Three Things Experts MUST Do to Give a Great Presentation

As an expert, one of your greatest opportunities to build your market reach and client base is to get on the platform and give a “knock their socks off” presentation.

If you’re an entrepreneur, there are very few strategies that compare to getting on the platform in order to build your credibility, visibility, market reach, client base and revenues.

As an “expert” your job is to give the best presentation you possibly can. The long-term benefits of using speaking to build your business are beyond compare.

Three “must-do’s” for HOT presentations are:

  • Know your audience
  • Tell stories
  • Give it your all

Know your audience

It’s all very fine to be a good, or even great, speaker, but even great speakers need to know who’s in their audience. The more you know who your audience is the more you can customize your presentation to their needs.

Knowing your audience requires time upfront. There are a number of ways to become familiar with your audience including a pre-event questionnaire, one on one conversations with a cross-section of the audience and studying the website of the group you are presenting to.

By taking time upfront to know your audience, it’s a sure bet you will stand head and shoulders above other speakers.

Tell stories

Facts and figures may be a huge part of your message, but stories make your points memorable. People love stories. If you’re not a good storyteller, put effort into learning how. The ability to be a storyteller will take you from an average speaker to a memorable speaker.

Keep your stories short and make a point with your story. Avoid starting your story with, “I’m going to tell you a story.” Simply go into your story.

Give it your all

When people give you their time by sitting in your audience, your job is to give 100% to the experience. To not do so is doing your audience a disservice.

  • Make your audience feel as though they are the most important people around.
  • Have fun. When you have fun your audience will to.
  • Stay excited throughout. This doesn’t mean you have to jump around and bounce off the walls. It simply means be fully present throughout the presentation.

Regardless of what industry you’re in, if you want to be viewed as the go-to expert, presentations are, by far, the best way to do so. They are also the best way to sell books, information products and enroll clients into your high-end services.

Public Speaking And Presentation Skills: Tips To Give A Good Presentation

Public speaking is the process of speaking to a group of people in a structured manner intended to tell, persuade, or entertain the listeners. It is closely related to “presenting”. Public speaking and presentations can be very demanding. Whenever we have to get in front of an audience to speak, we usually have to go through a panic moment. Putting forth a good presentation demands a lot of courage, practice and preparation.

Every time you speak before crowd, you learn something new. With my 12 years of experience as a public speaker and trainer on public speaking and presentation skills I have several tips which would help many of you. These points would help no matter whether you are speaking at a large conference or giving an internal presentation to the co-workers. They can be used anywhere.

GETTING PHYSICALLY & MENTALLY PREPARED BEFORE YOUR PRESENTATION- The more you prepare, the more confident you would feel. Slowly and gradually when you become comfortable in public speaking you’ll unsurprisingly feel more confident and the need to prepare may be of lesser importance. Amateur speakers must spend more time in getting ready. But that does not mean that you make yourself go crazy. Just be comfortable with your material and keep practicing. If you are a first time speaker, you may consult a public speaking trainer and would be of great help. They will observe your style and suggest you some advice on addressing the crowd. For example they might advice you to:

* Speak slower.

* Talk to individuals in the audience.

* Take pauses and think before you speak.

Going over them before your presentation would help you to be more composed and confident. Some more ways to prepare yourself can be the following:

* Drinking a lot of water.

* Taking a good night’s sleep.

* Avoid drinking the night before.

* Breathe normally.

* Visualize a positive result.

* Talk to other speakers (if any). Ask them questions and for advice.

PREPARING MATERIALS TO SUPPORT YOUR PRESENTATION- The key to prepare your presentation is to remember that less is more. A few guidelines to a good presentation:

* Keep text to a minimum. Do not put more than 5 bullet points per slide. People tend to lose interest in what you are speaking while reading this stuff.

* Check for contrast and font size. Make sure that it is readable.

* Use pictures where possible to get your idea across. They can be remembered more easily.

* Keep the notes short and simple. Their purpose is only to serve as a reminder.

* Check the resolution of your presentation. To be safe, go for 800×600.

* Complicated charts and graphs should be avoided. Audience may get confused.

WHILE GIVING THE PRESENTATION- A few things to be remembered when giving the presentation:

* Be optimistic.

* Telling stories will make your idea clearer than charts, graphs and numbers. They also help in engaging your audience.

* Don’t read your slides or notes. They should only play the role of supporters to what you are saying.

* Keep your introduction short yet strong.

* Keep your speech or the presentation slow and steady.

* Don’t be anxious over mistakes. Don’t apologize. Stay confident and just move on.

* Take pauses at appropriate times. This would also give your audience time to absorb what you presented.

* Smile, joke and laugh when needed. Don’t try to overdo anything.

* Make your ending crisp, clean and powerful.

* Prepare yourself for interruptions and questions.

Social Anxiety Disorder Cure – Public Presentations and Speeches

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a problem that many people suffer. It can vary a lot, some people have only minor symptoms, but for many people it is a huge problem, that makes many things difficult for them. For these people it is very hard to work around people or even going to mall, because they constantly feel like people are watching and judging them. This will make them feel very uncomfortable – they feel that they’re going to do something wrong, say something wrong or start blushing. Because of that sufferers choose to stay at home where they feel safe and comfortable, but inside they feel sad and depressed because actually they would like to be able to relax around people, find friends and live like people who don’t suffer it.

If you suffer SAD you know what it feels like to do public presentations in school or at work. No matter how hard you practice, before going in front of public it feels like you’re going to do or say something wrong, but actually you shouldn’t think like that, negative thoughts are one of the main symptoms that trigger SAD. It is hard not to think about negative thoughts when you’re about to perform but just try to analyze your thoughts, think why do you think that you are going to say something wrong.

Another symptom that SAD sufferers have in front of people is shaky voice and fear of it, being afraid of getting shaky voice before going in front of people can actually trigger it and make it worse. There is really not a perfect solution, what you need to try to do is to calm down, which is very hard for social anxious people. You can actually try to use same method that you I wrote about negative thoughts, because shaky voice is often a result of negative thoughts.

Third major problem for SAD sufferers who are doing a live speech or presentation is blushing. It may happen while talking when you notice having a shaky voice or when you notice you said something wrong, but main situation that triggers it is when someone comments your speech or behavior. This can make SAD sufferer very nervous and he or she tries to hold blushing back, but usually it just gets worse, only cure for that is to try relax and forget about that comment.

Sometimes while being in front public and it seems everything goes wrong, you’re blushing, feeling very nervous, you don’t know what do to with your hands and you have a urge to escape – but try to hold on, don’t ever leave situations like this, this will make your SAD just worse.