Honing your Skills for Consistently Great Presentations

  1. Create a list of speaking goals and a timeline.
  2. Internalize your message in your gut.
  3. Read every book you can find on making speeches.
  4. Constantly edit and improve your speech after every speaking engagement.
  5. Most people who think they are great speakers aren’t.
  6. Constantly look for ways to add spice to your presentation.

Applying Makeup for TV

  1. You need to wear makeup, not to change your looks, but to keep yourself from having your looks altered beyond recognition.
  2. All you really need is powder makeup to cover your face. There is no magic brand or style of makeup you need to solve your problems.
  3. You simply need to find makeup that is the same color as your skin. It is very important that the makeup color is not darker or lighter than your own skin. If you get the color wrong, it will contrast starkly and make you look silly on TV.
  4. If you think you might be on TV anytime in the next year, then you should go to a local drug store to purchase a small compact of powder that matches your color.
  5. Then, all you have to do is pat it on and blend it in so that it is smooth all over.

How You Feel Speaking
By Jess Todtfeld

On my way to work, here in the heart of New York City, I observed another New Yorker in the midst of her “speaking” gig. She was dressed in a chicken suit and was calling to people to take a flier to publicize a near-by chicken restaurant.

It dawned on me. This is exactly what most people feel like when they are forced to stand in front of a group and give a presentation. We might as well be wearing a chicken suit, because we have the same fear, embarrassment, and humiliation.

So… what can we do?

I speak to groups all over the country, and I tell them two things.

1) It is important to have some sort of tools to pull from. Most people just stand there and just wing it. That means they sweat, and turn red, and fumble their way through the process. Having a clear set of mental tools to pull from will greatly improve your confidence level. Imagine if I told you nothing about golf. Then I handed you a golf club and told you that you must play a game in front of your peers. It would make you pretty nervous? What if I gave you lessons and explained everything that might happen. I bet your confidence level would go up. I encourage you to improve your mental tools.

Either check out the Presentation A to Z book or Check out one of the upcoming Presentation/Public Speaking Workshops where we take you through the steps, just like that golf lesson.

2) As long as you don’t LOOK nervous or SEEM nervous, it counts for not BEING nervous. The audience doesn’t really care what is going on in your own head. They don’t care that you wish you had more time to rehearse. The don’t care that you hit traffic on the way in to work. They don’t care that you really hate standing up and speaking. They just want to hear relevant information that won’t put them to sleep. If you are an AUDIENCE CENTERED speaker, and worry less about what is going on in your own head and body, a good deal of that nervous energy will disappear.

Have thoughts?
Comment on this entry and let me know

 

BY TJ Walker



Listening Exercises: The Oral Pop Quiz

How do you get audience members to pay close attention to every thing you say? I have one extreme technique that is highly effective, but it can only be used by teachers in a classroom setting. Warning, if you are a business person, consultant or professional speaker, this solution will not work for you. In fact it will make you enemies.

If you are a teacher and you have responsibility for students learning and a desire to make them pay close attention, here is one technique you can use: ask students in your class to paraphrase everything you just said in the previous 60 seconds.

If used sparingly, say no more than once every 15 minutes, this is an extraordinarily powerful technique to keep students riveted to you.

Here’s how it works: You speak for 10 minutes or so and then turn to Jim in the third row and say “Jim, how would you paraphrase the ideas I have been talking about during just the last minute or so of my lecture?”

Jim was either paying attention or he wasn’t. He either understood you or he didn’t. There isn’t much wiggle room.

If Jim correctly summarizes what you were talking about, then you know that you are doing a good job of teaching and Jim is doing a good job of listening—everyone is doing their job. But if Jim can’t summarize what you are talking about, then we know there is a problem. Either you weren’t being clear, or Jim wasn’t paying attention.

If another classmate can correctly summarize what you were talking about, then we know the fault is not with you, it is with Jim. Jim is now a little embarrassed, but tough—it’s his job to listen to you and pay attention.

Jim is now super-motivated to listen to you in order to avoid further embarrassment. Furthermore, all the other students have a bigger motivation to pay attention, because they too want to avoid humiliation.

The key is not giving the power to the students to volunteer just when they want to give an answer. By you calling on anyone at anytime you keep a subtle pressure on the students—all the students—to pay attention at all times.

By periodically and randomly calling on students to summarize what you have just said, everyone will be motivated to the maximum throughout your entire class session—every time. Yes, this is forced interaction; yes, it’s mildly coercive. But students are forced to go to school against their will, why not go one further step and use pressure to help them actually pay attention and learn?

I must warn you that this technique will backfire if you do not have a student-teacher relationship with your audience. (A consultant or professional speaker would soon make a permanent enemy by doing this to a business audience member). This technique also won’t work with every student audience. But when it does work it is incredibly effective, so don’t overlook the tool of the instant, oral pop quiz.

More insights from TJ Walker

   

 

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Publisher: TJ Walker
Managing Editor: Jess Todtfeld
Creative Director : Kris Gentile

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