effective presentations skills 2

PREPARATION AND PLANNING

Fail to prepare;

prepare to fail

Anon

SETTING AN OBJECTIVE

General objectives fall into the following categories:

To inform/teach/train.

To stimulate/motivate/inspire

To persuade/convince/sell

To explore/debate/negotiate

To amuse/entertain

SETTING AN OBJECTIVE

RESEARCHING YOUR AUDIENCE

Finding out about your

audience will enable you to

make your talk relevant to

them and thereby overcome

many of the difficulties that

listeners face when trying to

follow the spoken word

RESEARCHING YOUR AUDIENCE

1.Audience members( no.hidden/key)

2.Audience knowledge(

you/topic/perception)

3.Audience attitude( towards you)

4.Audience benefits( appeal to needs)

Positive self talk

Self esteem

Better performance

The man who makes a bad

thirty-minute speech to 20

people only wastes half an

hour of his own time. But he

wastes 10 hours of the

audience’s time which should

be a hanging offence.

Jenkin Lloyd Jones

Speak properly and in as

few words as you can,

but always plainly; for

the end of speech is not

ostentation, but to be

understood.William Penn

I do not object to people

looking at their watches when

I am speaking, but I strongly

object when they start

shaking them to make sure

they are still going.

Lord Birkett

Speeches are

like babies -

easy to

conceive, hard

to deliver

Pat O’Malley

Body Language

W. B. Yeats

I always think a great

orator convinces us, not

by force of reasoning,

but because he is visibly

enjoying the beliefs

which he wants us to

accept.

Audiences are not impressed with words.

They are impressed with:

Enthusiasm

Vitality

Sincerity

IS THEFIRST STEP

TOSPEAKING

WHY PEOPLE FAIL TO LISTEN:

« They anticipate what is going to be said and switch off.

« They are planning what to say when it’s their turn.

« They may be tired or worried i.e., they may have too much on their mind to concentrate.

« They can’t hear or they find the speaker’s voice dull and monotonous.

« The topic is too complex and difficult to follow.

« The topic is too simple and basic.« The speaker lacks credibility and

confidence.« The chairs are hard; it’s either too hot or

too cold and the sound of the traffic is very distracting.

Put yourself in your listeners’ shoes and ask yourself how can you help them to follow your talk and what will make it relevant to them.

Some speakers like to follow the FEB technique:

Appealing to the listener

F - Feature or Fact

E - Effect of the F

B - Benefit to the listener

APPEAL TO

EMOTIONS

SHOW HOW YOUR

IDEAS WILL

BENEFIT THE

LISTENER

Be VISUAL

It has been estimated by the Communications Researcher, Professor Albert Mehrabian, that words account for only 7 percent of the speaker’s effect on an audience. A massive 55 percent of the speaker’s impact comes from the visual, I.e. how he looks, facial expression, gestures, body language and posture, etc., while 38 percent of his impact comes from voice; does he sound trustworthy, is his voice varied and interesting to listen to?

BUILDING

AN

IMPRESSIVE

BODY

BODY LANGUAGE

Smile

Smiling at your audience says “I am

happy to be here and I am glad you

are here too”.

How to make a good first impression

‘No one can seeyour pounding heart or churning stomach or

your dry mouth, so why reveal on your face the turmoil which is going

on inside your body.’

Once settled, you can look around

and take a few quiet, deep breaths.

Don’t look at your cards or even

touch them. No amount of silent

rehearsing will help you make a

better speech at this stage.

HOW TO MAKE AN ENTRANCE

Nobody is born a good speaker

and that you have to work at your

body language to appear relaxed

and natural.

Why is body language important ?

Fidgety feet

Fiddling fingers

The perils ofBAD BODY LANGUAGE

I could see it in his eyes

It is one of the most important

factors towards creating a good

speaker.

EYE COMMUNICATION

There is nothing more frustrating than trying to talk to someone at a party who is looking constantly over your shoulder and around the room.

Eye contact also denotes authority. Powerful people give more eye contact than those who are less confident.

Somewhere in between a shifty look and a stare is the correct eye contact, and it varies according to the degree of intimacy in our relationships.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

I’m sure you have seen speakers who stare at the ceiling throughout their talk as if their script were written up there in large print. For a variation they glance at the floor or out of the windows to an imaginary listener sitting outside.

Avoid speaking only to the most powerful or influential person present.

WHERE IS THE AUDIENCE?

You know instinctively that you

express your emotions through your

eyes and so if you don’t look at

them, they won’t be able to see how

nervous you are.

Why is it difficultto look at the audience?

Audience feel (probably unconsciously)

that you are not interested in them. If

you don’t pay attention to your

audience, they will not pay

attention to you.

What happens when we don’t make eye contact?

Practise maintaining

contact for longer than

usual without it

becoming uncomfortable.

HOW IS YOUR EYE CONTACT?

Check what colour your

listeners’ eyes are; how

many are wearing

glasses;

How to overcome your reluctance to look at the

audience?

Little short jerky

glances are not good

eye contact.

What to avoid in eye contact?

FACIAL EXPRESSION

Your eye contact is essential in

audience communication, but if you

are looking at them and frowning or

appear depressed, they will not

believe that you are enjoying

speaking to them.

What not to do with your hands?

Fiddling with rings, watch, cuff-links, buttons, pens, elastic bands, paper slips, spectacles, cuticles and nails, confidence cards, coins in pocket, pointers.

Touching and patting face, hair, pockets, desk, table.

Clutching back of chair, notes, side of lectern.Scratching any part of the body.Hiding them behind back, in pockets, in lap, by

folding arms, or by sitting on hands.Pointing at the audience.Wringing in despair.Rubbing together in enthusiasm.

I don’t aim to kill the

butterflies, but I want

to get them to fly in

formation.Anon

Learning to cope with nerves

Remember it’s the fears which are making you nervous.

Is it fear of: Forgetting what you want to say. Not making sense. Being boring. People getting up and walking out. Your boss thinking that you are an idiot. Your subordinates thinking that you are an idiot. Your friends/colleagues thinking that you are an

idiot….

What makes you nervous?

How to control your nervous?

Everyone suffers from nerves.

Don’t let your nerves control you.

Face up to your fears.

Turn negative nerves into positive power.

Practice kills panic.

You will be successful.

Accent

Volume, clarity, variety

To be an effective speaker you need:

To be heard.

To be understood.

To have variety in your voice.

FINDING YOUR VOICE

If you haven’t struck oil in

the first three minutes -

stop boring.

George Jessel

To sway an audience,

you must watch them

as you speak.

C. Kent Wright

A picture is worth

a thousand words

- or is it ?

Once you get people laughing

they are listening and you can

tell them almost anything.

• Humour unites audiences.• Use common problems and shared

experiences.• Avoid telling jokes.• Collect funny stories.• Never read your humorous lines.• Aim for chuckles, not for belly laughs.

Herbert Gardner

• PERSONAL COMMITMENT

• SHOW ENTHUSIASM

• NEED EYE CONTACT

• INVOLVE WITH PAUSES

A CONVINCING DELIVERY

• SPEAK UP EARLY

• PRACTISE IN SOCIAL

CLUB

• PREPARE

• ENTHSIASM

• VITALITY

• SINCERITY

FINAL THOUGHTS

Robert Louis Stevenson