When I was in the States last year, I met up with Nancy Duarte… and she interviewed me. She’s now written up the interview on her blog. Find out more about my story and why I’m passionate about helping people be better presenters – and particularly helping people overcome the fear of public speaking. Here’s the link: Nancy Duarte interviews Olivia Mitchell.

And here’s five more links to great writing on presentation skills:

Even TED speakers get nervous
TED is an elite conference where invited speakers give 18 minute talks on the ideas they’re passionate about. In this short post on the TED blog, TED speakers talk about what  it’s like to give a TED talk. Main takeway – if you’re not nervous , you’re not pushing yourself enough – you’re playing safe.

What you can learn from Dan Pink
Another of Andrew Dlugan’s signature speech critiques (scour his blog for many others). This one features a 2009 TED talk by Dan Pink which is worth listening to in it’s own right. Andrew has a wonderful talent for deconstructing a talk and showing us why they work (and occasionally why they don’t).

An elegant way of addressing the elephant in the room
Diane DiResta was about to teach a class of young girls when she was told that their school principal had died unexpectedly the day before. How did she handle it?

Jon Thomas’s best 20 posts on PowerPoint presentation design
Jon’s blog is a fantastic treasure trove of slide design advice and now he’s collated a list of his best posts that will help you create visually engaging and effective PowerPoint presentations.

Speaking Perfection is a Myth
This is a recurring rant of mine – and it’s well-articulated in this post by Rich Hopkins. If you fall prey to the disease of perfectionism, then you need to read this.

If you’ve recently read a great article on presentation skills, do leave a link to it in the comments.

Related posts:

1. The 5 Bad Habits of Experienced Speakers
2. The two types of presenter: which are you?
3. How to turn your story into a movie

This is a post written by Tony Burns, my partner and co-trainer.

There are two types of people in the world – those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don’t. I’m one of the former.

I find models useful – they show distinctions that can help explain and predict behaviors – and they can help us see other opportunities and ways we can grow.

One distinction that, as a presenter and presentation trainer, I’ve found useful, is to look at whether a person is “careful” or “carefree” when it comes to creating and delivering presentations.

It’s a question you might like to ask yourself. As a presenter, are you predominantly careful, or carefree?

What does a careful presenter look like?

Preparing the presentation

They plan their presentation. They think about their audience and their needs. They work out what their key message will be and create a structure for their talk that will take their audience on a logical journey. They think about stories and statistics – what evidence will support their message and they design effective PowerPoint slides or other visual aids that will help the audience to understand the points that are being made. They not only think through what they’re going to say, they also create notes or a script. And they rehearse their presentation – maybe many times in order to ensure that there is no hesitancy and no mistakes.

Delivering the presentation

When the careful presenter delivers their presentation, they are thinking about “getting it right.” They refer to their notes a lot – sometimes, even when they don’t really need to. As a result, they don’t look at their audience as much as they could. And they appear as if the presentation is a trial – something painful, rather than an opportunity to connect with people.

They tend to say only what is written in their notes – there’s no spontaneity or variety. In fact, the presentation seems mechanistic – there’s no sense of real connection with the audience.

The audience usually gets value from the presentation but would have liked to enjoyed the experience more.

What does a carefree presenter look like?

Preparing the presentation

The carefree presenter knows “in their head “ what they’re going to say. They may jot down a few thoughts but they don’t create a structure – they’d rather let the presentation flow freely on the day and see where things lead. They might think of a few funny stories to tell but they don’t research – and they don’t rehearse. They tend to use a whiteboard or flipchart rather than PowerPoint – that will give them greater flexibility on the day.

Delivering the presentation

When they deliver their presentation they’re really engaging. They connect with their audience resulting in smiles and nods. They have lots of energy and enthusiasm – they move around, gesture a lot and speak with passion.

But they’re hard to follow. It’s difficult to know what their point is. The audience are enjoying the presentation but they don’t really know what they’re meant to do as a result of attending.

In fact some sections of the talk are quite confusing as the presenter goes back over material that they’ve already covered because they’ve thought of something else to add. And then they remember something they forgot to say earlier which is critical in order to understand what they’re saying now.

But then they crack a joke and everyone laughs.

It’s all about timing

OK – I’ve painted two extremes, but you get the point.

I believe it’s useful to be both careful and carefree when you are a presenter – but it’s all about timing.

Before the presentation – be in careful mode. Think, plan, design. Rehearse and get feedback. Create a presentation journey that is easy for you to present and for your audience to follow. This will make your delivery job easier.

But when you stand in front of your audience to deliver – switch to carefree mode. Don’t be overly concerned if the words don’t come out exactly as you planned – the audience won’t know.

Focus on your audience members. One by one, talk to them as if there’s just you and them in the room. The odd mistake or pause to think does not matter – in fact it makes you more real. Carefree is not the same as careless – it’s a mode in which you trust yourself to deliver with ease the material you’ve carefully crafted.

English actor Michael Cain puts it well – “Rehearsal is the work, performance is the relaxation.”

