How to Speak to Senior Leaders
When You Are NOT Known to the Audience
🟢 Establish Credibility Quickly
Briefly introduce yourself with relevant expertise.
Example: “I’m [Your Name], leading [Project/Initiative]. I’ve analyzed [Key Issue] and have a recommendation for you.”
If someone is sponsoring your presentation, mention their support.
What’s the difference between Live, Virtual and Hybrid Presentations
What’s the difference between Live, Virtual and Hybrid Presentations How might you adapt your delivery to the format of the presentation? Let’s consider three presentation formats – in the room, virtual and hybrid. IN THE ROOM (LIVE) This is the traditional way that we are most familiar with, everyone in the same room. The size of the room and nature of the audience makes a difference. Lets examine three scenarios for in-the-room. Small Room When speaking in a small room of 5 to a dozen people, you can speak in a moderate voice and make direct eye contact with each person throughout the presentation. You will get immediate feedback from their body language to gauge the direction of your presentation. This can be conversational. Medium Size Room When you have more than 50 people, you will need a microphone. Don’t yell. Use the mic. Practice with the mic before the presentation and get comfortable with it. You need to put more energy into the presentation and make eye contact around the room. You can use bigger gestures when you speak. Big Stage When you speak to an audience of a few hundred or 1,000’s you are on a big stage. You must get comfortable with the stage before you speak. Get on the stage before anyone is in the room so you become comfortable with the stage. Make friends with the AV people before you start because they can help you, especially when things go wrong. You must use your big voice and big gestures just to be noticed. Use the full stage as you speak. That means moving purposefully about the stage to emphasize key points. Don’t pace nervously. No need to be a rock star, simply be bigger in everything you do in front of the audience. Your pauses can be more dramatic. You need to wait longer for the laugh because it takes time for the humor to traverse the room. Your image will likely be projected onto large screens so the audience can see you. That means they will be watching you on the screen not you on the stage. That means that you need to play to the camera and not the people in their seats. VIRTUAL Presentation The surprise might be how much energy a virtual presentation can suck from you. As the speaker you might feel isolated while you speak to the cold camera because you’re not receiving energy back from the audience. Your audiences need to believe that you are talking to them and making eye contact with them. That means that you can’t look at their images on the screen. You must look at the eye of the camera. Read that again. Eye contact is a perception. When you look at the camera, they believe you are making eye contact with them. And you feel distant. The second energy suck is on the audience side. The camera sucks your energy and magnifies your flaws. You need to put more energy into your words, voice and facial expressions. Your body language is limited to small gestures. HYBRID Presentation Welcome to this strange new world. Hybrid meetings and presentations open new opportunities and present tough challenges. The benefit is that people who would not attend because of distance, timing or personal circumstances can now attend your meeting virtually. This can be a valuable way to be more inclusive with your events. The challenge is that people who attend virtually can feel like second class attendees. With a small group of 10 to 30 it’s easy to make everyone feel included – both live and virtual. With large groups, you must decide which is the primary audience. That might be determined by the ratio of live to virtual. The bigger group is likely your key audience. If your live audience is your primary audience, speak to them while the virtual audience lurks. You can occasionally talk to the camera to include them. If your primary audience is virtual, talk to the camera most of the time. This is the model for TED talks because the vast majority of virtual views surpassed the live audience. Do you need to adapt your presentation to the environment? Yes. You must adapt to audience size and presentation format – In-the-room, virtual or hybrid. Discover The Podcast Questions? Call George Today!
Death by PowerPoint: the Pain, the Monsters and the Horror
PowerPoint Monsters and Disasters You Can Avoid …if you Want
You know that a PowerPoint presentation can be a painful experience for the presenter and especially the audience. Let’s have some fun and throw some humor into the mix to laugh at the terrible PowerPoint presentations and then we can fix it. Let’s become aware of the problem and then work to use slide more effectively.
How to Build Your Self-Confidence
Self-confidence is the currency of success. It can be a elusive coin. Yet it is critical to life and success.
It can determine the difference between success and failure, happiness and misery, and even life and death. It’s not something that comes naturally, yet it’s a skill that can be learned and improved upon with practice. In this article, we will discuss some practical tips and techniques that can help you build self-confidence.
How to Own the Room when You Present
Do you want to own the room? What might that mean? How can you own the room? Owning the room is a feeling of comfort and confidence.
A successful presentation starts with the presenter owning the room. When you know and own the room, you will feel more powerful and confident. That enables more effective and successful presentations for you.
How to open your presentation
Your first words are important because your audience is judging you. They are scrolling through questions in their mind:
Should I listen? How long will this take? Do I trust the person? How painful will this be? When will we get to the relevant part? What does this mean to me?
The purpose of your opening is to grab their attention, establish rapport and set the direction.
Most importantly – grab attention. How might you do that?
Pause… because…
Pause right before an important point to create suspense and heighten the value of the important point because they need to catch their breath and wait a few seconds for the message.
Close your presentation with pride
The close to your presentation is important to the success of your message. Your close is the last impression. You can make it the lasting impression that resonates within their mind even after they leave the room.
Grab Attention when You Open Your Presentation
How to open your presentation
Your first words are important because your audience is judging you. They are scrolling through questions in their mind:
Should I listen? How long will this take? Do I trust the person? How painful will this be? When will we get to the relevant part? What does this mean to me?
The purpose of your opening is to grab their attention, establish rapport and set the direction.
Most importantly – grab attention. How might you do that?
Worst Presentation Ever: Silly Phrases pt 3
What can you learn from the worst presentation? There is no Perfect Presentation. The goal is to deliver an effective presentation. An effective presentation is one that informs and moves the audience. As a presenter you can learn from the techniques of effective presenters. What did they do that worked well and you might be able to use in your presentations?