tellingpeople

I wrote some advice on a public speaking forum recently in support of another poster who’d suggested not fighting a problem. The original poster had asked for the usual magic bullet about how to make their speicifc problems relating to presenting “go away” and someone called Cutecut suggested that they just ‘let it be’…

All to often people seem to think that presentations are ’supposed’ to be easy and that they’re ‘unusual’ or something because they find them difficult.

The truth is, they [b]are[/b] difficult and it’s [b]normal[/b] to have problems with them. Very often the solution to a specific problem is just to let it be – sometimes that makes it go away of it’s own volition – and accept the fact that presentations aren’t ever perfect. No one does perfect presentations: no one at all.

Accepting that your audience are going to forgive you the odd imperfection is a great way of making your presentations better and enjoying your public speaking more, obviously; but remember that – at least until your an expert – it’s always going to be nerve-inducing and difficult. It’s supposed to be: if it isn’t, you’ll be rubbish – because nerves are good.

Actually, that’s not 100% true – there is a class of people who can be less than expert and still not be nervous or find it difficult. You’ll spot them for yourselves though: they’ll be the really, really bad speakers!

I had the chance, a couple of days ago, to hear Colin Kendal give a brief presentations (at quite a pace!) to my local Federation of Small Businesses branch. It was a shame there were so few people in the room because Colin really did give a bit of a tour-de-force of PowerPoint.

If you want to get yourself a zapped up and well though PowerPoint deck, you could do a lot, lot worse than talk to Colin at 7 presentations. There’s a neat idea on the site if you’re anxious about knowing what you’re letting yourself in for: the “7 day challenge” stuff, where Colin will tell you what’s what with your PowerPoint inside a week.

Such a neat idea I’m going to nick it!

I got some spam recently asking if I wanted to join (yet another!) networking site. I’m a cynic about these things but I thought I’d poke around anyway. The jury’s out but that’s not what caught my eye. In a blog entry here there’s a great phrase which caught my imagination for networking and presenting.

It’s a simple idia – painfully simple. Your presentation should xplain things as though you were explaining them to my mum. If you can’t do that you’re not in the ballpark. Either your trying to do far, far too much in a presentation or you don’t really understand what you’ve got to say.

Perhaps a bit harsh, but you know what I mean…

….. and nor do you know my mother!

After lots of reflective posts recently, here’s a simple article on making presentations yourself…..

Shoes, like bras, are often bought for the wrong reasons! Often they’re bought knowing that they don’t fit quite right… or at least not knowing that they fit perfectly. That’s a shame, because both can have quite a significant impact on your presentations and how you appear to other people generally. (I’m going to discreetly stop talking about bras here and concentrate on shoes but the same principles apply!)

You can’t make an outstanding presentation if you’re not standing right. Posture is critical. With a poor posture you’ll not only not look as good as you should/could do but your voice will sound strained and thinner – which means you’ll not sound as credible and confident. That could make all the difference to the sale, or whatever you’re trying to achieve!

We often do our basic exercises barefoot on our training courses, to get a stronger sense of our balance and how we’re standing. That’s great for courses of course, where everyone is there to work and is enjoying themselves, but you can’t give business presentations barefoot (well, not easily). So please, the next time you buy yourself a pair of shoes that you’re going to where for work (or anywhere else you make presentations), think about it for a moment; it might look good but does it affect your balance?

Really?

Are you sure?

There’s a difference between not affecting you and affecting you in the way you’re used to (so you don’t notice it). Take another look. Go for a walk. Run a little. Bounce up and down. If your shoes get in the way of you doing any of those things they’re not right and you need to think hard about whether to wear something different.

There’s a trade-off, of course, between feeling good and looking good. If you feel confident in one particular pair of shoes you might consider wearing them even though they don’t feel right: of course in the long term you should also consider whether you should be getting your confidence from a pair of shoes! In an idea world, you’d wear shoes which looked great and which didn’t inhibit you in any way.

Shoe makers take note – is that so much to ask?!?

I seem to be spending a lot of time working in academic institutions at the moment (see here, for example). Recently I did two half-day sessions at an FE college in my home region. Many of the staff were complaining of problems with their voices; while chatting to another facilitator/trainer over lunch we compared notes. He was working on staff stress levels and it quickly became apparent that the two problems were very strongly related.

Stress does horrible things to your voice.

