I do my best to make this blog a resource for presenters - not pro-speakers, but real people who need to make presentations as part of their 'day job'. If there's something you really want to know about, just email me and I'll see what I can do (no promises except that I'll read your email - use simon@ and you can guess the rest of my address. :) )
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Here’s a confession! This is pretty much a totally naff blog post 🙂 What I mean by that is that normally I try to give some tools for making better presentations but in this post (or posts, it might take too long!) I want to explore with you, gentle reader, how and why I created …
Well, while I finally get my act together about to relaunch the (upcoming) “HaveMoreImpact” podcast, I’ve been busy on other people’s 🙂 By co-incidence both came out in the same week. First up is Paul Lancaster’s one-hour long (!) interview for his SuperConnector podcast. We cover presentations of course, but also Batman and the Benny …
It’s not just presenters who feel the pinch of nerves! Chatting about the Commonwealth Games a while ago, my friend Alan Stevens posted on the Professional Speaking Association’s Facebook group a comment from one of the shooters, saying that they didn’t feel under pressure from the other competitors – they had to do what they had to …
How to sound interesting in presentations is one of the most common questions I get about training. Here’s possibly the most simple of all the tips for being more interesting
I recently closed Andrew & Pete‘s first Atomic-X conference – it’s a mini-conference leading into a Christmas party. Any why the hell not, eh? Before I go into detail of how I did it and how the presentation went, you need to know the stakes. Andrew & Pete run Atomic, a marketing-and-business-development community that I’m …
“Starting my presentation” is a very common answer to my question “What bugs you most about presenting?”. I mentioned recently that I starting a presentation with ‘a little about me’ is a mistake because it wastes the audience’s attention. I gave a few ideas of what to do instead. It’s probably a good idea to …
Presentations that share the presenter’s story are both common and usually pointless. Here’s why and what you to do instead.
Appearances in presentations matter because of the Oppenheimer Effect. I’ve known of the Oppenheimer Effect for years – partially as a social phenomenon and partially from personal experience. When I was a researcher I was the best there was at what I did. (Don’t get too excited about that: after over two decades as a …
I’m a bit of a fan of the podcast You Are Not So Smart. It’s a classily understated podcast based on interviews and grown up conversations with experts. (Lots of people say they are experts, David McRaney talks to the best, trust me!) One recent episode, on something called “Pluralistic ignorance” really struck home for …
Leading a team or doing your own marketing? Awesome! But not having the impact on the world you think you should? Less Awesome.
StoryMaking is my new book that looks at how to tactically use stories in your presentations, your marketing and your sales. It's my usual light-weight style over heavy-weight research!
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The StoryMaking System is the result of reading (in mind-numbing detail) over 400 peer-reviewed research papers, dozens of books, thousands of ours of observational research and blood sweat and tears!
It's the framework for designing a presentation which gives you the fastest way to getting something is (almost) guaranteed to work. It gives your audience what they need - and only what they need - to be impacted.
The key elements are:
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