So both attributes are useful to a presenter – it’s useful to be careful before the presentation and it’s useful to be carefree, during the presentation.

If you realize that you’re strong on one attribute, recognize that strength and keep using it. But your opportunity for development will be the other attribute and by developing that side, you will add to the impact and influence you can achieve through your presentations.

Related posts:

1. How to turn your story into a movie
2. The 5 Bad Habits of Experienced Speakers

I’ve been through a long journey (25 years) of developing as a speaker. I started off shy, nervous and tentative. Now I’m a high energy, animated speaker and I love connecting, laughing, riffing with an audience. But along the way I’ve picked up some bad habits. Attending Doug Stevenson’s Story Theater Retreat helped me identify some of these habits. So I’m starting off this list with my bad habits and then I’ll go onto list habits I’ve observed amongst other experienced speakers.

1. The Plastered-On Smile

At the Story Theater retreat, I discovered that I smile most of the time when I’m speaking. Start talking – smile, that was my pattern. This was a cringe-making discovery. I’ve observed other speakers with this habit and internally mocked them – without realising that I too, suffered from this problem.

For me the habit probably started from wanting to portray myself as warm and friendly to my audiences, but it had become so ubiquitous that I was smiling even when I was describing unpleasant events. I broke the habit by identifying the segments of my presentation when I shouldn’t smile, and then rehearsing those segments consciously keeping my face relaxed. Just before starting my presentation, I would remind myself again of the segments when I didn’t want to smile. Now that I’ve broken the habit, I just remind myself to ‘live my content’, to be in touch with the feelings behind what I’m saying and live those feelings in my speaking.

Doug has written more about this here: Beware the Phony Speaker’s Smile.

2. Relying on memory

As a beginner speaker, I scripted all my presentations word for word. As I became more comfortable and more experienced, I let go of the need for a script and trusted myself to say what needed to be said. I took on the concept that I was communicating ideas, not sentences. And that’s what I teach to most of my clients who are beginner and intermediate speakers.

Doug Stevenson advocates scripting your stories. Having eschewed a script for so long this took me a while to grasp. But here’s the paradox. At some point in your speaking career, you will reach a point where you can’t improve without going back to scripting again. That’s because you should be fine-tuning and replicating your best lines. You can’t do that consistently unless you write those lines down.

I’m lucky in that I work most of my time with my partner Tony and we listen to each other speaking and write down the great lines. They then go into our notes so that we can use them again. If you don’t have a partner to do this for you, record your speeches (it doesn’t have to be a camera, it could just be a sound recording) and then listen back noting your best lines. Now you can consistently replicate them.

3. Hamming it up

As you get more experienced and start to get in the swing of telling stories and acting them out, it gets tempting to ham it up. For example, in one of my presentations I act out the drama I have in my head about people being able to see that I’m nervous as I’m giving a presentation. The more I ham it up, the more people laugh. But there are other situations where hamming it up has no effect at all on the audience. The distinction between these two situations had eluded me. Doug Stevenson had the answer:

Humor is big, drama is small

When you want people to laugh exaggerate. But when you want to portray emotion, think Colin Firth – be subtle.

For more on Doug’s take on humor see: How to be Funnier.

4. Power corrupts

Speaking can be like a drug. Being at one with the audience, riding a wave of interaction and laughter, is a great feeling. You feel on top of the world, with this audience in the palm of your hand. You are all-powerful… and yes, power corrupts!

You start improvising, riffing, you get hyper! Most people in the audience appear to be having a great time. Problem is these manic offshoots don’t take the presentation anywhere.

Sure, play with your audience – but don’t forget the point of your presentation.

5. Throwing out random questions

And then there’s the opposite situation where you just can’t seem to make it with a particular audience. Your best lines are falling flat, you’re facing a sea of unresponsive faces.

Some speakers in this situation get desperate. They depart from their plan and start throwing out random, clichéd questions hoping for just a breadcrumb of interaction from someone… anyone in the audience.

Don’t let it happen to you. Audiences are different. Some will show their delight in the ride overtly. Others may be quieter in their appreciation.

Asking questions of the audience can  be an excellent interactive technique. But your questions should be carefully planned – in their placement, wording and implementation. For more on asking questions check out this post: The 10 steps to asking questions so you get an answer every time.

This is the second of my posts on what I learned from Doug Stevenson’s Story Theater Retreat. Check out the first post: How to Turn your Story into a Movie.

To dig deeper into Doug Stevenson’s insights into advanced speaking buy his book Story Theater Method, and the audio version – which you can get as CDs or downloadable MP3s (disclosure: these are affiliate links which means that I earn a 15% commission if you buy one of Doug’s books or other products). And to go deeper still attend one of his Story Theater Retreats.

Related posts:

1. How to turn your story into a movie

When Tony and I were in America we attended a Story Theater Retreat with professional speaker Doug Stevenson. This is a two-and-a-half-day workshop focusing on crafting and refining just one story, but at the same time teaching you a process that you can apply to all of your stories. Each retreat has just four participants so it’s an intensely individualized experience.

