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Today we are going to discuss public speaking and presentations!
What is the proverbial joke? The two most things that people are most afraid of are death and public speaking, and the majority of people actually pick public speaking over death.
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| Candler |
I had the pleasure three years ago of being in Las Vegas working on the Electrolux team for our company when they rolled out the high-end Electrolux appliances with Kelly Ripa as the spokeswomen to back them up. The meeting was very informative and light until towards the end, they mentioned to us that we would now how to go into the field and set up training engagements in front of 100 people plus. I personally was intimated, as I think the rest of the team was. Luckily the next presenter for us was Arch Lustberg, a leader in the field of dynamic communications.
Arch Lustberg has a long resume of public speaking trainees from George Bush, Dick Gephart, and Charles Osgood. Obviously as well as with any good presentation, preparation and familiarity with the material is key, but a few side notes that I felt were very interesting were, the introduction, relatable stories, and the pause. I was able weave these added components into my presentations, which helped me become more comfortable in front of people, and therefore made me a better and more effective speaker.
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| Candler |
The first area that Arch delved into was the beginning of the presentation. He noted that a lot of people will turn their powerpoints on and just start hammering away at the nuts and bolts on their agenda. He said the problem was, that a lot of times, you don’t’ actually capture the audience. His suggestion was to take the first minute or two and start out with a story, a personal story. It did not even have to relate to the subject material, but something that was somewhat light and humorous and would draw the audience into emotionally, before delving into the heart of the presentation. Personally I would start off all of the presentations with a quick story about my two boys watching Star Wars for the first time. The story was short, humorous, got a quick laugh, put me at ease, as well as the audience. This helped me tremendously as I was beginning.
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| Candler |
The second area that Arch mentioned was to add emotional interest to bullet points by adding in more personal accounts or stories. This is not always accessible, but for example, I was training on the new Electrolux appliance line. When training on certain aspects of say the refrigerator, I would add in a story to highlight a certain feature, or a joke to accentuate another feature. The stories and jokes were my own, which again helped to keep me at ease, but also made the training more relatable to the audience. They were able to ‘see’ what I was describing versus just rattling off bullet points on the features.
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| Candler |
The last area that I use on a daily basis, not just on presentations is the ‘pause’. Just like an artist leaves blank areas to make the areas of color more vivid, or like on the powerpoint, where you don’t want to overpower a slide, the pause accomplishes the same thing. If you want to make a solid statement about a certain area, then say the bullet point and pause for a second or two. It will accentuate what you said. Sometimes this is extremely hard, as most people want to add in the um’s and err’s to fill the verbal space, but this creates noise to the audience. Speak, pause, accentuate, and move to the next area.
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| Candler |
I will tell you that now having conducted training session up and down the East coast, I thoroughly enjoy the process. Just like being a rock star, holding an audience captive can be very invigorating. If you are prepared, practiced, and add in some personal stories to draw them in, and add in the pause now and then to highlight your bullet points, your audience will appreciate you more and remember your presentation better.
Good Luck!
