Tactics and tools for when you’re new to presenting and/or don’t know where to start with your presentations
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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Intro I did an interview recently with the wonderful (and lovely) Geoff Nicholson for his podcast, talking about the new #ReluctantStoryteller project I’m working on. I’ve popped this into a quick video if you want to watch for three minutes instead of reading 🙂 It’s a the bottom of this post. Step zero This is …
There’s a lot of crap presentations training around at the moment saying “tell stories”… just “tell stores”. That’s about as much use as saying “be tall” to someone struggling because they can’t reach the top shelf. I used to have a problem with Nike’s slogan of “just do it” because I feared it encouraged people …
Read more “How to use stories in your presentations: a story matrix and using them the right way”
Presenting is like gardening. When I plant something in my veg patch there are a lot of things that determine whether it grows (or grows well). There’s the quality of the plant (my presentation preparation and content); there’s how well I actually do the planting (my presentation delivery); there’s the quality of the soil (is …
Credibility as a presenter comes from how much your audience like you (Warmth) and how much they trust you (Competence). You need both.
A long time ago I wrote about what we can learn about presenting from Maya Angelou – mainly about the need and approaches to rehearsing. It’s time I updated to that. In particular I want to move on from that (fantastic) quote a little. In the more hardcore world of today your audience needs a …
How your room is set up makes a huge difference to how well your presentation is likely to go. Lots of it is obvious but some not…
So you’ve heard of “death by powerpoint” and you’ve all be shot at by the screen-full of bullet points on a slide. And you promised not to do it to your audiences – but you did. Why? Because knowing how to replace bullet points just doesn’t seem ‘do-able’. If the presentations you sit through are …
Read more “how do I replace bullet points in my presentation?”
I’ve talked before about one of the best ways to start your presentation, so here’s the other bookend – the close of a presentation. Let’s talk about questions and let’s talk about applause. Your audience expects one of these at the end of your presentation and you might hope for the other. So I’m going …
Great delivery can’t save rubbish content. We often forget that there are three key parts to an outstanding presentation… it’s not just (or even mainly) about how well you present in the room
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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