Doug has developed the Nine Steps of Story Structure. It’s classic storytelling technique with a protagonist, an obstacle to be overcome, and a resolution at its core. However, Doug adds 3 significant steps to classic story structure so as to brand the learning point of the story. Doug has laid it out in a step-by-step way so that you can take any event in your life and craft it into a valuable story for your audience.

Using Doug’s Nine Steps to structure your story coupled with the acting techniques that he teaches turns your story into a movie.

I chose to work on the story that I tell at the beginning of our courses. It describes my first attempt at the Toastmasters public speaking competition 20 years ago. The Retreat was transformational for me – and my story. I’ve described below some of the elements of my story makeover. I’ve added video clips from my coaching session during the Retreat so that you can see what I was trying to do. The quality’s not great but I still think it’s helpful to see as well as to read!

1. Adding a character

I had many of the elements of Doug’s Story Structure. But I was missing one element. There were no other characters in the story. I was the only character – the story had me battling alone through three levels of Toastmaster competition. That made the story rather one-dimensional. Imagine a movie or a play with only one character!

So Doug suggested that I add another character. It was easy to think of who that should be. At Toastmasters there was a woman that I respected and admired. Her name was Margaret Nixon. Margaret was a mentor to me, giving me useful feedback and encouraging me to set new challenges for myself.

Adding Margaret to the story gave the story much more interest and depth and also allowed me to incorporate some of the acting techniques which Doug teaches.

2. Create memorable characters

So it’s not really a movie. Since the audience can’t see the other characters we have to help the audience visualize the characters by describing them. Here’s how I described Margaret:

She was a government lawyer, just like me. She was petite with blonde, curly hair. Her speeches were models of structure and clarity. But she was never intimidating because she had a warm and sparkly personality.

Later on in the story, I have a short sequence involving our dogs – so I described them too:

Tara is a golden retriever – big brown eyes, always wagging her tail at you (or at anybody). Jodie is an elegant collie (strangers call her Lassie) and somewhat more discerning.

Now I could use photos of Tara and Jodie (you can see a lovely photo of them by scrolling down my about page). But sometimes the images that the audience can conjure up on the screen of their minds is just as powerful, if not more powerful, than actual photos.

For more see: Doug’s post Storytelling in Business – Create Memorable Characters

3. IN moments and OUT moments

Turning your story into a movie means you’re not just telling a story, but showing your audience what happened. Doug was an actor for 20 years before he segued into professional speaking and he’s married his acting expertise with his speaking expertise. He’s developed the Story Theater method to show non-actors a step-by-step system to incorporate acting techniques into a story.

Doug calls showing your audience what happened an IN moment, whereas the times when you’re narrating the story are OUT moments. His guideline is that 30% of your story should be IN moments.

In my pre-makeover story here’s what I used to say:

As I walked up to the stage, my legs felt like they were noodles. I stood up on the stage and looked out and just saw a jumble of shapes and colors. My heart was pounding like it was going to explode out of my chest and I could feel sweat trickling down my sides.

In my post-makeover story all the words above have gone, I act it. Here’s a short clip from my coaching session during the Retreat as I try out acting this moment:

For more on IN moments see Doug’s article: Identify the Moments

4. Humor

Humor is something that I’ve struggled with and at times I’ve just said to myself “I’m not a funny speaker – that’s not me and so I won’t try to be funny”. As I’ve developed experience as a speaker I have realised that I can make people laugh but I still haven’t seen myself as a funny speaker. Doug believes that everyone can be funny and can develop their ability to be funny. So I decided to give humor another go. I already had a line in my story where I mentioned that I rehearsed to the dogs but with Doug’s help I developed it into a funny scene:

5. Two-character Two-step

With another character in my story, I could create some dialogue.  Doug showed me how to do the two-character two-step to act out a dialogue between two people. Here are the basic elements:

- each character stands at a slight diagonal to the audience.

- as you change character you shift to the other diagonal.

It takes some practice to get right! In the clip below I’m just getting the hang of it:

6. Inner monologue

Another acting technique that Doug teaches is the inner monologue. Instead of saying:

To my surprise I won the competition. That was great news for my self-esteem, but bad news for my future. Because it meant that I would be representing my club at the next level of competition – the Area level.

Doug had me pace up and down talking to myself. I found this quite difficult. Whenever I try to walk and talk I end up slowing down – walking fast and talking to myself was tricky! Also my instinct was to look down at the floor as I walked, but that doesn’t work for the audience. I had to look up. You can see my struggle with this technique in this extended clip which includes Doug’s coaching:

Or you can just watch my final attempt:

Using these techniques you can turn your story into a movie too.

I’ve only covered a small percentage of what I learned at Doug Stevenson’s Story Theater Retreat. I highly recommend attending a retreat if you’re committed to taking your story-telling to the next level. Doug and his wife Deborah create an incredible welcoming and supportive environment in their Peak View Studio.

