Fearless Presentations

This is part two of the 101 Public Speaking Tips series. Last week, we covered 24 tips in less than 24 minutes. Last week, we covered tips to create an outline of a speech, a few ways to add energy to boring speeches, and finished with a few ways to add pizzaz to the presentations. We ended last week with tip #24.
 
This week, we start with four ways to use stories and examples more effectively to explain your data. Then, I'll cover eight ways to use audience participation to make your speeches more interactive. In the next seven tips, I'll g...

This is episode 401, and way back on episode 101, we did a fun episode called 101 public speaking tips to coincide with the episode number. When we did that episode, it was like a summary of all the 100 episodes from the first couple of years of the broadcast. So, basically, I crammed absolutely everything that I know about public speaking skills into a few episodes. Then, on episode 201, we did it again. But, by then, the tips had changed a little because we had an additional 200 extra episodes to pull from.
 
I know what you are thinking, though. Especially t...

Want to add humor to your speech? Quite often, when we are designing speeches and presentations for a professional audience, we discount the value of entertainment and humor. However, a good presentation should be both informative and entertaining. You have to have both. 

If you aren't providing the audience with good information, then you're wasting their time. If you aren't providing some type of entertainment, though, you will likely bore your audience. As a result, they will lose interest. So, by adding a little humor to your speech, you keep your audience engaged throughout your presentation.

What causes the fear of public speaking? Why do I get heart palpitations? I mean, I like to think of myself as being an expert in your field (at least within my own company.) And I know what I’m talking about. After all, I’ve worked in my field for years. I’ve done my research. So, why do I break out into a cold sweat when I have to speak in front of groups of people?

Well stick around and hear about exactly what causes these symptoms and the fastest and most efficient way to treat...

Audience Participation is an excellent way to make a good presentation into a stellar presentation. It can also be the scariest. That is why most speakers — even seasoned professionals — avoid asking their audience questions. It is too risky. Or is it?

The truth is that the types of audience participation that most speakers use can come across as cheesy or forced. Also, our audiences have been trained to not interact with us. From the time we are in grade school, we are trained to sit still and listen to the speaker (teacher.) Here is the good news, thou...

You have identified a problem or opportunity for your company. Now you need to get approval. So, how do you present a proposal to management that will get approved? The process is actually pretty simple. The method of how to present a proposal to management that we use works about 100% of the time. Just follow the simple steps below, and your project will easily get funded.

By the way, if you are presenting a proposal to a customer or potential client, see this post. The technique below is mainly for elevator speech types of presentations (short and...

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you present a proposal to a client. Here is the scenario… You have done your homework. A team at your company painstakingly created the perfect sales proposal. In fact, the potential client was so impressed, that they moved you to their “shortlist.” Now, though, they want you to present a bid proposal to the purchasing committee. 

Your team is one of just six to eight other companies competing for this contract. How do you make sure that the committee picks your team? Well, not to brag, but over th...

How, exactly do we collect feedback on a presentation? Are there ways to solicit feedback that will help us grow as speakers? The answer is, absolutely, YES! However, the way that you typically ask for feedback may not be the best way to gain confidence as a speaker. In fact, many traditional feedback techniques can actually make you more nervous. In addition, speakers will sometimes make adjustments to their delivery based on anecdotal issues. This can start a snowball effect that leads to terrible presentation skills.

To make sure that doesn't happen to you, stick around for...

Most of what we cover on this podcast are things that you need to do. The secrets to effective visual aids, curbs against anxiety, the right ways to present, but what about the wrong ways? 

You have to know what not to do in order to know what to do and, for a lot of us, we do a lot of what we shouldn't do. There are so many small habits you might not even realize you do that are actively hurting your speaking and snuffing those out as early as possible is extremely important. So lets g...

“I don’t present very often, so how do I prepare for a presentation?” That is, by far, one of the most common questions that we get as presentation skills coaches. In fact, most public speaking fear comes from situations where presenters just don’t speak very often. 

They have a hard time building up momentum. For instance, if you only drive a car once every couple of years, you will likely be nervous every time you slip behind the wheel. However, if you drive every day, the process becomes second nature.

So if you're not confi...

