Being Real From The Platform
|
"Let it be known, no person, thing, or situation can validate you. You validate yourself by realizing who you are." Mark Tosoni
Knowing who you are is essential before you step in front of an audience. What are you knowledgeable to speak about? What are you interested in learning? What are you passionate about sharing? When you have clarity, your confidence and excitement about your topic will radiate throughout your presentation.
People see, hear, then they believe. Whatever the purpose of your speaking, it is ultimately important that the audience believes you. Your credibility is vital before they will buy your product, service, or your call to action. More than 90% of why a person "buys" from you is because they like and trust you. From the moment your audience first hears about you, sees you, or hears you present, they are making a decision about who you are and what you are saying.
Which is more important in a presentation, the message or the messenger? Both are completely dependent on the other with a cycle of the message supporting the messenger and vice versa. What is essential is congruence of what you are saying and who you are.
Credibility is created with congruence. Who are you? Are you congruent with your message? If you are talking about financial investments but your portfolio is negative, the audience will be able to detect your incongruence. If you are talking about marketing with an integrated marketing image, your audience will sit up and listen.
Authenticity and integrity are qualities that the audience will discern, the same way they will know if you are a fraud or lack integrity. Be real. Audiences love presenters who aren't afraid to show their weaknesses or laugh at themselves. Vulnerability or openness from the speaker helps people relate.
For example, during a sales seminar I shared that at the beginning of my career I had to "post-date twenty dollar checks" because my commission checks were not very big. Members of the audience nodded their heads in agreement and two came up after the program, thanking me for helping them see that success in selling was possible. One of these has kept in contact over the past decade letting me know his progress. About once a year he calls and he reminds me that my willingness to be real from the stage opened up his mind to his own potential.
This is not intended that you use the audience to bare your soul and make them feel uncomfortable. I heard a speaker talk about her divorce. She had not emotionally resolved her feelings and should not have talked about a subject that was still raw to her. Once healed, her story might have value, but not until then.
Authenticity, vulnerability, and realness simply mean that you know who you are. When you know that, you are comfortable with yourself and your audiences will be, too.
Presentation and sales coach Linda Snyder is the creator of "Dare To Dream: Plan to Succeed," a practical guide to achieving powerful goals based on Linda's 26 years of experience presenting motivational seminars and sales trainings. To learn more about this book, communications coaching, and to sign up for FREE teleclasses, visit www.clarityofvision.com.
|
|
|
Give Your Audience Something To Talk About
There is an old saying: "The first thing to do when the audience goes to sleep is to prod the speaker." Most presentations are not intense enough. The average audience is lulled to sleep by droning monotony. A really energetic presenter can lose a pound or more in the course of an hour-long presentation, which gives some idea of the vigor which can and should go into it. If you are alive, alert, intense, enthusiastic, the audience cannot put their attention elsewhere.Direct participation by audience members is one of the best ways to keep their attention. When appropriately used, audience participation usually will focus the eyes and ears of almost every audience member on what's happening. You should always be alert to possibilities for letting people in your audiences do and say. ...(related: Presentation)
Close Deals In Record Time!