If you can’t make it to a retreat buy Doug’s book Story Theater Method, and the audio version – which you can get as CDs or downloadable MP3s (disclosure: these are affiliate links which means that I earn a 15% commission if you buy one of Doug’s books or other products). I recommend getting both the book and the audio version as you’ll get all the details and  hear Doug telling and dissecting his stories. You’ll get an extra level of learning as a result.

Next week I’ll discuss my personal learnings from the Retreat.

I don’t remember where I heard this story – it might not even be true – but I love the message:

A young scientist was in charge of looking after a famous expert coming to speak at a conference. The scientist’s duties were to pick the expert up at the airport, and then introduce her at the conference. The responsibility of introducing the expert almost overwhelmed the young scientist. He sweated over writing the introduction for days and woke up at nights worrying about it.

When the scientist picked up the expert from the airport, she asked if they could stop for a quick cup of coffee. As they sat down, she casually asked the scientist to remind her of the title of her speech. Shocked he told her.  As she drank her coffee, she pulled out an envelope from her bag and scribbled a few notes. When she’d finished the young scientist took her to the venue, stumbled through his carefully scripted introduction and then watched her give a brilliant talk.

The message of this story is NOT that winging it is a winning strategy. Rather the message is that after many years of hard work and experience (Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours) you can make it look easy.

How can you get from being the young scientist to the expert? There are stages of development that most of us seem to go through. I can recognize five stages that I’ve gone through and that most of the people I coach go through. I can generally identify the stage that a speaker is at by what they’re most concerned about, so I’ve noted this as I describe each stage.

Stage 1: It’s all about the words

When I started out in Toastmasters, I wrote everything out word for word. I would go through copious revisions, generating mountains of paper as I laboriously fine-tuned what I wanted to say. In my early speeches I had a full script in front of me as I spoke. Then I tried memorizing what I wanted to say – all I achieved was transferring the script to inside my head – with the attendant risk of a total mind freeze.

At this stage of my speaking, I didn’t care about connecting with the audience. My aim was simply to get through my presentation still standing.

The people that I coach that are at this level are most concerned about remembering everything they want to say and getting it exactly right.

Stage 2: I can talk

Once I got to Stage 2, I realized there was more to speaking than just getting through a sequence of words. I started to trust myself to work from notes – rather than a complete script. I noticed that there was an audience out there – though I still didn’t know what to do about them.

People at this stage tend to be concerned about being clear and understandable, and having their presentations “flow”.

Fast-track hints to Stage 2

1. Join Toastmasters. Though it’s not perfect, Toastmasters is the organization for getting lots of hours under your belt. And for many people, more experience is what helps to develop that trust in yourself.
2. Realize that a presentation or speech is about sharing ideas, not sentences.

Resource posts:

How to get the most out of Toastmasters
There’s no such thing as the perfect presentation
How to stop waffling once and for all
Why your presentation shouldn’t flow
How to prevent and recover from mind blanks

Stage 3: Hello audience

I was getting good at the Toastmaster style of speaking – but that wasn’t helping me connect with my audience. It was a comment from my partner, Tony Burns, that helped me see the light. When I first experimented talking to people – individual people in my audience – I felt like I was giving a speech for the first time.

I made sure I knew my content well, and then my focus was on expressing those ideas and thoughts to the people in front of me.

At stage 3, the major concern of people I coach is to be interesting and engaging.

Fast-track hints to Stage 3

1. Talk outside of Toastmasters. Toastmasters can have you stuck inside a certain “Toastmaster mode” of speaking which isn’t conducive to connection with your audience.
2. Give the same presentation many times. If you’re giving a new presentation, you’re likely to be inside your own head, rather than reaching out to the audience.
3. Choose to take questions throughout your presentation rather than making people wait till the end.
4. Get a skilled coach who can point you the way towards connection.
5. Watch yourself on video.

Resource posts:

What to look for in a presentation skills trainer
8 tips for encouraging questions in your presentation
How to survive watching yourself on video
7 ways to keep audience attention during your presentation
8 states of mind that will make you a more compelling presenter

Stage 3A: Spontaneity (side-track)

OK, I didn’t go through this stage, but I’ve noticed it in other people. This is where you realize that you can talk and connect with an audience without having planned a great deal. Chris Brogan describes it like this:

I’ve worked strictly in the moment, like an improv actor or an artist or a cook. I take all the raw pieces of my conversations and work them into pieces of information on the fly and in real time.

I enjoy it. My audience doesn’t seem to like it as much. They come away appreciative of my passion but no more ready to take action.

I appreciate Chris’s honesty. It’s an ego-boost to be able to improvise in front of an audience – but it’s not an effective way to pass on your message.

How to get out of this side-track

If you feel this approach is working for you, get feedback from an unbiased professional to check you’re right.

Stage 4: It’s all about the audience

This is the stage where you realize it’s not about you, it’s about the audience. I love Nancy Duarte’s way of expressing this: “your audience is the hero”. This is the stage where I would put myself now.

