Great Advice from Nick Morgan

“Good speakers do two things well: they let their own personality come through, and they have a wide range of emotional expressiveness. That's what charisma is--emotional expressiveness, the ability to show a range of genuine emotions. But I don't mean weeping or losing your temper. Rather, you need to let an audience know how you feel about what is important to you, when you are excited about something and when you are displeased with something.”

Quote from Nick Morgan from this interview...

http://www.managementconsultingnews.com/interviews/morgan_interview.php

New Leadership and Presentation Skills Book

My new leadership book is now available for purchase. It is a powerful study guide to improving your personal leadership, team leadership and presentation abilities. Learn more about this great new resource and order your copy today - http://leadersingear.blogspot.com/. 

"A must read with powerful tips on every page to shift your leadership gears into overdrive and genuinely impact who you are, who you will become, and non-stop, real-life “how to’s.” I'd recommend this book to managers, speakers, consultants, and organizational leaders; everyone who cares about becoming more effective--now. Rhett literally hands the reader an entire career of experiences devoted to building character, skill, and personal impact. With Leaders In Gear, you’ll find yourself in the driver’s seat.”
Steve Roesler, President and CEO
Roesler Consulting Group
www.steveroesler.com

Make a Boring Topic Engaging

The question every professor, teacher, lecturer, speaker and corporate trainer should be asking is,

“How do I turn a boring topic into an engaging presentation?”

The reason for asking this question is simple: just because the data is inherently dull doesn’t mean the transfer of it from you to the audience has to be.  All one-on-one of one-on-many presentations need to be engaging or the audience is going to lose interest and thus the presentation is a waste of everyone’s time and energy. 

The goal here isn’t to turn every presentation into a rock concert or three-ring circus.  The goal is to be engaging as a presenter so you can earn the attention and trust of the audience.  Once you earn their attention and trust, the audience is in a better position to understand, remember and use your information to create their own new ideas, projects, goals and actions.

The next time you are called to deliver a presentation over a boring topic (parliamentary procedure, last quarter’s sales report, tax law, etc.), incorporate a few of these techniques:

1. Share your personality with the audience.  Even if you have a dry or dull personality, you still need to get your unique stories, background and journey into the presentation.  Your task is to connect with them on a personal level because chances are good they won’t naturally connect with your boring information.  Of course, if your personality is vibrant and rich, be authentic.  Use your humorous or witty commentary to spice up the transfer of the data.  Finally, it doesn’t matter whether your personality resembles a monkey or a sloth, you still need to be passionate and enthusiastic about your content.  Relay this to them using passionate and enthusiastic body language.  Variety is the key:  variety in facial features, tone, pace of voice, pace of walk, volume and gestures. 
    
2. Involve the audience.  Ask them a question and have them discuss it with a partner.  Have everyone stand up after you cover two or three points and do a quick mixer where they find a few people not sitting near them and briefly discuss what has been covered.  Do a demonstration involving all or a few of the audience members that reinforces a key piece of data.  The key here is to get creative with the transfer of information.  Just because you said it, put it on a slide or typed it in a handout does not mean the audience is going to understand, remember or use it.
   
3. Take out the energy gaps.  Energy gaps are the empty chairs between people you see at almost every lecture or event in the world.  These steal the energy from the room.  Force people (in a nice way) to sit up front, in the middle and next to each other.  Rope off the back rows if you have to.
   
4. Use visually-based slides.  It is amazing how poorly PowerPoint, Keynote and other slide show software is still used even with the existence and popularity of great books like Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen and Nancy Duarte’s Slide:ology.  The basic guideline most boring slide shows are breaking is that slides should be full of images that visually support the message instead of text that is simply re-telling the message.
   
5. Make the presentation short.  If you know your content is inherently dull and you have control over the length of the presentation, make it as short as possible.  Chop it down to just the stuff you need to add context or further explanation to in person and email the rest to them.
   
6. Don't give the presentation.  Most boring topic presentations don’t even need to be made.  The content is better served as a memo, email, article, blog post, annual report or book.  Just because the audience needs the information doesn’t mean they need the information in spoken form. 

Who Do You Remind Me Of?

How you dress and act (body language) before you begin to speak is sending thousands of messages to your audience. One of the most important thoughts your audience is thinking when they first see you that dramatically impacts the first moments of your presentation is:

Who do you remind me of?

They are making a connection between what you look like and anyone else in their life who looks the same. If you are speaking to high school students and you are dressed in a standard suit and tie, they are probably connecting you to their principal or teachers. If you are dressed in a fancy suit and tie, they might be connecting you with a famous person. If you are dressed in a nice shirt, jeans and cool shoes, they might be seeing the person sitting in their chair when they look at you.

The effectiveness of your presentation's first moments is directly influenced by who you remind them of before you start talking. The question you need to ask is, "Is what they are thinking a good thing or not?" Of course, the answer to this question is complicated and it all depends on which part of your personality and style you need to emphasize to best get your point across that day for that audience. Do you need to come across as serious, entirely credible, cool, common, extraordinary, etc.? Ultimately you want to be a little of all of these, but you are leaving a strong impression of only one or two.

