Public speaking
How to dress for public speaking success
Whether they’re delivering a TEDx talk, speaking at a conference, or presenting to colleagues, many of my clients want to know how to dress for their big presentations. That’s a reasonable question. But today’s audiences rightly value authenticity over appearance, which begs a different question: does what we wear when presenting even matter?
My answer?
No.
Maybe.
And yes. (But not for the reason you’d think.)
The No: Why your attire doesn’t matter
Read MoreHow (not) to end your presentation
Great stories deserve great endings.
We demand great endings from movies. We criticize them to no end when they don’t leave us with a sense of closure. Granted, some screenwriters strive to agitate their audiences with some form of an unforgettable cliffhanger (looking at you, Inception). But for the most part, the stories we love typically end with resolution that leaves us feeling satisfied. Even Sixth Sense, with its mind-bending conclusion, affords watchers some sense of restored world order.
Audiences need that same sense of resolution from our presentations. Yet too many speakers (founders, especially) abruptly arrive at their last slide and say “yeah, uh, I guess that’s it” or “any questions?”.
If Gone with the Wind or Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark had left off the way most presentations end, we wouldn’t still be talking about them decades after their release (at least not positively, anyway!).
While we’re not trying to win an Academy Award with our presentations, we do want them to be memorable. And that means adhering to a storytelling structure that includes an effective ending.
The psychological principle of recency underscores why this is so important: we remember best what we heard last. If the last thing your audience hears is an ambiguous, lackluster version of “the end” (which sounds a lot like “I’m out of slides”) then that’s what they’re going to remember. And that, my friends, is not the way to persuade or inspire anyone to do anything.
The saddest part is how easily this can be corrected.
Read MoreHow to sound more confident when speaking and presenting
If giving a presentation or speech makes your knees knock and your stomach flip, you’re in good company. Feeling nervous when speaking in public is an extremely common challenge. Yet we don’t want our nerves to impede our ability to communicate… we want it to be easy for our audience to understand and act on our message. Even those who do feel comfortable speaking and presenting might not be signaling confidence with their speaking style. Since our stakeholders weigh the merit of our ideas partly based on how credible they find us, portraying confidence is vital to the success of our message.
There are a variety of physical and audible ways to develop and portray a greater sense of confidence when presenting. This article will focus on the latter: what our audiences hear in our voices. If you’re not sure whether you’re conveying confidence with your voice (or body), ask for feedback from some trusted sources and/or watch some video footage of a recent presentation you’ve given.
Ever wondered…
…why your voice sounds so different on a recording? When we hear ourselves talk real-time, we hear the sound waves through both bone conduction and air conduction. We hear others (or recordings of ourselves) only through air conduction.
If you’d like to sound more confident than you currently do, use the following tips to bolster the quality of your audible communication. These tools will help in all communication scenarios: one-on-one conversations, roundtable meetings, and in front of larger groups, whether virtual and in-person.
Read MoreHow to know your audience (and why you should)
He just wanted to be done.
Kevin had spent weeks working on his presentation before working with me. I understood why he was anxious to wrap up the content development process and move on to crafting the deck and practicing delivering the presentation itself.
But it was imperative that we stop and think about his audience before moving forward.
Why it’s important to know and understand your audience for presentations—even ones you give often
Read MoreHow To Goldilocks Your Presentation Preparation
In recent weeks, I had two clients describe their presentation preparation process to me. Each represented one end of what we’ll call the “preparation spectrum.”
The first said, “I’m a manuscript speaker,” meaning that she writes out her message verbatim and uses that manuscript as her notes the day of the presentation (or memorizes it as written).
The other summed up his preparation saying: “I just jot a sticky note with three points and take that up with me and start talking… it’s more authentic that way.”
While there are benefits to both approaches, each carries pitfalls, too. Here’s what to know and how to find the sweet spot of preparedness that sets you up to deliver with confidence while still connecting with the audience.
Read MoreTop 3 pitch deck mistakes founders make—and how to avoid them
You have a great idea for a business venture.
The market is ripe.
You’ve sacrificed countless hours and dollars to bring it this far.
It’s time to secure funding.
And you’ve been given an opportunity to speak with would-be investors.
Would you wing it and just talk “off the cuff”?
Would you want to know if you were handicapping yourself with your deck or your presentation somehow?