The difference between stage 3 and stage 4 is this: in stage 3 you want the audience to be interested and engaged – because it makes you feel good! In Stage 4, you subsume your needs to those of the audience. You’re willing to take risks and make a fool of yourself.

Fast-track hints to Stage 4

1. Experiment with making a fool of yourself.
2. Take an improv class.
3. Ask questions of your audience and incorporate audience participation into your presentations.

Resource posts:

What makes a good public speaker
Three ideas from improv to develop your speaking
The 10 steps to asking questions so you get an answer every time
Why most attempts at audience participation fail and what to do about it
Six Secrets from a Professional Speaker on Audience Participation

Stage 5: Storytelling Mastery

This is what I’m working on now. Sure, I can tell stories and I can make people laugh, but I know that I’ve got a way to go to master this skill. In April, I’m attending Doug Stevenson’s Storytelling Retreat. For two and a half days, along with three other people, I’ll be coached intensively by Doug on on developing and delivering one story.

Stages 6,7 and 8

I’ll let you know when I get there.

I’d love you to share the stages of development you’ve gone through as a speaker, where you’re at now, and what are some of the things that have made the most difference to your development.

If you live in the States, there are some excellent live events coming this spring. There’s also an opportunity to win a free ticket, so read on:

Hook Presentation Conference

This conference has an impressive line up of keynote speakers: Gary Vaynerchuk, Scott Stratten and Michael Hyatt.

These are people who are highly successful entrepreneurs, speakers and authors. They’re not presentation trainers, coaches or authors or professional speakers (in the sense that that’s the only thing they do). But they’ll be speaking at the Hook Presentation Conference about their approach to speaking and presenting. I’m really excited to hear what they have to say. Here’s why:

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary is a wine entrepreneur. He’s a brilliant businessman but also an awesome social media communicator.

I was in the audience for Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote at SXSW last year. He blew me away. He talked for ten minutes and then started taking questions – this is in a room of several thousand people. He was straight in his answers, sometimes even blunt. But it never came across as rude or arrogant because it was clear that he was just telling us what he truly believed.  Just like everything else he does, he presents in his own inimitable way. You can check out more about my experience of Gary Vaynerchuck’s keynote. To hear him talk about his philosophy of communicating and connecting will be an invaluable experience.

Scott Stratten

I became aware of Scott Stratten through Jon Thomas’s blog. It was clear that he was not only a progressive thinking but an authentic and engaging speaker (do click to read Jon’s account of Scott’s talk). Then I saw this video of him speaking at TEDx Oakville:

Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt is CEO of Thomas Nelson publishers. He writes a personal and engaging blog which he updates five times a week. And he’s a prolific speaker – speaking at 3-4 events a month. And often he blogs about his speaking experiences in an honest and transparent way. I particularly enjoyed this post: The 10 Psychological Stages of Public Speaking.

Those are just the keynoters. Scott has assembled a range of other speakers – including me. Some of us are presentation specialists such as Travis Dahle, Jon Thomas, Michael Lowstetter, Nat Robinson, Geetesh Bajaj, and of course Scott Schwertly. The rest (CC Chapman, Dave Delaney, Garth Johnson) all seem fascinating people who’ll have great insights on presenting in the business context.

Registration for the Hook Presentation Conference is $595 but I’ve got a free ticket to give away.  To win the ticket let me know why you’d like to attend Hook in the comments or send me an email. I’ll choose the winner of the free ticket on 7th February.

Rick Altman’s One-day Workshops

Rick has been training people to produce better presentations for well over a decade and organises the Presentation Summit conference (this year September 18-21st in Austin, Texas).

This spring Rick is touring the country presenting  his one-day workshop. Check out whether he’s coming to a city near you. It will be a great opportunity to attend one of Rick’s workshop without having to travel too far.

I haven’t met Rick yet – but I attended his webinar in the Outstanding Presentations Workshop series and then skyped with him. I can guarantee that you will have good time, lots of laughs and learn heaps about presenting.

Sally Hogshead has written Fascinate – a book exploring the seven triggers that fascinate people. In this post, I explore how the triggers can be used when you’re presenting. These triggers have tremendous power and executed skilfully will compel your audience to listen to you. But execute  in a hamfisted way, and not only will your presentation fail you may also piss off your audience.

1. Lust

OK, you’re thinking sex. But lust is about more than that. It’s about titillating all the senses of your audience. People lust after great design – like iPads or Nancy Duarte’s latest book (I love the lush colour schemes and the subtle glossy paper). Use the lust trigger by creating a total sensory experience.

How to incorporate lust into your presentation:

• Create a welcoming presentation environment. Clear clutter and have tables and chairs neatly arranged.
• As people walk in, play music that will appeal to them.
• Create great-looking slides (get rid of any crap clip art). Either learn basic design principles or get a professional designer to give your slides the once-over.
• And don’t forget to apply the same design principles to your handout (toss the stapled photocopy). Create a sleek and beautiful workbook that your audience will take pleasure in leafing through.
• Wear clothes that make you feel good and look good.