If you don't know which direction to take, a good benchmark to shoot for is to dress one step above the norm of your audience's attire. If I am speaking to high school students, I am wearing jeans, nice shoes and either a sport coat or a nice polo. If I am speaking to a group of executives in business casual, I am wearing the nicest business casual I have. If I am speaking at a suit and tie event, I am shooting for being the nicest dressed suit and tie guy in the room.

Regarding my body language, my method is to mirror their body language, but add just a tough of energy to it. This "touch" could manifest itself by walking a little faster, talking a little faster, smiling a little stronger, meeting a few more people, etc.

The trick with both areas is not to go too far. Now, I do know certain speakers who have the way they dress as part of their act. They either dress way down or way up and that is their "signature" thing. Of course, if everyone started doing what they did, they would pick a new thing.

Remember, your presentation starts before you start speaking. Make those few precious moments as strategic as possible. You can never get them back.

Keeping an Auditorium Audience Engaged

• Pack ‘em in!  Rope off the back rows if you need to, but do whatever it takes to get the audience seated in the middle/front.  The closer you have the audience to one another, the more you can do with them and the more attention you will have.  The best way to do this is to not give them options.  Make it a requirement to sit in certain sections and not sit in other sections
  
• Move ‘em!  Movement is obviously limited, but not totally gone. Here are a few ways I use movement in auditorium settings to get everyone physically, socially and actively engaged in the program:

1. Random mingling. They can still stand up and meet/greet/discuss with a handful of people that are seated to their left/right/front/back.
2. Teams. You can still get them into teams. The best set-up here is teams of six. Three people from one row and three people in the row behind or in front.
3. Switch 'em. For a quick jolt, ask them to switch seats with someone. They can move as far as they want. Those who are really ready to be social will really move. Those who don't will just move one seat over. Either way, you accomplish your task.
4. Pair share. Have them discuss with a person to their left, their right or in a different row.
5. Big group movement. Find activities where everyone does the same thing and where that thing involves movement. I.e. - Simon Says, a camp song, etc. You find a good number of options at http://www.thesource4ym.com/.

Good Private Thinking

"All good public speaking is based on good private thinking."
Scott Berkun (from his new book Confessions of a Public Speaker)

Get it today to get your 2010 reading started right. Caution: it is a complicated, layered, opinionated, clearly written work. If you are not interested in growing or being challenged as a speaker, do not read it. However, I have given at least 100 public speeches each year for the past 18 years and I have found a ton of value in it.

You are an Agent of Change

It is said that the amount of energy in the universe is constant. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It is only changed from one form to another. The fat in your body is potential energy waiting to be turned into kinetic energy. A lump of coal is waiting to be burned and turned into fire. Your audience has energy waiting to be turned into excitement, sadness, laughter, surprise, etc.

All presentations change energy from one form to another. A waiting or bored audience member is just a lump of potential energy waiting to be turned into another form of energy. The experience of your presentation should be built around these three questions:

1. What form of energy are you wanting to tap into?
2. How do you plan on making this change happen?
3. What are you going to do with your audience after you've altered their energy?

The next time you are faced with an audience that aren't responding the way you had planned, don't blame it on them - blame your strategies. They are either not changing their potential energy into kinetic (i.e. they are doing nothing) or they are changing it into a different kinetic form than you'd hoped. Your job is to figure out how to get that energy focused on your presentation's needs.

The seeds of that change are in connecting the audience members' needs with your presentation's needs. These needs include:

- Safety
- Entertainment
- Intellectual stimulation
- Social interaction
- New and fresh content
- Fun
- Comfort
- Relaxation
- New solutions
- Encouragement
- Motivation
- Inspiration

My speaking associate, Kelly Barnes, sums up how we get the potential energy of our audience turned into kinetic energy in a big way:

The MOVE formula
(Making Optimal VAK Environments)

Move my feet... get music going
Move my eyes... get visuals up
Move my ears.... get me up to speed on what we are going to do
Move my mouth... get me talking to others
Move my brain... get me thinking
Move me... get me physically moving on purpose
Move on.... get to the point

One Way to Help People Believe You (And Believe In You)

"If you don't have confidence in your take, then we don't want to hear it."
Jim Rome, Professional Sports Talk Guy

Fab Five Formula for Your Next Speech's Outline

Five questions to answer as you are preparing your next speech's outline:

Who (are you?)
Don't spend much time on this, but quickly let me know who you are:
Why are you qualified to talk on this topic?
What is your style (serious, fun, interactive, etc.)?
What is something about you I can personally relate with?

What (is in it for me?)
Why should I give you two of my most valuable assets - my time and attention? This question is not about future results, this is about immediate results. Which of my needs are you going to satisfy right now? My need to be entertained, informed, safe, social, thrilled, comfortable, challenged, etc.?

When (will I need to take action?)
How can I tell if I need to live your message or not? How do I know if I am already living your message? Help me understand when I need to take out this tool (your message) and put it to use.

Why (should I take action?)
This is probably the most important in terms of helping your audience want to take action. Help them see the benefits of your message, not just the features.

How (do I take action?)
What are a handful of concrete steps (3 - 5) I can take in my life to live your message?

This isn't an all inclusive list and everything on this list might not fit your topic, but take a look at it the next time you are preparing for a speech and it just might spark a thought or two.

Be Clear About and Enforce Expectations

Your audience members need help knowing how you expect them to act. Give them clear expectations early in your presentation and then help them know how they are doing throughout.