Fail to prepare for presentation costs

 

A staggering 78% of CEOs from Standard & Poor’s 500 companies recently surveyed ranked excellent communication as the single most important facet for their Managers to possess.  Hence, when you know you have a presentation to give, no matter how far in the future it might loom, there are many factors that you need to start thinking about.  None is to be kept further at the forefront of your mind than your absolute golden rule – prepare, prepare and prepare even more! 

Some of the most competent presenters learnt this lesson through bitter experience and turned their initial mortification to its best advantage.  If you have ever been in the unenviable position of failing to adequately prepare for a presentation… well, most folks know what failing to prepare leads to.  You probably don’t need any reminding of the embarrassment you suffered as a result of blithering off the cuff.

A lack of preparation costs.  It costs you in ‘face’, pride in yourself and your professional credibility in the eyes of your beholders.  It also costs your audience by unnecessarily robbing them of their precious time – and probably also their wills to live as they are forced to endure your precariously rattling on.  A lose:lose situation that you can’t risk recurring, as the ability to communicate effectively is a highly coveted skill in modern working environments. 

It shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be a lost cause.  High quality presentation training and coaching provides common sense keys to unlocking not only your speaking skills, but also your preparation modus operandi.  This involves guiding you through the way your approach your brief with emotional intelligence, a clear understanding of what is required and how your presentation relates to the audience you will be speaking to.  It also forewarns and forearms you to anticipate when contentious audience feedback might arise and how to engagingly deal with it if it does.

Furthermore, presentation training and coaching assists with the all important visual aspects of your presentation.  Novices to presenting are generally tempted to cram as much text as possible on to each page of their Powerpoint presentations and simply read it all back to their audiences, occasionally adding a few asides.  It is a common mistake for beginners to make if you are nodding your head resignedly.  Yet make no bones that it is not engaging, it is rather boring.  And nothing is more demotivating for relatively inexperienced presenters than noticing their audiences doze off, doodling and switch their attentions elsewhere.

It is not just about what you say or even how convincingly you say it in today’s high tech world where everything is about instant gratification.  Great visuals are known to increase comprehension and ingestion by up to 400%.  When looking at a screen, audiences are able to process visuals 60,000 faster than they can text, regardless of whether images are hard hitting, humorous or simply create mental associations.

At Presentation Guru, our presentation training and coaching services dig deeper than the talking of a good talk, although that is undeniably part and parcel of the process.  We don’t only guide beginner to intermediate levels through presentation preparation.  We also host polishing up sessions with experienced presenters, besides the rehearsal and revision of major sales pitches and Board presentations with senior management teams. 

Notes to editors:

Presentation Guru is a company specializing in providing communication excellence to the executive workplace.
More information on company can be found on www.presentationguru.co.uk
Further enquiries to:
John Davies (Marketing) – 0845 899 1248

Stand out from the crowd with your public speaking skills

Public speaking invariably comes at or near the top of the list whenever people are asked about their greatest fears. Given that so many people are unable or unwilling to speak in public; does it really make a difference if you too are not confident about giving presentations? After all, surely if public speaking training or presentation training and coaching were so beneficial, everyone would be doing it; wouldn’t they? Sadly, this is not the case – for many people, their worries and fears outweigh the benefits that an ability to speak in public can bring.

So, what are these benefits?
When you are nervous about speaking in public or unsure of your presentation skills, you will be in a constant state of anxiety in any situation where you may be called upon to speak. Toasts at weddings, an invitation to present at a conference, a meeting with a valued client or supplier – the prospect of these scenarios will make you shudder. If you can rely on your presentation training and coaching and know that you will make an effective speech, you can embrace these opportunities.
It’s the very fact that the majority of people are not accomplished public speakers that makes you stand out if you are able to do so. By volunteering to take on the dreaded and challenging job of speaking to a crowd, your superiors will be impressed and your co-workers will be beyond grateful that they will not have to do so. You immediately stand out from the crowd as a confident, assertive and team-oriented individual.

Even those who hate giving presentations and speaking in public will probably have to do so at some point. If you have prepared for this possibility by undergoing presentation training and coaching you will be able to do more than simply stammer through your notes. You will be able to concentrate on the meaning of what you are saying, focus on your audience and respond to their body language and questions. By being confident in your verbal communication you are free to concentrate on the non-verbal communication that is key to making a good impression.

The ability to make presentations and speak in public opens up a wealth of different career paths. Sales, marketing, management and more are all career directions which are much more easily accessed when you have confidence in your public speaking skills and are able to give clear, effective presentations. Your co-workers and subordinates are better able to understand and follow your plans and visions, while your clients and suppliers can follow your line of reasoning and know exactly what you are trying to communicate to them.
Public speaking skills, enhanced by presentation training and coaching, bring so many benefits that you will find it hard to understand why it took you so long to take the steps you need to stand out from the crowd.
Editor notes

Presentation Guru is a specialist presentation training and coaching company aimed at senior managers. Further information can be found at www.presentationguru.co.uk or email john@presentationguru.co.uk, telephone 0845 899 1248.