Take lust too far…and your audience won’t remember your message, only your slides or how you looked.

2. Mystique

Mystique is alluring. Mystique compels people to want to find out more.

How to use mystique in your presentation:

• use a presentation title that creates curiosity
• learn how to tell a story like Malcolm Gladwell to keep your audience on the hook. He’s a master at creating mystique.

Take mystique too far…and people will leave your presentations confused and frustrated.

3. Alarm

Alarm speaks to our survival mechanisms. Build alarm and people will take action. Here’s how to use it in your presentation:

• Spell out what’s at stake
• Dwell on the consequences if people don’t take action.

Environmentalists can have a hard time building alarm – for many people the planet seems to be doing fine. Last week I went to a lecture by David Suzuki, the Canadian environmentalist. He built alarm by explaining how bacteria growing in a test tube will seem to have plenty of resources until a fraction of time before the resources run out. The resources run out precipitously. The same applies to humans on planet earth.

Take alarm too far…and you’ll become the boy who cried wolf.

4. Vice

Vice is going over the edge of what is acceptable behavior. When you flirt with vice your audience will be transfixed.

Vice is saying the things that other people dare not say. It’s about being straight, no holds barred and telling it like it is. Yes, you may piss some people off, but others will find you compelling and become raving fans. Bland and predictable is safe, but it’s not fascinating.

Judicious swearing adds spice and adds to your passion and persuasion. There’s been research done on this. 88 participants were divided into three groups. Two groups listened to a speech with this line:

“…lowering of tuition is not only a great idea, but damn it, also the most reasonable one for all parties involved.”

One group heard the swear word at the beginning and one group at the end of the speech. The third group listened to a speech with no swearing. The two groups who listened to the speech with the swearing judged the speech as more persuasive. The word “damn” led the audience to think the speaker was more passionate about the topic – and hence more persuasive. It didn’t affect the speaker’s credibility.

How to incorporate vice into your presentation:

• Say what other people are afraid to say
• Swear.

Take vice too far…and you’ll be fired.

5. Prestige

This is your brand. Are you the Louis Vuitton of your area of expertise? Prestige is built up before your presentation. It’s what makes people want to hear you speak, irrespective of what you have to say. Prestige is built up not so much about what you put out there about yourself, but what other people say about you. However, people have to have something to share about you.

How to build your prestige:

• Write a book and get it published by a traditional publisher
• Write a self-published book
• Write a blog
• Collect testimonials from every presentation you make and display them on your website.

Take prestige too far…and you’ll turn into an arrogant prick.

6. Power

Exhibit strong leadership and your audience will be captivated. Human beings are attracted to power and prone to obey it. Use the power trigger by projecting certainty and taking control of situations.

How to use power in your presentations:

• Stop using words which belittle your power, words like “just” and “kind of”.
• Be straight and clear when giving instructions. “We will have a 10 minute break at 3, and finish at 4.30.”
• Handle questions and hecklers authoritatively.

Take power too far…and you’ll be a dictator.

7. Trust

Trust is built up by being consistent over time. When your audience trusts you before you start talking, they will be fascinated. So focus on building trusting relationships with your audiences.

• Be consistent in your style and messages
• Show up regularly
• Repeat your key message and don’t say anything that weakens it.

Take trust too far and… you’ve become a cult leader.

I’ve just completed my first large webinar as part of Ellen Finkelstein’s Outstanding Presentations Workshop Webinar Series. Before doing my own webinar I attended webinars by webinar experts Ken Molay and Roger Courville. In particular I wanted to get to grips with the difference between a face to face presentation and a webinar. Here are the tips and tricks I’ve learnt on how to conduct an engaging webinar:

1. Use more visuals

This is the major difference between a face to face presentation and a webinar. In a presentation, the audience can see you and if there’s no visual slide, their attention will be focused on you. But in a webinar, if there’s no visual or you have the same visual for an extended length of time, their visual attention will wander.

I used twice as many slides as I would for a face to face presentation – I had 85 slides for a 30 minute presentation, and most of these slides had some animation. Keep things moving visually.

2. Highlight what you want people to look at on the slides

In a face to face presentation, I physically point to the item on a slide that I want people to look at (laser pointers are for wimps!). Most webinar software does have drawing tools that you can use to draw attention to items on a slide, but I decided to keep things simple for myself by building highlights in my animation. I did this by creating a grey rectangle set to 40% transparency and having it cover everything on the slide. Then I selected the items I wanted to highlight and clicked “Send to Front”. Here’s an example:

3. Avoid slides that you only want to show for a few seconds

I had some slides which I only needed up for a few seconds. Unfortunately because there was a slight time lag between me clicking on the slide and attendees seeing the slide, some attendees only saw it for a microsecond. Here it is, in case you missed it:

In a similar vein, don’t build a sequence of slides that is reliant on exact synchronization between the slides and what you say.

