Here’s a really interesting article from Lucy Kellaway at the FT in London. She tells a funny story about trying to launch her speech to 600 bankers with a costume change to help her make her point. It’s a good story and she draws her own conclusions about what she (and we) can learn from…
If you’ve read our blog post What are the Presentation Skills I Need? you already understand the importance of visual aids when you’re presenting. We’ve boiled down all of our advice about visual aids to ten golden rules – follow these, and you’ll always have your audience’s attention for the right reasons. 1. Do the…
Because there’s always a little hint or tip that we’ve picked up along the way Don’t distribute handouts at the beginning or during your talk. People will read them rather than listen to you. Mention at the outset the handouts will be available after the talk so that the listeners don’t have to take notes….
Remember that great visuals support the spoken words and the speaker. They are there to emphasise your key points, not to make them. Such visual emphasis will help the audience understand what you mean, not just what you say. Here’s 10 tips from all of our years of helping the message get through. Do the visuals only after…
You are most often the final ingredient that makes a good presentation on paper go well in the real world. Meet people (even if you know them) as they come into the room, shake hands, have a brief chat with them to help show your confidence and ‘break the ice’. Show enthusiasm for the subject….
It’s your instrument and most people don’t really know how to use it. Rehearse in the place where you’ll make your speech if you can, it makes a full dress rehearsal and readies you for the real thing. If you can’t use the venue, use somewhere like it. Project to people at the back of…
So many people ask how do you start well in a presentation, and in a previous post I talked about learning from Shakespeare to make maximum impact in those first few seconds. It’s a 2000 year old lesson to learn and is the foundation of story structure. Remember that the first 2 minutes are the…
The story is the thing, understand that you’ve got a strong message and everything else will follow. So many business presentations have little or poor story structure. Here’s a short post on the simplest structure for business presenters. Once you’ve got the gist of the three-act thinking, here are a few other ideas that will…
There’s so much you can do before the event to make sure that you have a great experience on the day. Call the venue to specify how you’d like the room set up well before the event, confirm in writing after the discussion and expect that it won’t be done when you get there. Arrange…