Having seen the terrible things that Stress can do to its sufferers I’m not for one minute suggesting that these tips are a substitute for a good Stress Management course or good Stress Management techniques but they will help. It’s particularly appropriate to get working on your voice when you’re stressed because the breathing exercises involved in good voice control are great stress relievers – and because the quality of your voice is a good barometer of how stressed you are. Check how your voice is working and you’ll get a good indicator of your stress level even if you’re not consciously aware of being stressed.

Okay – the tips…

Breath slow and low. Make sure you’re breathing in your belly with your diaphragm. You’ll often be told to take “big breaths” to control your anxiety or stress – or perhaps “deep breaths” but if these are at the top of your chest they’ll just make the situation worse, not better. This is because the hormones released by breathing at the top of your chest tend to be things like Adrenaline – which is a pretty good hormone in the right place but can cause stress when it’s present inappropriately.

Drop your shoulders. You’ll be amazed at how often you walk around with your shoulders “hunched” without realising it, almost as if you’re braced for a car crash or something. Not only is that a stress-inducer but it also tightens the muscles in and around your throat. You’ll find that if you try to make a presentation like that you’ll sound nervous, anxious and insincere. Obviously that’s bad, so to avoid it, just make a point of dropping your shoulders – not just when you’re aware that you’re anxious but all the time. I even know someone who’s gone so far as to set a count-down bleeper on his watch so that every 10 minutes he was reminded to drop his shoulders. Okay, that might annoy everyone around you but my friend pretty soon got the habit right and didn’t need to have the reminder any longer! Probably just as well, given how stressed out the bleep would have made all the people he shared an office with!

Ungrit your jaw. Just as stressed people tend to “brace themselves” by hunching their shoulders they also tend to clamp their jaws. Locking your jaw locks the stress in. (Quite apart from that, it’s bad for your teeth!) Before you present, waggle your jaw a few times and do a couple of “big yawns” to stretch yourself out a little. In fact it’s probably a good idea to do that whenever you remember to drop your shoulders – so that a relaxed jaw becomes a habit too.

There are plenty of sites online which give you a wealth of good stress-relieving advice (and some which give you some bad advice too!) so I’m not going to spend more time on things – these are the three hugely effective tools based upon your voice as a presenter.

Well, there’s been quite a bit of fuss over the choice of VP for the Republicans, even over here in the UK. I’m watching a recording of her speech now. Unlike other speeches I’ve watched recently, I won’t be watching it all the way through, second by second.

Why not? Well, not because I’m not interested in the issues – because I am. And not because I’m anti-Republican – because I’m not. (I’m not pro- either, I’m British! )

I won’t watch it all the way through because it’s boring.

Sarah Palin can read an autocue perfectly well: she can deliver clearly and I can understand every word she says. All good stuff – after all, if you don’t get the basics right, it doesn’t matter how good your content is… because no one will be listening. Her problem (well, the one I’m talking about! ) is that she is obviously reading it. It’s clearly a speech written paragraph by paragraph and each and every one of them is obviously honed nicely.

But it’s not setting me on fire – and it’s not setting me on fire because it doesn’t flow. It’s a set of single paragraphs… not one speech but a set of 20 second mini-speeches.

Perhaps Palin wasn’t helped by the way the audience was so desperate to like her that her every word is greated with cheers, so she can’t get any momentum going – but a really good public speaker will create their own momentum, will drive and own the audience: not be driven by them. The pace of her presentation is being dictated by the people listening… not the person delivering!

I hope she has more gravitas, more of her own momentum, when-and-if she gets elected. Otherwise, well, who knows!

I’m obviously not the only person to be interested in the American Presidential battle – all you have to do is use Google (or whatever) and websites fly out and hit you! – but I thought it might be interesting to bring something to you that you might otherwise have missed… I’m assuming here that most of you, good reader, are from the UK so you might not otherwise pay attention to ABC.

There’s an interesting point on the second page of the article, suggesting that Obama is perceived as less trustworthy sometimes because he looks off to the side when he speaks. There! That’ll teach him to use an autocue!

That said, there are a couple of useful little tips in there too – such as remembering to drop your voice to make a key point when you need to be trusted. After all, confidences and promises are whispered in your ear – so quiet voices are more intimate. That’s why, of course, a good vocal technique is important because it allows you to be quiet and yet also be heard all the way to the back…

PS: There’s an Irish take on things in the Irish Times, too…