4. Have a photo of yourself near the beginning

This allows people to visualise you talking to them during the webinar. Ellen’s title slide for the webinar had a photo of me, and then I also used a photo for the slide where I put my webinar into the context of the previous webinars in the series by Rick Altman and Nancy Duarte.

5. Show a slide while you’re taking questions

In a face to face presentation I never show an “Any questions” slide. But I realised that unless I had a special “questions” slide I would be stuck on the slide I was showing just before we paused for questions. And that slide might be irrelevant to the question I was answering. I created this slide to use during question time:

6. Have a printout of slides

This is good advice for face to face presentations too! I made a printout of my slides by doing a screenshot of 15 slides in the SlideSorter view. This is better than printing out your slides in the Handout option because the slide number is shown next to each slide. That means that you can jump between slides by keying the number of the slide and pressing “Enter” on your keyboard. This came in useful when an attendee asked me about a previous slide. I was able to quickly click to it, without clicking through multiple slides.

7. Use headphones

I’ve used skype for years because I have family in the UK and I’m in New Zealand. With skype you don’t need headphones. But it seems with webinar software you do. Otherwise your microphone picks up the sound coming out of the speakers and you get a very disconcerting echo.

8. Use a remote control

Although I was sitting at my computer to deliver the webinar and I could have clicked on my space bar or used the mouse to navigate between my slides, I decided to use a remote. It reminded me of the feeling of presenting to a face to face audience!

9. Turn off all your phones and dogs

OK, it’s hard to turn the dogs off, but I did shut the door so that if they did start barking at a rabbit on the lawn, they wouldn’t intrude too much. And you’re probably used to turning off your cellphone before delivering a presentation, but remember to turn off your landline as well.

10. Have a clock

I don’t have a clock in my office as I normally rely on my computer to tell me the time. And I wasn’t wearing my watch as I only put that on when I go out. So I had no way to tell how the time was going. Luckily I had rehearsed my presentation multiple times and knew exactly how long it would take. And Ellen was in in charge of managing the time I spent answering questions. But next time, I’ll have my own clock!

11. Rehearsal

An extra rehearsal is required for webinars compared to face to face presentations. There are two layers of technology involved: your slideware and the webinar software. So once you’ve got your basic presentation well-rehearsed, then rehearse using the webinar software.

12. Let people know when you’re going to be silent

In the webinar that I attended on giving engaging webinars, Ken Molay made the point that your voice conveys your presence. He recommends that if you’re going to be silent, for example, you’re going to take a sip of water, you let your audience know. That makes sense but I struggled with how to manage showing slides with quotes. In face to face presentations, I often introduce a slide, click onto it and then stay silent while the audience reads it. After some thought and getting some advice from Ellen, what I did in the webinar situation was introduce the slide by saying “I’ll let you read what Bill Clinton has to say about Kiva”:

13. Use micro-pauses

Ken Molay also made the point that the long dramatic pauses you might use for effect in a face to face presentation don’t work so well in a webinar context. Attendees might be concerned that they’ve lost the sound! Instead of long dramatic pauses use micro-pauses. You can build micro-pauses into your speaking by chunking. Chunking is speaking in short bursts of words with silence in between. A chunk of words can be a phrase or a short sentence. Chunking has three  additional benefits which you can read about in these posts:

How to look authoritative when you feel anything but

How to eliminate filler words

You don’t have to slow down to be an effective presenter

14. Break for questions

In face to face presentations I recommend taking questions throughout. In this situation, I couldn’t see the questions coming in, only Ellen could. So we arranged that I would stop at the end of each section of my talk and she would ask me the questions that attendees had asked. This worked effectively. Attendees could type in their question at the time that it occurred to them, and they didn’t have to wait too long to get the question answered.

15. Have someone else ask you questions

As I couldn’t see the questions, I had to have Ellen ask me them. However, I think this is the best arrangement. As I’ve argued in relation to monitoring the Twitter backchannel, it’s very hard to present and monitor what the audience is audience is saying or asking via Twitter or other chat application. Ideally, giving a webinar should not be a solo affair.

16. Have a spotter

Ellen had wisely organized a colleague to act as a spotter. The spotter’s task was to let Ellen know (via the chat pane that only Ellen could see) if anything went wrong from an attendee’s point of view.

17. Have a Plan B

I had sent my PowerPoint slides to Ellen the night before, so that if something went wrong with my computer the slides could be shown from her computer. Luckily we didn’t have to use this. An alternative is to have another computer ready to go, should your primary computer crash.

18. The fundamentals stay the same

Planning your presentation  so that you provide value to your audience is just as important in a webinar context. For more guidance on this, download my guide “How to Make an Effective PowerPoint Presentation.”

Those are the tips and tricks I’ve picked up. As well as Ken Molay’s and Roger Courville’s websites, here are some other resources I found useful:

15 Tips for Webinars: How to Add Impact When You Present Online

Webinar Tips for Presenters and Attendees

I’d love it if you could add in the comments what you’ve learnt about giving webinars – whether it’s as a presenter or as an attendee.