Busting the biggest myth about presentations and public speaking

If you were planning on running a marathon, you wouldn’t think that the fact that you have been walking since you were a toddler meant that you had all the experience and training that you needed. Should one of your friends have that attitude, they would quite obviously be gasping for air and suffering from muscle cramps after only a short distance but you certainly wouldn’t consider them to simply be “naturally “ bad at running. Instead you would advise them that long distance running is a skill that requires training and practice if you are to be successful.

And yet, many people hold exactly this attitude about public speaking and presentation skills. They do not see the point in seeking public speaking training or presentation training and coaching, because they do not see how it could do any good. They believe that talking is the same as speaking in public, and that one poor showing means that they simply do not have the talent. This is as ridiculous as the analogy above. There are of course some people who have a particular innate talent for public speaking in the same way that some people are naturally athletic, but all successful public speakers and presenters have had hours of presentation training and coaching in order to become as accomplished as they are.

Any fears that you might have about speaking in public or giving presentations are perfectly natural – it is unlikely that you have had the levels of presentation training and coaching that the professionals have had, so of course it seems absurd to you that you could ever perform at that level. However, this barrier is one that can easily be overcome once you realise that speaking in public is a skill like any other, and like other skills you will need to practice and train if you are to reach your potential. This knowledge allows you to understand your current level of ability as not a “natural” incapability or innate lack of talent. Instead, you are simply untrained.

With proper presentation training and coaching, you can easily become an accomplished presenter or public speaker. Successful public speakers make the entire process seem effortless as they deliver an entire presentation without notes and with panache and style.

However, it is this very element of public speaking that requires the most amount of effort. These speakers will have spent serious amounts of time preparing their presentation, training and coaching themselves not to forget any of their planned turns of phrase or body language.
The next time you begin to worry about speaking in public or making presentations, take a step back and consider how much of this worry is based on the myth that successful public speakers are simply innately talented. You will find that a little presentation training and coaching will show you just how untrue that is.

Editor notes

Presentation Guru is a specialist presentation training and coaching company aimed at senior managers. Further information can be found at www.presentationguru.co.uk or email john@presentationguru.co.uk, telephone 0845 899 1248.

Overcoming Palpitations Caused By Pending Presentations

Many charismatic and commanding professionals are reduced to quivering wrecks when having to speak publicly to small or large audiences made up of people they either know or do not know. Whatever shape or size their public platform takes, they are unable to switch their mindsets positively. Their regular daily aptitude to speak cojently and confidently evades them. They feel isolated by their fears. They battle on, hoping against hope that the day will finally dawn when they do not transform in to the human equivalents of Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse whilst presenting.

In modern working environments, you don’t have to be a Senior Manager of an organisation to be asked to give a presentation. On the contrary, it is not unusual to finding yourself being asked to present during job interviews, making it all the more imperative that you tackle the fears that you share with many people. Your employment prospects can potentially hinge on your ability to deliver an engaging presentation – or not. And if you are lucky enough to bag your dream job, chances are that that there will be much of the same to follow, both internally and externally. You will be far from out of the woods, but you are not alone!

Resultantly and very understandably, many professionals at a variety of different levels call loudly for presentation training and coaching. What the pros have leant from experience and understand intrinsically is why people like you are stricken with terror when faced with presenting. Whatever your own personal reasons might be, anyone’s and everyone’s reasons generally stem from a natural reluctance to sound silly.

This is a human universal that blights many people, whether during an informal chat with friends or in the workplace. You might be loathe to venture your ideas and opinions in case others don’t agree with you or fail to value your contributions – so you keep them to yourself. You are afraid of sounding stupid or showing yourself up as a charlatan who doesn’t know what they are talking about. Keeping it zipped is preferential.

You might admire those people who seem to ooze uber confidence and have inimitable knacks of always quipping in with dazzling one liners at just the right moments. Remember that they are often faking and quaking, too, but have conquered their inhibitions. Presentation training and coaching professionals know this and can share with you practical techniques to unlock your hidden potential, engage your audiences and move forward in all aspects of your life.

At Presentation Guru, we offer presentation training and coaching that goes far beyond the giving a humorous talk before sending you on your way. Our twenty years of experience in the art of presentations has not only benefited FTSE 100 companies; our deep insight has challenged and influenced the training of trainers. We do not claim to be the cheapest, yet we do pride ourselves in being market leaders. Our time served methods and techniques constitute your very own box of tricks to banish your presentation butterflies and jettison your jitters.

Editor notes

Presentation Guru is a specialist presentation training and coaching company aimed at senior managers. Further information can be found at http://www.presentationguru.co.uk or email john@presentationguru.co.uk, telephone 0845 899 1248.