I often get a common question after people attend our 2-day presentation class. “Now that I feel more confident, where do I go to practice to continue to get better as a speaker?” “How can I continue to grow as a great speaker?” 

The best way to continue to grow is with continued and consistent use of your presentation skills. If you take a public speaking class and then don’t present again for a year, your new skills wither away.

Today I'll be telling you just how to avoid that! Here is everyway I know of for...

Now that you know a few of the best (and safe) ways to start your presentation right, let's get spicier. No memorable speech you've ever sat through took no risks. The bare minimum a speech can be to not be bad is inoffensive. All the introductions I gave you last week are enough to make sure you don't have an embarrassingly awful first impression but they're not enough to make an amazing first impression. That's what this week is for.

So if you're ready to learn how to make a statement from the first few seconds of...

The opening is really the most important part of your presentation. You want to make a good first impression. In addition, you also want the audience to see as a subject matter expert.

Of course, we’ve all been there as a speaker. First, we design a powerful presentation. Then, we nervously walk out onto a stage or into the front of the room. The audience stares with skepticism written all over their faces. This stoic crowd has no patience for speakers who waste their time. And their demeanor is showing that fact right now. In a ti...

So you did it! You graduated at the top of your class. You’ve proved you are the apex of knowledge, skill, and potential within your school, and now you get to prove it with a beautiful Valedictorian Speech. Just one problem, since this is the first (and only) time you will ever do it, you don’t know how to write a valedictorian speech. 

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Just about every Valedictorian or Salutatorian has gone through this. You work so hard to get to the top, sacrifice time year after year, and...

Most of the time, if you're good at writing one style of speech, you're good at writing all of them. Speech writing is a very transferable skill no matter if it's for a keynote, a lecture, a sales pitch, or pretty much anything else. But there are some exceptions. 

Commencement speeches draw a weird, wobbly fine line between being casual, inspirational, funny, and reflective. You can't talk about yourself too much or it'll sound self indulgent. You can't talk about the grads too much cause that just feels like pandering. Can't be so silly you sound immature b...

Want to calm down before a presentation? Even if you don’t regularly experience the fear of public speaking, just before you start a speech, it is easy to feel anxious. This initial nervous energy can cause a speaker to have a shaky voice, dry mouth, or sweaty palms just before a presentation. The good news is that this experience is very common. Most of the time, if you start your presentation well, the level of nervousness will drop very quickly.

However, sometimes when people feel that stage fright, they panic. When you panic in front of an...

Picture this: You arrive at a concert venue to see your favorite artist. The lights dim, the crowd buzzes, anticipation builds. They finally step on stage and perform the entire set with their hands stuck in their pockets. No gestures. No movement. No visible energy. Even if the music sounds incredible, something feels off. You’re listening, but you’re not fully feeling it. The performance lacks presence, connection, and impact. You leave entertained (maybe), but not moved.

Whether or not you use your hands as a tool to command a room can be the difference between an i...

The quickest way to make people not believe you're qualified is to not believe it yourself. Saying that confidence is important certainly isn't the most groundbreaking thing to hear but knowing exactly WHY it's so important is what really gives people the push to develop it. 

After last week's episode discussing why you need to have more self-confidence in what you already know, this week we're going to talk about displaying that confidence. Believing yourself good enough is completely different than showing that you're good enough and both parts are required to give the idea that you a...

Every speaker wants to become a subject matter expert on the topic they present, but here's the truth these people aren't realizing:

Regardless of what industry you are in or what expertise you have, you are the expert. The knowledge that you have on a specific topic is valuable to somebody, and that's really all that matters.

Becoming an expert on a subject doesn't come with some magical recognition of feeling worthy, an expert is just a person knowledgeable enough about something to speak and teach it. Many of us think just because...

What are the most important qualities of a good public speaker? What makes a great presenter? Just what are the fundamentals of a good public speaker that allow one orator to get up in front of an audience and mesmerize the crowd while another fails?

When I first started teaching the Fearless Presentations ® classes, I did so because I knew from my own experience that the more self-confident a presenter appears to an audience, the more respect that the audience will have for that presenter. In addition, chapter one of my first book on public speaking was a...