The way that you think and feel about presenting – “the inner game” – has a profound effect on your success as a presenter and speaker. The term “inner game” was coined by Timothy Gallwey in his classic book “The Inner Game of Tennis”:

“There is always an inner game being played in your mind no matter what outer game you are playing. How aware you are of this game can make the difference between success and failure in the outer game.”

Why confidence is not the goal you should aim for

You may think that the goal of the inner game of presenting is to be confident. But it’s not a useful mental state to aim for. Here are some dictionary definitions of confidence:

“Feeling of reliance or certainty”

“Boldness, fearlessness”

That implies the absence of fear. That’s unrealistic because of the nature of presenting and public speaking. It is inherently a stressful and risky activity. You’re on show, some people may judge you. You have good reason to be nervous.

Not only is it unrealistic to aim for zero fear, having some fear is helpful. Professional performers acknowledge the edge that fear gives them. Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac says she gets worried if she’s not nervous! Her fear benefits her performance (J Seligmann and M Peyser “Drowning on Dry Land” Newsweek 123 (May 23, 1994): 64-66).

Paradoxically letting go of the fantasy of being confident will allow you to enjoy presenting more.

The magic of “Flow”

Instead of confidence aim for “Flow”. The concept of Flow was first articulated by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Csikszentmihalyi describes Flow as:

“being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

In the diagram below, Csikszentmihalyi shows how Flow relates to the challenge level and your skill level. You’ll note that “Control” in the middle of the right hand side is where the task is of a medium challenge level and you have high skills. That’s probably more synonymous with confidence.

Here’s a specific example of Flow from Csíkszentmihályi:

“It can be very stressful at times. A mountain climber, for example, may be close to freezing, utterly exhausted, and in danger of falling into a bottomless crevasse, yet he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Ok, not sure I’d like to be there – but transpose the situation to presenting. There’s a challenge, but you’re meeting it. You’re being stretched, but you’re managing the stretch. And when you’re in flow, you’re enjoying yourself. That’s what you should be aiming for.

The Goldilocks effect

It can be difficult to achieve Flow when you’re presenting because it requires just the right level of challenge. Not too much challenge – that has you feel overwhelmed, and not too little, because that has you be complacent. This is reflected in the stress-performance curve:

This is a classic curve in psychology known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law. You need just the right amount of stress to perform at your best.

Tame the voices in your head

The No 1 way to reach the sweet spot of optimal performance is to tame the voices in your head. Yes, those voices which are talking to you right now. They may be saying to you:

“Oh, this is all old hat, I know all of this. I’m not learning anything new.” or

“Oh this interesting. I hadn’t thought about it this way before.”

If the first voice is dominant you’re probably feeling disappointed and annoyed at having wasted time reading this post. But if you’re hearing the second voice you’ll be feeling engaged and excited to read more. In both cases you’re doing the same thing – reading this post – but because your voices are different, you’re feeling different. This is the critical concept:

When you change the way you think, you can change the way you feel

This is not positive thinking!

I’m not talking about positive thinking. Positive thinking is not sophisticated enough for managing the inner game of presenting. It’s not as simple as replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts.

Negative thoughts can sometimes be helpful. For instance, a negative thought about your upcoming presentation might be “I’m worried about people asking me questions I should know the answer to.” This type of negative thought will cause you to review your knowledge ahead of the presentation, and so you’ll be better prepared. As long as you don’t obsess over it, that’s helpful.

And positive thoughts are not always helpful. A positive thought such as “I’m good at winging presentations” is likely to get you into big trouble one day, when you fail to prepare and bomb!

Rational thinking

A more helpful distinction is between rational thinking and irrational thinking. And there’s a massive bedrock of knowledge, underpinned by research, to help you implement rational thinking. This field of knowledge is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It’s the gold standard for treatment of severe social anxiety and depression. Over the last eight years I’ve been teaching a simplified version of CBT to presenters and public speakers to help them manage the inner game of presenting. It’s effective and long-lasting.

What stops you from experiencing Flow?

I’m now writing a workbook to be able to help more people. To make the workbook as useful as possible for you, I’d like to find out what are the major concerns you have with public speaking or presenting. To let me know take this 5-question survey:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/355213/Fear-of-public-speaking-survey

Ellen Finkelstein has organized a series of webinar presentations with a great line up of presenters. And not only will you not have any travel and accommodation costs, the webinars themselves are free!

To sign up for the webinars go to this webpage: Outstanding Presentations Workshop.

Each webinar will be at 1:00pm PT, 2:00pm MT, 3:00pm CT, 4:00pm ET in the United States and Canada.

Here’s the schedule for the webinars. Each speaker’s name is a link to a page where you can read more about the speaker and their topic. In the last column is a link to the time in other countries.

All of the speakers will be promoting the webinars to their audiences so reserve your place early as “seats” are limited by the webinar software. Here’s the link again: Outstanding Presentations Workshop.

And I look forward to speaking and interacting with you for my webinar on September 29th.