Stand up, Speak up & Persuade. New Public Workshop – August 19th, 2015
Does the thought of delivering a presentation scare you?
Do you want to learn how to be confident in front of a group, think on your feet and deliver a persuasive and engaging presentation?
Then this course is for you!
I only do a few public workshops per year – my next one is at the end of July – Stand Up Speak Up and Persuade works and the lessons learnt stay with you for life.
“I was fortunate enough to attend the “Stand Up, Speak Up and Persuade” course at Scholle. Have attended many courses during my career, but this one has been a clear stand out, and has really stood the test of time. It has continued to resonate with me, and I continue to use the principles when preparing any presentation I do. I couldn’t recommend this course more highly to organisations and people who want really want to make an impact.” Randall Pearce – strategic Sales and Marketing Professional
Now is your time to shine – and I can help.
For more information or to discuss your in-house training needs, flick me an email:
Speaking at a conference? Here’s what NOT to do!
I love speaking at conferences. It’s an opportunity to meet new people, challenge myself with new ideas and to travel.
Wherever possible I stay for the day so I can listen to the speakers before me. I love hearing and seeing other people present and understand how nerve wracking it can be to speak to a room full of strangers. But a keynote requires some special preparation and there are rules you need to adhere to.
Here are 5 things you should ever do in your keynote
1. Make it all about you
Let me tell you how faaaabulous I am!
Some speakers remind me of a bad first date – you know the ones when all they want to talk about is their house on the beach and the car they drive? I recently saw a keynote speaker show a rah rah company video and then proceed to talk about himself for a full 20 minutes. He did not start on his topic until 30 minutes into his presentation. The audience was not impressed.
Solution: Focus on the audience’s WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) and your credibility will speak for itself.
2. Deliver a report instead of a presentation
This is a mistake I see a lot of novices make. They have done some research that has had some great outcomes and as a result they’ve been asked to present their findings at a national conference. They then proceed to deliver their research in its entirety and bore the audience until they are catatonic.
Solution: Deliver a ‘Persuasive Executive Summary’ and relate it to the audience. Those who want the detail can read the paper.
3. Let me show you the spreadsheet…
Keynotes and PowerPoint abuse seem to go hand in hand. Here’s a quick tip. Open your PowerPoint make the slides full screen and stand six feet away. If you can’t read the detail on your slide, neither can your audience. It’s time to escape PowerPoint purgatory.
Solution: Have a look at the blogs I have written on how to “Escape Powerpoint Purgatory”
4. You MUST do this!
There is a saying in sales: ‘Telling is not selling’. When I’m in an audience I take off my evaluator’s hat and enjoy the moment. But every now and then something will punch through that causes discomfort. I was listening to a speaker recently and I thought: “Maybe it’s just me…” but when I noticed the person on my left checking her emails and person on my right playing solitaire, I thought “Maybe not!”
I asked them after why they were disengaged and they said:
- “She came across as preachy and a know it all”
- “I don’t appreciate being told what to do”
Solution: Tell stories. Share your challenges and what you learnt from them. Use inclusive ‘we’ language rather than ‘you’. Pose questions to the audience and increase interaction.
5. Go over time
Several years ago I spoke at a conference where the two previous speakers went over by 20 minutes each. I was the last speaker before lunch and you could see the audience was getting testy. I checked with the conference organiser first and then I stood up and said:
“I’m going to tell you what you need to know about delivering a persuasive presentation and I’m going to do it in 20 minutes” I received my first standing ovation when we broke for lunch on time.
Solution: Franklin D Roosevelt’s advice to his son on public speaking was “Be sincere. Be brief. Be seated.” Conferences are planned down to the last minute – if you want to be invited back, you’d better be on time!
This year I have delivered keynotes across Australia and overseas on topics ranging from persuasion and making your message stick, through to presentation skills and “escaping PowerPoint Purgatory’.
My audiences have consisted of accountants, lawyers doctors, CEO’s, HR professionals, trainers and managers. If you have a conference coming up I’d love to have a chat to see if what I deliver can meet your needs.
Facts tell, stories sell
Do you like being TOLD what to do? I don’t. If people start saying to me “you should: you need to: you must:” I tend to shut down. But if they share a story from their experience and engage me in the moment, I’m more inclined to act on what they say.
People always say to me, “But how do I include a story – my topic is so boring?”
Here are five ways to weave stories into your presentations.
