasting behavioral change is a very personal issue and the motivations behind it changes from person to person. Even the most powerful communicator can hope to only effect change in people for a short period of time. Beyond that it is up to the individual. So, a better question is - what are some great ways to get as many people as possible to begin walking down the path of lasting behavioral change? The answer to that question is the core elements of all great orators:

 

• An intense passion for your content and for your audience doing something with it.
• A trust from the audience in your expertise, authenticity and likability.
• A message that is clear, specific, action-oriented, simple in nature and resolves a problem/challenge/question that is relevant and urgent to the audience.

 

Where do speakers get professional training? Who is the best individual or company to get training?

 

We train many speakers every year - professionals, students, pastors, etc. Let me know if you want to chat about working together (rhett@yournextspeaker.com). Beyond that there are many options. Dale Carnegie Training and Toastmasters are the first two that come to mind.

 

If I have a tendency to speak too fast during a presentation, how do I train myself to keep a slower pace and speak more clearly?

 

Speed, like tone and volume, should be laced with variety throughout a presentation. Therefore, it is perfectly fine to have bursts of "too fast" during your presentation as long as it is balanced with a slower pace. You need to be conscience about including these slower pace times the first couple of times you begin working on it. Eventually, this will become the way you speak naturally.

 

How do I learn to speak loud and with energy? Are there any books, classes, something you can recommend?

 

This is a process of modeling, practicing, adjusting, modeling, practicing, adjusting, etc. You have the ability to be loud, you just haven't become comfortable doing it. The energy portion is where you need to watch someone present who you consider an energetic presenter and model what they do.