Remember back when the ability to create a slide show presentation using PowerPoint was cutting-edge technology? PowerPoint presentations changed the way that companies and seminars did business. It was easy to take along your presentation material; just grab your laptop and go. Sound and visual effects, fancy screen designs, bulleted features ? presentations had it all.Everybody had a PowerPoint p...(related: Presentation)
The Missing Link In Presentation Skills Training
Imagine you are the most amazing figure skater who ever lived. When rehearsing in a peaceful, empty rink, you demonstrate the ultimate in athleticism and artistry. You defy the laws of gravity as you leap in the air, landing with flawless precision. You spin with effortless grace and power; you execute jumps other skaters only dream about. On that ice, you are in your element, doing what you love to do and doing it perfectly.In rehearsal, that is.The next day, you enter the same rink for the big competition. When you look into the stands, you see thousands of eyeballs on you. As you begin your program, you skate self-consciously, hesitantly. You stumble on moves you usually don't even have to think about. You forget what comes next. You wobble and bobbl...(related: Presentation)
Presentation Skill Mistakes
Last week my husband and I attended an awesome 4 day work conference! I decided to sit in on both days of business presentations hoping there would be a nugget or two I could share with you.Presenting to an audience of 100 to 300 top producers were executives of a large company. While overall the presentations were good, three pet peeves of mine were running wild at times. I bring them to your attention in hopes that you won't hold your audiences of any size, whether 3 or 3,000, hostage to these presentation blunders, my top pet peeves.First - annoying fillers like "um," "uh," or even phrases like "you know." If you previously downloaded and read my Top 52 Presentation Tips, this is one of the plagues affecting many of us who present ideas or products in any setting! Using fillers is one certain way to...(related: Presentation)
Powerpoint Presentations: How To Use This Tool More Effectively
Many of us use PowerPoint to convey a message to both small and large groups. Too often we see "death by powerpoint" in the corporate environment where people don't use it effectively. Get clever when using your PowerPoint ? this article has 20 tips for becoming a more engaging presenter when you use this tool.Only use a maximum of six (6) words on each line. Too many words is too much clutter and hard for your audience to read.Only use a maximum of six (6) lines of text on each slide. If you have too many lines of tex...(related: Presentation)
Don?t Give Presentations Or Speeches - Give Leadership Talks Instead
The CEO of a worldwide business asked me to help him develop a talk he planned to give to several hundred of his top executives. He said, 'I feel as if I'm Daniel going into the lion's den.'Indeed, it was the business equivalent of a lion's den that he was entering. Hired from a competing firm, he was a stranger to the company, a company hobbled by declining market share and bad morale caused by the arbitrary actions of the previous CEO, an isolated dictator.'This is the first time most of them will see and hear me,...(related: Presentation)
Tips To Energize Your Presentations
"There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul." ? Arnold Bennett (1867-1931)Ask yourself, "What is the audience feeling?" and "How would I like him/her to feel?" You need to be aware of:
- How frequently you use positive emotional words.How you moderate the use of negative emotional words.
- Room set-up. Be sure people face each other so they can talk to each other. Use round tables, rather than theatre or classroom style.
- Don't permit cliques. Get your participants to sit with new people. B...(related: Presentation)
Practice Makes Perfect ? 7 Tips For Making The Most Of Your Presentation Practice
Believe it or not, preparation is a better determinant of presentation success than knowledge, experience, or even talent. The best presenter is almost always the presenter who is the most prepared. Even so, there are a lot of conflicting ideas about what constitutes thorough presentation preparation.So what exactly is thorough preparation?Here are seven straight forward tips to increase the effectiveness of the time you invest in your practice.1. Practice Delivery Out Loud. Practice is NOT mentally rehearsing your presentation...(related: Presentation)
The Presentation After The Presentation
Allowing the audience to ask questions after your presentation is an excellent way to reinforce your message and to continue to sell your ideas. In addition, because listeners can ask for clarification, audience members are less likely to leave your presentation with misconceptions about the concepts you delivered. Because of these benefits, the question and answer period is actually another presentation and vital to most speaking situations.Here are some suggestions to more effectively handle the...(related: Presentation)
Special Delivery! Tips For Improving Your Humor
Delivering humorous speeches involves a lot more than simply having good material. Take some time to incorporate these tips into your presentations and watch the fun and laughter factors rise.In FunSigmund Freud wrote: "The most favorable condition for comic pleasure is a generally happy disposition in which one is in the mood for laughter."This concept is called "in fun." If you want your audience to laugh, they must be in fun. You, the speaker, must be in fun. The emcee or program coordinator must be in fun. The whole program should be designed in fun. Do anything you can to be sure your audience knows that it's OK to laugh....(related: Presentation)
What Every Manager Should Know About How To Sharpen His Presentation Skills
Regardless of the nature of our job or social standing, sooner or later we will be called upon to make a presentation of one sort or the other. To sharpen your skills, whet your audience's appetite, and educate them, here is the key to your success: organize your presentation by keeping them in mind.To help you do just that, here are some tips to consider:* Have an inviting opening. Greet your audience with a statement that conveys your genuine pleasure in seeing them and in being there.* Summarize your main points. Inform your audience from the beginning about the structure of your presentation. When you do, they more likely will follow your presentation until its close. They will, consequently, be better able to follow each successive point as you develop it.* Back y...(related: Presentation)
site-map - Copyright © 2006 | Contact Webmaster | All Rights Reserved. | Presentation