1. Link a personal story to your message
Last year I heard Dr Fiona Wood speak on leadership. She told us that at the height of the Bali bombing emergency when her department was struggling to care for the victims, she came home to discover her four children tucking into a chicken casserole that she had not made.
The conversation that took place went something like this:
Fiona “Umm, Hi kids – what are you eating?”
Kids: “Oh, this is a casserole that Sue’s mum made – It’s FABULOUS! We’ve asked her to make us another and she’s dropped in a choccy cake too!”
Fiona was horrified. She told us how she rang up Sue’s mum and said that she really didn’t need to feed her children. Sue’s reply was priceless.
She said, “Fiona, I can’t treat people with severe burns, I can’t make artificial skin, but I can cook a damn good chicken casserole. You contribute in your way and I’ll contribute in mine.”
It was through that event that Fiona realised that great leaders don’t try to do it all. Great leadership means letting people contribute and work at what they’re good at.
2. Take us with you
The story was highly engaging and humourous. Fiona shared an insight into her life – which allowed us to feel empathy for her, and she related an experience to the message.
Because we could relate her story and imagine us in a similar situation, iit made it memorable.
Here are some other examples from my clients.
3. Think of a metaphor
A client from a law firm I was working with told me how hard it was to bring her topic to life. Outside of work she was a master cupcake maker, so I asked her to explain the parallels between cupcake making and conveyancing.
She then went on to explain how conveyancing was like a cupcake – you need a good foundation and expert preparation before you put on the icing, how experience and attention to detail pays off and produces the best results.
She finished off the presentation by hanging out cupcakes (incorporating reciprocation – one of Cialdini’s 6 pillars of persuasion) to really make her message stick.
4. Bring the facts to life
A trainer challenged me with making a story out of GST, so I grabbed the nearest thing to me which was a glass and I said “I want you to tell me the lifecycle of this glass. Was GST charged when the silica was mined? What about when the glass was produced and sold to the wholesale and then retail outlet? What happened when it was sold to the customer? And then after when they sold the glass at a garage sale?”
By relating the theory to a product people can visualise the GST journey and better understand its application.
5. Get your audience involved
Include personal stories or cases that have caught the public’s attention and then generate the emotional connection by asking a couple of these questions:
• How would you feel if this happened to you?
• How would you feel if you caused this to happen to someone else?
• How would you feel if this happened to your Sister, Mother, Son or Father?
• How would you feel if it was your company on the front page of The Australian newspaper?
The power of the story creates an emotional connection that make you care, it makes it memorable and it moves you to action.
Simple is not always easy…
One new year’s resolution that constantly appears on January the first is: ‘I want to lose weight.’
Well, the good news is, is that losing weight is simple! All you have to do is move more and eat less – it doesn’t get much simpler than that!
But, as those of you, like me, have tried – you know, it ain’t easy.
I’m not an expert in weight loss, but if your new years resolution is to become a better speaker, well, the strategies are similar.
- Have a goal
- Just as you set a goal to lose 5kg, you also need to set a goal when you speak
- Ask yourself when you sit down to write your presentation: “What is it that I want the audience to do, say, think or feel as a result of this presentation?”
- Be prepared
- It’s pretty hard to eat healthily if you don’t have the food in the fridge
- Same with your presentation. Do your homework.
- Familiarise yourself with the venue
- Find out who will be in the audience and what they will want to hear
- Develop good habits
- Habits take time to change
- Ensure you give yourself plenty of time to practice your presentation and join a public speaking group such as Rostrum or Toastmasters if you need more practice.
- Get a coach
- We all need a little help at times
- A coach can help you strengthen your ‘soft spots’ and keep you motivated
- Flip the tape
- Be aware of your self talk
- Are you sabotaging your good work with negative thoughts?
- Remind yourself of how far you have come and what you are capable of
So, simple is not easy. But if you follow some simple steps and just keep moving forward, you will achieve your goal.
Here’s to a fabulous 2013 and now I’m going to grab an apple and go for a walk!
PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – March 14th 2013 – Please contact me for details
How knowing your audience can make you more persuasive.
In order to persuade, we need to understand ourselves and others.
Last month I introduced you to DISC and discussed how understanding yourself and others can make you more persuasive. If you need a refresher, please review my last article.
In this month’s newsletter we’ll look at how you can tailor your presentation to best influence the type of audience you have. It is useful to first make an assessment of your audience.
