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May
21

How to handle a last minute presentation request

By | Presenting Yourself

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Imagine your joy when your boss says to you, almost casually, ‘I’ve just had lunch with our worldwide CEO and a couple of his immediate reports. Could you nip up to my office in about quarter of an hour and spend a few minutes telling them what your thoughts are about x?’

The following emergency drill will help you prepare a presentation in 10 minutes:

  1. Think carefully about the audience you have just been told about. Immediately work out what you would want to say if you only had 10 seconds in which to say it. (Two minutes)
  2. Write out this Micro-Statement in full on an index card. This will be your First Spike. (One minute)
  3. On a second card, write down the headings of the first five things that spring to mind that support your Micro-Statement. (Two minutes)
  4. Choose the best three and write them as headings under the Micro-Statement on the first card. These are your Key Elements. (Two minutes)
  5. Think of an End Spike that echoes your First Spike without repeating it verbatim and write it in brief note form. Not writing it in full gives you room to manoeuvre if your previous words don’t come out as neatly as you hope. Your End Spike may have to be changed on the hoof. (Two minutes)
  6. Use the time remaining to read through the card, forcing yourself to elaborate on the key elements in your head. (One minute)

This leaves you 3 minutes to mutter out loud some of the crucial phrases on the way to your boss’s office.

This drill gives you an excellent chance of creating and delivering something that briefly gives the audience what they need as well as enhancing your credibility.

May
11

Know your Audience

By | Speeches

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When speaking at a conference or to an audience outside your organisation, here are the 10 basic factual questions to ask the client contact/host/organiser:

  1. How many people will attend?
  2. What is the age range?
  3. What is the gender split?
  4. What nationalities/ethnic groups will be present?
  5. What are the levels of education/qualifications?
  6. What is the spread of job titles of those present?
  7. What organisations are represented?
  8. Who will speak before you?
  9. Who will speak after you?
  10. Who will introduce you?

After getting the basic facts, your next step is to get inside the heads of the audience. As Stephen Covey would say, ‘Seek first to understand and then to be understood’.

Apr
26

How Not to End a Presentation

By | Speeches

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The last words you say are the most likely ones to be remembered, so make the effort to make them distinctive. Here is a list of things to avoid:

  1. Don’t just stop dead at the end of a sentence that is clearly not specifically designed to be the last sentence. It will leave the audience feeling that they are hanging over the edge of a cliff.
  2. Don’t apologize for something that you have just realised you left out of the main body of the presentation. An apology is perhaps the weakest of all finishes.
  3. Don’t finish by asking a question. This would mean a massive loss of audience control, at a time when your control level should be at maximum.
  4. Don’t give an encyclopedic summary which effectively repeats the whole presentation.
  5. Don’t say ‘Thank you’. An expression of gratitude is manifestly inadequate, and it always sounds submissive. ‘Thank you’ is a phrase used by someone who is too lazy to think of something else.

Even if you only have 10 minutes to prepare what you are going to say, use at least one of those minutes to think of the exact phrasing of your last sentence. This is the best way of moving your last words away from irrelevance towards immortality.

Apr
11

How to be Funny

By | Speeches

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Humour must be delivered assertively to be effective:

  • with precision
  • with confidence
  • with speed
  • with practise

Precision

Calculate the precise wording. Learn it and stick to it. Humour is a delicate creature: if you get one word wrong it will probably die. So treat every gag like a sacred text: used precisely it will lead you to the Holy Grail of laughter.

Confidence

You can have no doubts. You can only use a gag that you know is funny. If there is even a hint that you are unsure about the gag the audience will sniff it out and you will achieve a crushing silence, or patronizing polite smiles. Total conviction is essential: no guts, no glory.

Speed

I don’t necessarily mean high speed. But there can be no stumbles or hesitation as you drive towards the payoff line. The pace of your delivery should be just a smidgeon faster than non-funny presentational material.

Practise

More than any other type of presentational performance, humour delivery is a sport… and one that should be played a great deal in private before you unleash your skills on an unsuspecting public. Practise with a hand-held tape recorder. When you have practised so much that a given gag no longer seems funny you are ready for combat.

Feb
29

Handling Media Interviews – By Graham Davies

By | Presenting Yourself

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  1. Never Relax. Unless you are a public figure of some magnitude, the interview will last less than four minutes, and consist of only three or four questions.
  2. Prepare two or three killer phrases in advance about your topic: phrases that you know are striking enough for a viewer or listener to tell other people about. Be determined to get one or two of these phrases into one of your answers, no matter what.
  3. Work out a Micro-Statement that you will almost definitely use in your first answer, just in case the interview is cut short for reasons beyond your control. Remember, the first question will always be the one that gives you the most latitude.
  4. Be particularly pointed in the way you nail the Closing Spike for each answer. This conveys sharp authority on both radio and television.
  5. Smile a bit more than you think you should. When you are psyched up to perform fast and hard in a three-minute slot, it is far too easy to scowl with your face and your voice, unless you make a specific effort not to.

Read about my full presentation methodology in ‘The Presentation Coach’

 

Feb
20

Graham Davies Tips for Presenting When Seated

By | Presenting Yourself

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It is much more difficult to present in a compelling way if you are sitting down. Eye-lines are crucial. If possible, work out who are the most important individuals present, and then arrange to sit where you don’t have to twist around to look them in the eye.

To deliver your material with the right level of impact, you must convince yourself to feel as though you are standing up.

You should also:

  • Speak with the energy of someone who is the main guest at a dinner party
  • Make the volume of your voice 5% louder than in casual conversation
  • Sit upright to maximise your height
  • Swivel your head to engage everyone at the table
  • Have your hands loosely in front of you on the table, so that they are able to move with the flow of what you are saying

If you use these tips, they will make you the most convincing person in the room.

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