Public speaking
How to rehearse for your big presentation (even when you’re busy)
The single best way to demonstrate competence and confidence when presenting is to know the content. When we feel at ease with our material because it’s “in our bones”, we use fewer filler words, can leverage non-verbal and paraverbal communication techniques, and generally carry ourselves with the outward and inward posture of an expert.
Yet knowing the content is more than just subject matter expertise (the reason you were tapped to give the presentation): it means we’ve rehearsed the presentation itself—to know the sequence and phrasing of the material as it has been structured for the particular audience being addressed.
In today’s fast-paced business climate, finding time to rehearse is often difficult. When there aren’t significant consequences for delivering a presentation in a less-than-amazing fashion, rehearsing may not be necessary. But when the stakes are high, knowing your material is imperative. The following seven strategies will help ensure the little time you have to practice is as effective and efficient as possible.
Read MoreWhat your boss really wants when they limit your slide count
Slide count is always a hot button topic in my workshops and coaching sessions. Time and time again I hear the same refrain:
I only get ten slides.
Whatever the number might be, the constraint is always a challenge for my clients because it creates friction with slide design best practice: to convey a single concept on each slide. To heed that advice means there will be more slides. Sometimes a lot more slides.
The way most people try to meet the slide count limit is by crowding the slides. The oldest “trick” in the book is dividing the slide into quadrants and putting four slides onto it—one per quadrant.
This trick (and others like it) are only worsened by the common practice of using slides as speaker notes (or because we want them to be useful as a leave-behind), thereby overburdening them with text.
Having worked with thousands of people—many of them are the very bosses who impose slide count limits—I can attest that there are generally two reasons they do so. With a clear understanding of their underlying reasoning, we’ll better achieve their objective for the presentation… and might just be afforded more slides to do so.
Read More7 reasons you should NOT improve your communication skills
Looking for a reason to skip out on developing your public speaking and presentation skills?
Look no further; here are seven of the best:
Read MoreSpeaker Essentials: A checklist for smooth presentations
If it hasn’t happened to you already, it will.
There will be a day when something goes amiss at your speaking gig:
- The tech fails
- You have a wardrobe malfunction
- The room set up doesn’t work
- You get lost en route or traffic delays you
Virtual presentations have their own set of potential pitfalls to plan for. (Though they’re still a win in many ways.) And we’ve grown accustomed to them. So much so that we may have forgotten how to prepare ourselves for in-person speaking engagements. One of the best ways to ensure things go smoothly—every time you speak—is to create a routine or a list to follow.
Read MoreHow to set your speaking fee (with a free calculator)
It’s one of the most common questions I’m asked by clients: how much should I charge to speak?
For those who are legitimate experts in their fields but don’t earn their living as a professional speaker, setting a fee for speaking outside their organization is understandably difficult.
Price too low and the perceived value of your expertise is diminished.
Price too high and your proposal might be declined.
If you know the amount that’s been budgeted for speaker fees, it’s simple. But speakers don’t usually have access to that information, so we need to account for some variables to arrive at a reasonable starting point for negotiating the fee. We’ll view this from two angles: the event side and the speaker side.
Read MoreHow to be a memorable presenter
Quick: what’s the thing you remember most about the last presentation you heard?
Maybe it was yesterday’s company meeting? Last Sunday’s sermon? Or the keynote from a conference you just attended?
What do you recall from the presentation you heard?
I’ll wait while you think. [Cue the Jeopardy theme song, please.]
Despite not being able to hear your answers, I’m willing to wager that—if you remember anything from the last presentation—the reason you remember it is the same reason anyone remembers anything.
Read More6 public speaking lessons from “I have a dream”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was undoubtedly one of the greatest orators in history. Though his legacy is far more encompassing than his speaking proficiency (and we have yet to fully realize his dream), his ability to communicate that dream played an enormous part in the progress made toward it.
His labors were tireless. He spoke often, in one-on-one conversations, smaller groups, and to the masses. Let’s refrain from reducing his effort to merely the most famous of his speeches while also learning what we can from its message (as people) and its content and delivery (as speakers).
Read MoreHow to talk to each other at Christmas
Mary and Joseph. Joseph and Mary. We talk about them like an old married couple.
As two pivotal “characters” in the story of the Bible, we mention both when we reference either, almost as though they’re a single name or unit—which in some ways they are. But we mustn’t forget that they were two distinct and very real people. And their experiences as the humans who raised Jesus were entirely different from the start.
It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that God revealed His astonishing plan to them individually—and in ways that honored that they needed to hear it differently, too.
Read MoreWhat working with a speaker coach says about you
I was utterly surprised. So much so that I didn’t even object to what she’d just said.
I’d been coaching some speakers for an event and the coordinator said the committee planned to acknowledge me at the event but that they’d decided not to mention how I’d been involved. They didn’t want the speakers to be embarrassed that they’d had a coach.
Is working with a speaker coach embarrassing?
Read MoreWhy clarity and concision are the keys to impactful public speaking
One might say the 1864 election was determined by the ability to distill a message to its very essence.
Abraham Lincoln was part of a three-way race against George McClellan and John C. Freemont. The electoral vote would be spread across three viable contenders, making each state’s vote critical. And the then-territory of Nevada was set to vote for Lincoln… IF they could become a state in time for the election.
Nevada approved their state constitution on September 7, 1864 and (to insure at least one would be received) sent two copies to Washington, D.C.: one by boat (by way of San Francisco and Panama) and the other by stagecoach and train. The transit time would take between 20 and 25 days. Alas, word came back via telegraph on October 25th that neither missive had reached the capitol.
To be admitted to the union in time for the election—now less than two weeks away—they’d have to transmit the state constitution (175 handwritten pages!) by telegraph.
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