Let’s say, for example, that you are speaking to a group of engineers. Ask yourself: In general, are they likely to be task oriented or people oriented? More introverted or extroverted?
In my experience engineers tend to be more task oriented and introverted which puts them in the ‘C’ category. What about sales people? You’ll usually find they fall into the ‘I’ group – extroverted and people oriented.
Different behavioural styles require different approaches.
Here are the four different personalities styles and how you can best appeal to them.
D – Dominance
Direct & assertive
Get to the point – NOW!
Waffle at your own risk. You will find a higher incidence of D style personalities in senior management/CEO level. Because of this I developed the ‘Persuasive Executive Summary’ workshop to provide people with the skills to design a presentation to appeal to the D’s. When presenting to this group you want to come across as confident and assertive. Start your presentation boldly with your recommendation and then follow with the supporting data and conclude again by summarising your recommendations with conviction.
I – Influence
Outgoing and talkative
The I’s LOVE to chat.
I had a client who I was coaching recently who was presenting to an audience of 150 sales people. She was planning to lecture to them for three hours delivering vast amounts of technical information.
Disengagement and boredom would have quickly set in. Instead I suggested she treat her presentation as more of a workshop. Limit the information to the bits that were relevant to them and allow the group plenty of time to discuss, review and process before moving on.
S – Steadiness
Easy going & amiable
S=Stability. Don’t rock the boat.
An audience made up of predominantly S’s can be a real problem when your objective is to get them involved and contributing well. If you’re an extrovert like me, the more you challenge and push them, the more they close down.
There are a couple of things you can do to win this group over:
- Don’t put them on the spot. If you want them to contribute, then give them warning. On the meeting agenda let them know that you want them to bring ideas on this subject to discuss.
- Put them in small groups. S’s don’t like being the centre of attention. They will be more comfortable discussing their ideas in a group of five than having to speak up in front of a group of 40.
And if you are an extrovert, you may want to consider tempering your style, give them the time and space they need to shine.
C – Compliance
Precise and analytical
This group loooooooves detail!
Depending on your presentation objective you may not be able to include the level of detail they require, but there are two things you can do:
- Brainstorm your topic well to uncover all the curly questions as they will want to know the answers.
- Include more detail and your contact information in your handout as they will read it and want to contact you later.
I was using an iceberg analogy recently and said 10% of the iceberg floats above the water…. a geophysicist interrupted me with a correction; I was wrong he said, “12.8% of the iceberg floats above the water… and then of course you need to consider the iceberg’s density..”
I rest my case.
A little advice:
DISC is a great starting point as it can help you target your message and create rapport quickly. Just keep in mind though, that these are generalisations and every person is unique and their life experience will alter their perception of your message.
Just because you are an ‘S’ or ‘D’ doesn’t mean you can’t function effectively in other quadrants. We all have the ability to stretch and change…
DISC Advanced
To really understand your strengths and weaknesses, DISC Advanced is the way to go.
DISC Advanced provides you with far greater detail and a 20 page report with a SWOT analysis and recommendations for working with your strengths.
As an Accredited DISC Advanced facilitator I can help you and your team uncover the benefits of self understanding.
Five things good speakers always do
Teaching is like training, is like speaking, is like persuading.
I read an article the other day about a SA high school teacher who won the 2011 Australia’s best science teacher award. She doesn’t work at an exclusive private school, she doesn’t have the latest equipment and many would consider her students to be from an underprivileged background… and yet last year 4 of her year 12 students achieved perfect scores.
So what makes her unique and able to achieve these results?
I believe it is her attitude and her ability to capture her audience and make them care about her topic.
She is quoted as saying “The first section of any lesson id pivotal to engage, motivate and interest students. It is not the right time for taking the roll.” She starts her classes with a bang (quite literally in some cases) ensuring her students are always on time. Her classes are interactive, physical and confronting – attention is demanded and maintained.
So how does this apply to your next presentation?
• Get a grab. You have 10 seconds to capture your audience. Don’t waste that opportunity by stating the obvious or discussing housekeeping, start with a bang!
• Sell on all senses. Where ever possible include a physical activity to cement your message and increase retention
• Challenge your audience. The learning zone is situated outside of the comfort zone. Stretch your audience and challenge them with new ideas. Then step back and facilitate the discussion.
Lastly, remember: ‘Passionate people persuade’. Enthusiasm is infectious, show your passion, share your expertise and the audience will follow.
Passionate People DO Persuade!