Since 2018, I’ve been coaching entrepreneurs/founders through the public speaking aspect of preparing to pitch their ideas for funding. And I see the same mistakes again and again: entrepreneurs unnecessarily impeding the investors’ ability to see the merit of their idea. These are entirely preventable errors that are easily fixed, smoothing the path to successful fundraising efforts.
Read MoreThe four ingredients that make a good presentation great
Every presentation has a purpose. (Or at least it should. Ahem.) And that purpose is to move or change the audience’s way of thinking about your topic… to persuade them to approve your idea or incite action. To do that requires the presenter to have clarity about their intended message and to present their content in a structured way that makes it easy for the audience to understand.
Having a clear narrative structure is foundational to giving a good presentation.
But to give a great presentation or talk—one that’s truly engaging, effective, and memorable—requires the use of an emotional structure layered in atop that narrative structure. The emotional structure is comprised of four elements:
Read MoreThe painful (and sometimes funny) discovery of blind spots
When the irony fell on us all at the same moment, we dissolved into gales of laughter.
Fourteen of us sat around the conference room table in Chicago. It was an opportunity to gather with colleagues; most of us had never met in person.
On the first morning of our two-day confab, we encircled that table, sharing what we hoped to glean from our time together. I voiced my desire to identify blind spots in my role as a trainer and facilitator; that desire was written on the glass-covered pink wall alongside the hopes expressed by my cohort.
And then we dug into the work: learning, discussing, asking questions, practicing, and receiving feedback. It. Was. Awesome. I am a better trainer because of the insightful comments of my colleagues. Our day’s efforts were rewarded with a hearty meal and an evening outing. My night concluded in a smaller group, waxing philosophical in oversized chairs in the hotel lobby.
When I made it to my room around midnight, I fell into bed exhausted and wholly satisfied.
But sleep didn’t come quickly. My introverted nature got the better of me after a full day of activity. Like an overstimulated toddler who didn’t get to nap on time, my nervous system was in hyperdrive and I laid awake until after 3am.
Read MoreHow to share full-screen slides and use presenter view for speaker notes—from a single screen
In a recent workshop, one of my clients justified their extremely wordy slides with the fact that they don’t have a second screen to project from in order to use speaker notes in presenter view…so their slides had to be their notes. Maybe you can relate?
Maybe you’re working from home and a second screen won’t fit your workspace (or is too costly to acquire).
Maybe you’re working from somewhere else altogether and don’t port a second screen with you. (Hawaii, anyone? A girl can dream…)
Maybe you’re standing in front of a prospective client or investor in person and are connecting to their projector to present.
If you don’t have a second screen, but need to share your slides in a presentation, you likely either (1) generate a set of notes that you can view separately (printed or in another application) or (2) do as my client did: create slides that function as your notes.
While it’s the common choice, the latter is far from ideal: Your audience will disconnect from you to read your slides instead of listening. And you’ll seem slow compared to their reading speed. But that’s another post.
Creating a separate document for notes is a reasonable solution: they’re accessible during the presentation and, when printed, are easy to mark up with cues for parts you need to emphasize. But what if paper notes are inaccessible (or give an air of unpreparedness)? You’ll have to constantly switch applications between an electronic version of the notes and the slides in order to advance them.
There is a better answer.
Read MoreWhen you (really) should be on camera in virtual meetings
It was the final session of a week-long workshop. We’d crafted content. We’d prepped slides. Now we were practicing delivery. I pulsed the group: “What’s your biggest challenge presenting in the virtual setting?“
His answer: Presenting to people who aren’t on camera. Because it was such a drain on his energy.
The irony: Not only was this participant not on camera when he said it, he hadn’t been on camera all week. Not once.
Thankfully, I didn’t even have to point out the incongruity of his words with his actions. He owned it in his next sentence, saying he knew he needed to do better—for the sake of others—and flipped on his video.
We’ve all been on both sides of this equation:
- Utterly depleted from being on camera for so many meetings, day in and day out.
- Feeling challenged—maybe even frustrated—when we can’t see our colleagues during our presentation. (Have they left the building and are gallivanting around downtown Chicago? Bueller? Bueller?)
The impact of what’s becoming known as “self-presentation” is being documented with increasing regularity. It affects women and new hires disproportionately; we need to honor the need to be off camera for the sake of everyone’s mental health.
So what’s the answer for the presenter who doesn’t just appreciate a friendly face, but actually relies on the non-verbal communication of seeing their colleagues to know whether their message is being understood?
Here are my guidelines for being on (and off) camera for presenters and audiences, alike:
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