When you can make presentations without your audience die-ing of boredom but you want to make better presentations to be different from the rest and to have more impact.
Slightly trickier tools that assume you’re okay with the basics like facing the audience and not reading your slides! ;)
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 … Continue readingpresentation delivery vs content vs structure
We’re all told to tell stories when we present – but that’s lazy advice. Presentations aren’t about the stories… it’s how you USE the stories that takes a presentation into the ‘wowzone’ … Continue readingtell stories in your presentations (nope!)
Confession time: I’m an introvert. You’d not know it if you saw me on stage, of course, and I’ve recently been described as “a very social chatterbox, like me” but that misses the point of the real me… the me … Continue readingfive tactics for introvert presenters
“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 … Continue readinghow do i start my presentation
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 … Continue readingwhy appearances matter in presentations
Tips for better presentations are everywhere. What we need is a way to use those tips to make better presentations – a framework for presentations. … Continue readingMAT model
Let’s face it, we’ve all been there – we want to make a good impression when we present. Maybe the boss is there, or maybe it’s our first presentation in a new job… perhaps it’s just that you want to … Continue readingHow to sound smart in presentations
Jargon has a bad press – and in very many ways thats for good reason. We’re constantly told not to use jargon in our presentations but that’s simplistic advice from trainers trying to sound good with cool-sounding-tips. BadVice alert! Let’s … Continue readingWhen to use jargon in your presentations
Let’s talk about your presentation’s impact. (Oh, and if you’d rather watch video than read, skip to the bottom of this blog – I’ve recorded to very short ones for you.) I wanna differentiate between first, second and third-order impacts … Continue readingYour presentation’s three levels of impact
Let’s be clear, there’s no silver bullet. If fantastic presentations were as easy as we hope, I’d be out of a job… but while the how you do things is more complicated, the what you should should do to get … Continue readingBetter presentations – the simple three part model to make them
There’s something about being perfect that set’s people’s teeth on edge. Perhaps it’s the idea that if something is perfect it must be artificial – not authentic. It’s true both in presentation in real life. Let me give you a … Continue readingImperfections in your presentations
I’m not a huge fan of “the X secrets to…” for anything. Inevitably the real world is more complicated than the blog post with that kind of title has suggested. Maybe it’s me, but it seems that posts like that … Continue readingThe four Ts of top presentations
Before I was a presentation skills trainer – not quite in my youth – I spent about seven years touring as the technical director of a dance company. I learned a lot from them to do with discipline and hard … Continue readingPresentations and moving
Once upon a time I was taking instruction on playing the piano with a view to becoming a professional pianist. I never got that far (I was never that good, not even close!) but it gave me an interesting perspective … Continue readingHow to present better: Presentation stage management
Your brain is a wonderful thing. Some brains are more wonderful than others, of course (such as my wife’s) And people have been researching how they work for a long time. Even before neuro-science became popular (or even possible!), people … Continue readingHow much can tell your audience in a presentation?