In the past few weeks we've covered a couple of the best entry points into public speaking from wherever you're starting at, but what do you do if you're starting with nothing at all. If you're not already in an industry that is looking for more speakers and you've tried to apply to some public speaking companies to no avail, it can start to feel hopeless. 

Luckily, so many of the best speakers out there started exactly from where you are right now. Stick around to hear exactly how those same great speakers got out of the r...

Over the last 2 weeks I've been going over the best ways to get started as a public speaker, and today we're delving into what I think is the easiest of those ways. Speaking on topics you already know and are passionate about takes so much of the stress away. Having real pedigree in something you're speaking on and the ability to go off-hand whenever you need to is something that eases the anxieties like nothing else. 

Stick around and hear how to make that transition from being someone who's knowledgeable to someone who can also share their k...

Last week, we went over a few of the best ways to get into the public speaking industry. There's a few different entry points and over this episode and the next couple, we'll be covering, in more detail those three different ways to get started. 

The first one I'm covering is joining an already established company. If the prospect of entrepreneurship daunts you and you want to go the more hands off/luck-based route, this is really your best option. There are a few big pitfalls many trip into and a few simple things they never seem t...

Being a professional speaker is a very lucrative and rewarding profession. But if you have never actually made money from speaking before, you may be looking into how to start a public speaking career.

In this episode, we'll be starting our series on the absolute best and easiest ways to get started on your public speaking journey!

Show Notes: How to Start a Public Speaking Career

(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-start-a-public-speaking-career/)

Last week, at the very end of the episode, I mentioned that one way to make your PowerPoint Presentations better is to create a good handout for the audience. And I shared a story about a breakout session I led where I spend most of the time in the presentation using the handout as the visual aid versus the slideshow.

On this episode, I'm going to go into more detail about what I did. The title of the episode is Create the Perfect Presentation Handout.

I'm going to give you three progressively more difficult ways...

Last week, on the last episode of the series on the Presentation Skills Checklist, we covered how many slides to put into a PowerPoint Presentation. This week, our topic is "3 Simple Ways to Create Better PowerPoint Presentations."

By the way, if you are using the techniques I outline on other episodes of the podcast, creating a PowerPoint presentation should be really easy. Basically, in a presentation, less is more.

But on this episode, I give you my top three tips that will help you kill your next presentation. First, we cover how to design your...

I hope you have enjoyed the Presentation Skills Checklist series. So far, we covered how to know your audience. Next we helped you create a great presentation title. Then, we helped you organize your presentation outline. And in the last couple weeks we showed you how to add credible evidence to reinforce the points you created in your outline.

The last step is to create your PowerPoint Slideshow. Yes, you heard me correctly. Creating your slideshow should be the absolute last thing that you do. Most people start with the slideshow.

Instead, figure out what...

If you want to be a fantastic speaker, you have to be able to make any topic really interesting -- even if you aren't that excited about it. So on this episode, I'm going to give you nine things that I call "Impact Ideas". They are different types of evidence that you can use to make your point more compelling or interesting.

This is a continuation of the series we started a few weeks called the Presentation Skills Checklist. And over the last couple of weeks, we covered the first three items on that checklist, (1) how to...

Great speakers know how to tell a great story. On this episode, I'll give you the five key steps of storytelling that these great speakers know and use in every single speech that they deliver. (That's hat makes them great speakers!)

This is a continuation of the series we started a few weeks ago about your Presentation Skills Checklist. And over the last couple of weeks, we covered the first three items on that checklist, (1) how to know your audience better, (2) how to design a catchy title, and last week, we covered (3) how to create a presentation...

A few weeks ago, I gave you my Presentation Skills Checklist. And over the last couple of weeks, we covered the first two items on that checklist, (1) how to know your audience better, and (2) how to design a catchy title.

On today's episode, I'm going to show you how to quickly and easily design your speech in a whole lot less time that what most people take to create a presentation. If you haven't listened to last week's session on how to create a catchy title, don't worry, I give a quick review at the start of...

A couple of weeks ago, I gave you my Presentation Skills Checklist. And last week, we covered step one in that checklist which was know your audience. If you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode yet, the things I covered were essential in creating better presentations and reducing public speaking nervousness.

