From the category archives:

Delivery

Three good reasons to distribute your handout after the presentation

July 27, 2010

In my last post on presentation handouts I suggested that it’s best to distribute your handout before your presentation. The comments to that post identified three situations when it makes sense to distribute your handout after the presentation. As not everyone wades through comments I’ve decided to highlight them in this post:
1. Surprise
Mike Slater
Personally I [...]

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13 Best Practice Tips for Effective Presentation Handouts

July 22, 2010

Your presentation handout is the lasting concrete manifestation of your presentation. It’s an important part of the total experience for the audience:

But most of us focus on preparing what happens during the presentation, not what happens afterwards. Here are the benefits of having handouts:
Benefits for the presenter

They allow you to cut down on the amount [...]

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How to stop worrying about forgetting what you want to say

July 7, 2010

Do you have a fear of missing out something critical from your presentation? This concern can sabotage your presentation in three ways:

To alleviate your concern you put everything you want to say on your slides
You write a script and read from it.
You spend the whole presentation worrying instead of connecting with your audience.

There’s a simple [...]

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How to stop waffling once and for all

June 28, 2010

Waffling happens when your brain stops working but your mouth keeps going.
The solution to waffling is simple: When you have nothing ready to say, stop, look at your notes, work out what you to say, look up again and start talking.
Easy to say. Difficult to do. That’s because when you start waffling, rather than [...]

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How to keep to time during your presentation

June 2, 2010

Do you regularly go over time when you’re delivering a presentation? If a time limit has been set for your presentation, then it’s your responsibility to finish it within that time. Consider it as part of the contract between you and your audience.
Here are some tips to help you keep to time:
1. Decide on your [...]

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8 presentation tips to make your eye contact more powerful

December 2, 2009

Even a newbie at public speaking knows they should make eye contact.
But the term eye contact is rather vague. It can infer just making fleeting “contact” with a person then moving on. Don’t make eye contact – make “eye connection”. Eye connection means spending time with each person so that person feels like you’re [...]

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How getting in the beam makes you a better presenter

September 17, 2009

Public speaking and presenting are full of silly rules. One such silly rule is that you shouldn’t walk into into the beam of the projector. I disagree – it can be incredibly effective to get in the beam.
Why you should get in the beam
1. You show your energy and passion
One of the classic TED videos [...]

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How to eliminate filler words

May 26, 2009

The odd filler word is OK.
Yes, really. There are a few hyper-sensitive people (usually Toastmasters or public speaking coaches ) who notice filler words and cringe, but most normal people don’t notice. Or if they do notice, they don’t cringe. Just about everyone uses filler words occasionally. Mike Erard, who wrote a book called [...]

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How to prevent and recover from mind blanks

May 7, 2009

Are you concerned that you might suffer a mind blank during a presentation? The fear of a mind blank can be a large part of the fear of public speaking for many people. It happened to Sally Field in her Emmy Acceptance speech in 2007:

How can you avoid this happening to you?
How to reduce the [...]

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Little-used methods to make the delivery of your PowerPoint stand out

May 1, 2009

There’s a revolution in the design of PowerPoint slides, but not the delivery.
Most speakers still rely on their slides to cue them. They click, they talk, click, talk, click, talk…
Here are five methods that will make the delivery of your PowerPoint presentation stand out.
1. The Reinforce method
Most presenters click on the next slide, and then [...]