Posts Tagged ‘Rehearsal’
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 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.
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