Most people design presentations by creating a long list of items they could cover. Then, they try to squeeze everything into a short timeframe. It almost never works.

So, last week, we showed you how to determine what your audience wants...

Last week, I gave you my Presentation Skills Checklist. And step one in that checklist was to know your audience.

Listen to any speaking coach, go to any Toastmasters, attend any presentation seminar, you will hear a single phrase over and over. “Know your audience.” Sounds really good too. When we hear the phrase, we think, “Well, of course. That makes sense.” But what exactly does “know your audience mean?” Is there a formula to help a speaker know his or her audience better?

Well, yes, there is. In fact, every presenter should use this formula befo...

On today's episode, I'm going to give you a presentation skills checklist that can make designing and delivering a presentation easier and less risky. When folks go through our presentation skills classes, they are often surprised at how simple public speaking really is. That is if you have a great structure and follow a simple checklist.

Before pilots take a plane off the ground, they always follow a written checklist. They don’t follow this process by memory. Instead, they check off each task one by one.

There is a reason why every pilot does th...

!!ANNOUNCEMENT!!

We are super excited to announce the new way we will be doing our Fearless Presentations classes and if you are interested in hearing all about it I cover it pretty extensively from 2:33 - 15:32.

For those that are more of our loyal listeners to the podcast, y'all probably started listening in the first place because you were wanting to reduce nervousness when you present. Of course a lot of our episodes are built around that idea but what a lot of people seem to underestimate is the fact that a large reason they're likely...

A few years ago, my wife and I went to see the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. When I was a kid, I remember hearing Another One Bites the Dust and We Are the Champions, but I was by no means a Queen fan. I was surprised, though, how many songs from the movie I knew every word to.

But, I have to admit, the most surprising thing to me was that Freddie Mercury was a Persian Indian man who lived in England. When I listened to the songs, there was no Persian accent. No Indian accent. And there...

One of the more challenging parts of any presentation is the very first part. If you are wondering how to introduce yourself before starting your presentation, you are in good company. For most of us, once we get the first few sentences out, our nervousness will diminish pretty significantly. So, this initial self-introduction is really important. If we struggle here, our nervousness will increase. In addition, the old adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is very true.

In this post, we are going to cover the best way, a very simple thre...

After years of presentation coaching, one of the major things that I have realized is that many of the things presenters do to reduce nervousness actually cause nervousness. And because most business presenters deliver presentations so infrequently, those bad ideas get repeated over and over. Eventually, they become habits.

So, on this episode, I'll give you the seven presentation habits that actually cause public speaking fear. They are:

1) Writing Your Presentation Word-for-Word
2) Designing Your PowerPoint Slideshow First
3) Relying on Notes
4) Asking for Critiques from Friends/Coworkers
5) Practicing Alone
6) Videoing Your...

If you practice great presentation skills, and focus on designing your presentations on what your audience needs and wants, the last thing you will have trouble with is hecklers. However, it only takes a single mad-at-the-world heckler to quickly turn your presentation masterpiece into modern art. So, when you are rudely interrupted in front of an audience of strangers, you will want to have a strategy for how to handle hecklers.

That is, one that calms the heckler and makes you continue to look like the expert in the room. Throughout my years of experience in public...

Welcome to 30 Tips in 30 Days! Over the entire month of November, I will be releasing a short, bite sized episode of Fearless Presentations every morning covering things that are absolutely essential to being a better presenter. 

Whether you've been speaking professionally for years and years or are looking to just start your public speaking journey, applying just these 30 tips I cover here will instantly and easily make you improve as a speaker. 

You've done it! You've reached the end of the 30 Tips in 30 Days series and with it, you have learned a pile of simple, ea...

Welcome to 30 Tips in 30 Days! Over the entire month of November, I will be releasing a short, bite sized episode of Fearless Presentations every morning covering things that are absolutely essential to being a better presenter. 

Whether you've been speaking professionally for years and years or are looking to just start your public speaking journey, applying just these 30 tips I cover here will instantly and easily make you improve as a speaker. 

Speeches are only partially about the words that you're saying. Even a great speech delivered limply at a podium with zero movement or aw...