Mehrabian’s work on the impact of body language has been misquoted for decades. His research showed that 55% of a person’s message was from their body language, 38% from vocal tone and pace and only 7% from the words used. Anyone who has travelled overseas and has tried using body language and vocal variety alone to find the nearest subway when you don’t speak the local language knows this isn’t true. What Mehrabian’s research refers to is the transfer of feelings and attitudes. In other words, if someone says that they “really like your hair cut!” but their facial expressions register horror and their tone seems insincere then we are more likely to believe their body language and tone rather than their actual words.
So… your choice of words when presenting is important and much more so than just 7%. But… so too are your non-verbals, and as I say in my workshops: Passionate People Persuade.
So I was very interested to read research by a couple of scientists: Professor Alex Pentland and Daniel Olguin Olguin. They devised a ‘Sociometer’ a small blackberry sized device worn around the neck to measure non verbal social signals such as pitch and tone of voice, gesticulation, proximity to others and activity levels. They gave these devices to several up-and-coming business executives gathered at MIT to present their business plans to their peers and without telling them what they were measuring, asked then to wear them while delivering their pitches. Their research results are fascinating. By analysing the data recorded by the devices, and without reading the business plans or listening to the pitches, they were able to predict the successful pitches with an accuracy of 87%! Interestingly their success at predicting the winners was much higher than those of the financial experts reading the business plans alone.
Now… will a confident and engaging presentation overcome lack of knowledge and a poor business plan? I don’t think so – but what an effective presentation does do, is ‘sell’ you as well as your plan – and we all know: ‘People buy from people that they like know and trust’
Cheers
Sharon
The hardest speech of all…
Last week I attended my Husband’s Godmother’s funeral. 20 years ago if I read that a 70-year-old woman had died of cancer I would have thought “Oh well… she had a good innings” Today 70 seems too young.
Marlene was an attractive, vivacious, young at heart woman. She was up to her ears in Grandkids, golf, friends and even working in her Son’s business even through her illness. My Mother-in-law had to prepare a short eulogy… she was Marlene’s longest friend they had known each other since they were two years old and had even built homes across the road from each other as newlyweds. She came to me a couple of days before the funeral and said she didn’t know how she was going to do it as she was afraid of breaking down.
I shared with her a secret told to me by an Adelaide newsreader who had to cope with reading emotional stories. Here it is: When you walk up to the lectern, get your sharpest fingernail and dig it into your thumb. The pain distracts you enough so you are able to focus on your story and the message you want to get across. It helped me cope with delivering my Fathers eulogy 7 years ago and is the only way I know of presenting highly emotional topics.
If you ever are faced with delivering the hardest speech here are some other tips to help you out:
1. Share a real experience.
Stories are powerful. A funeral is an opportunity to remember and celebrate the life of the person. Tell the audience how you met this person and some of the things you did together. During my Fathers eulogy I spent 5 minutes talking about his fishing shorts and his love of fishing.
2. It can be humourous
As they say ‘Yesterdays tragedy is today’s funny story’. At Marlene’s funeral a friend of the family talked about Marlene’s poor driving ability and how several accidents occurred when she was craning her neck out the window of her car to watch a bride arrive at the church.
3. Have a plan
Start with a large sheet of paper and do a mindmap of what you want to say. Cross off that which is too painful to talk about or stories that maybe irrelevant to the audience and put the best three stories in the order that flows best. Add an introduction and a conclusion and voila – you have a structured and planned presentation.
4. Use (some) notes.
You don’t need to write out your speech word for word, remember, your speech is just a collection of stories told by you. Type your notes in size 16 font so they can be read easily from the lectern but keep them in point form – just enough to trigger your memory. For ease of use put them in a folder with plastic sleeves so they stay flat and sit well on the lectern
5. Lastly, tell the audience what this person means to you.
This is the hardest of all and is best left till last. Take a deep breath and keep it brief. If you feel it is needed make sure you have an ‘exit strategy’. That is someone who can come up to help you deliver the rest of the presentation or walk you to your seat.
This is the hardest speech you will ever have to do – I have been delivering speeches now for over 20 years and have spoken at conferences across Australia in front of thousands of people, but it all pales into insignificance compared to the 7 minute speech I gave on the 23rd of December 2003. It is an honour to be asked to deliver a eulogy. With a bit of thought and by following the tips above you will be able to share some special memories and give some comfort to the people who came to remember a special person.
THE GRAB - How to grab their attention and make your message stick! 