Fearless Presentations

Last week, I gave an overview of the four main presentation styles. This week, we will cover the strengths and weaknesses of the Analytical Presentation Style. This is the style of presenter that is more “indirect” and “logical”. Just as a review, by indirect, we mean that this style of presenter will often be more detailed and thorough. By logical, we mean that this style will focus more on facts and data. You will find the style of presentation more frequently in certain industries. If you work in a scientific or technical industry, you will see this style of...

This week we'll be introducing the 4 different presentation styles (Authoritative, Energetic, Analytical, and Empathetic) and showing you how to decide which one you fit most into. And if after you discover which style you are you want to learn more about tips specifically related to you, stick around for the next 4 weeks as we go over each style in depth.

Show Notes: Presentation Styles: Identify Your Strengths as a Presenter to Impress Your Audience
(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/presentation-styles-identify-your-strengths-as-a-presenter-to-impress-your-audience/)

Body language in public speaking is the nonverbal cues that your movements make during communication. Presenters often focus on what they are going to say and their visual aids. However, we often overlook an important part of the speech — body language. Non-verbal communication makes a lasting impression and makes a marked difference in your communication skills. And when it comes to public speaking, if you look poised and confident, your audience will believe you are poised and confident.

In this episode, we’ll cover a few simple public speaking ideas that will give you good posture and enco...

Have a team that needs to build communication skills as a group? Well, just as an FYI, business presentation training is quite different from university-level public speaking classes or what you might pick up at a tasting club. For instance, a good presentation that you deliver for your friends or coworkers may actually backfire if you deliver the presentation to senior executives.

Well in this episode we're gonna be telling you just how to organize your own presentation skills training course and how to ensure your entire team is on the same level and prepared.

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Do you have to deliver a boring speech? Well, there really is no such thing as a boring speech. There are only boring speakers. But you don’t have to be one of these boring speakers.

Enthusiasm and Energy is the absolute, most-important skill in public speaking. If you take only one piece of advice about public speaking, make sure that it is this pearl of wisdom.

If you focus on this one simple thing, the number of times you say “uhm” won’t matter. In addition, if you focus on this one thing, your gestures...

In this session, I’m going to cover 10 simple ways to overcome the fear of public speaking. This is a continuation of the 3-step process to eliminate public speaking fear. In that episode, I showed you the process that a nervous speaker should go through to reduce speech anxiety.

Show Notes: 10 Simple Ways to Get Over the Fear of Public Speaking
(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/10-simple-ways-to-get-over-the-fear-of-public-speaking/)

When folks ask me what I do for a living, I answer, “I help people eliminate public speaking fear.” It is always fun to watch the looks on their faces when they process what I said. Inevitably, I will typically get a response like, “You do what?” or “How do you do that?” 

The process is really simple. In fact, anyone can reduce public speaking anxiety if they follow this process. Over the last 20 years, our great public speaking class instructors have perfected the best ways to reduce anxiety symptoms. And we have organized the process into...

From time to time, I hear people say things like, “She is a natural speaker.” On the other hand, I also hear things like, “I’ve always been a terrible speaker.” Both of these statements may be somewhat true. But they are also both absolutely false as well. No one comes out of the womb a fantastic orator. In addition, everyone has the talent to speak. Many people just fail to develop their natural talent.

Your personality strengths and weaknesses will often lead you to think one way or the other. Every personality temperament has some strengths when they...

The Train-the-Trainer Model is very common in the business world. However, many Train-the-Trainer programs have big flaws. A good analogy of what happens during this process is the old “telephone game.”

Put ten people in a room. Whisper a phrase with more than 10 words into the ear of the first person. The second person then relays the message to the third person. This process continues over and over until the phrase reaches the final person. When you compare the first message with the last message, they will be totally different.

This is what ofte...

Alright we've reached the end. These 101 public speaking tips aren't all you have to know and all you need to master, but it's certainly a good start. 

On top of the 101 things you should do as a presenter, stick around till the end to find out the 10 things you should never do as a presenter!

Show Notes: 101 Public Speaking Tips For Delivering Your Best Speech
(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/101-public-speaking-tips-for-delivering-your-best-speech/)

This is part three of the 101 Public Speaking Tips series. In the first couple of weeks we covered 53 public speaking tips. In week #1, 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. Last week, we covered a few ways to use stories and examples more effectively to explain your data. Next we covered a few ways to to use audience participation to make your speeches more interactive. And the rest of the tips on the last episode...

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...