Stand Up, Speak Up & Persuade 22nd July 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:

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Stand Up, Speak Up & Persuade – March 26th 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 March – 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:

Name(required)

Email(required)

Telephone number

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ

So, you need to write a speech… (Where do you start?)

In the word of Maria from the The Sound of Music:
“Let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with abc, when you sing you begin with do, re, mi…”

When you prepare a presentation you begin with an objective. It is a simple step that is overlooked constantly.

I often ask people in my workshops how they start their presentations and they tell me that they open a PowerPoint document and start typing. Before you know it, they have 40 slides of information and no objective.

Here are three steps to setting a killer objective for your next presentation.

1. Ask yourself what it is that you want?
When I ask this question a lot of people say, “I don’t know, I was just asked to give a talk.”

There should always be an objective. You may be trying to persuade the audience on a course of action, reassure them that the project is running to time or maybe you just want to get noticed in order to further your career.

2. Dig a little deeper…
Another thing I hear a lot of is: “I want to tell them or inform them of ‘x’.”

“Ok,” I say, “Why? What is it that you want the audience to do, say, think or feel?” Get specific and remember the thing that stops most of us from doing anything is how we feel. Ever found yourself saying “Hmmm I dunno, it just doesn’t feel right.” So don’t forget to address their feelings as well.

3. Create an umbrella statement
An umbrella statement is one sentence that encapsulates your talk.

What is your umbrella statement?

Here are some examples:

•”I want them to sign off on this proposal”
•”I want them to be confident and competent forklift operators”
•”I want them to be able to recognise occupational risks and know what to do about them.”

This then becomes your umbrella statement and everything else can be included underneath the umbrella. This ensures your presentation stays focused and you stay on task. It’s easy then at the end of your presentation to go back to your objective and conclude with passion.

Make your stats sing!

Maybe it is just me, but I start to hyperventilate when I see a wall of numbers. I then experience a rapid slide into narcolepsy when they say “Oh, the text is a little small… you may not be able to see this at the back.” If you are numerically impaired like me, this is your worst nightmare.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Here are three ways  to bring your facts to life and make your stats sing.

1. Make them visual

Professor Edward Tufte, a pioneer in data visualisation challenges us to do away with ‘chartjunk’  and communicate with data rich illustrations. A good starting point when using PowerPoint it is to make use of the SmartArt  tools to create diagrams and models.   

If you still feel the need to show the whole shebang, consider putting a semitransparent box over the irrelevant information and enlarging the data you want us to focus on. Or you may want to try PREZI which enables you to zoom in on specific information and see its relevance in the big picture.  

I cover these skills in my “Escaping PowerPoint Purgatory” course – contact me for more information.

2. KISS (Keep it simple, silly)

In business communication clarity is king. Your Ph.D. tells me you’re smart… Now show me how smart you really are by explaining it in a way that I get it:

• Eliminate jargon as it adds to my cognitive load and makes me feel dumb
• Structure your presentation so it is logical and easy to follow
• Simplify your graphs and diagrams so that they read like a billboard and I can see at a glance what you are trying to say
• Provide ‘snacks’ – snippets of information that I can process quickly and easily
• Put the detail in the handout.

William Butler Yeats said “Think like a wise man, but communicate in the language of the people.” This is not about dumbing down, it is about speaking simply and clearly and ensuring your message sticks.   

3. So what?

Make your statistics meaningful. In their book ‘Made to stick’ Dan and Chip Heath tell us that in surveying their students after a series of speeches, 63% of the students remember the stories and only 5% of the students remember any individual statistic.

Several years ago I heard a speech delivered by a doctor from the American Cancer Society. It was shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. This is a paraphrase of what he said:

“September 11 was a tragic day in American history. But do you realise that we have the equivalent of two jumbo jets filled with people crashing into the earth everyday as a result of death caused by preventable cancers?”

He took the ‘thousands of people who die from preventable cancers’ statistic and related it to a number we could comprehend. He also added an emotional link that made it resonate and made it memorable.

A great example of ‘making your statistics sing’ is provided in the TED talk by Hans Rosling. If you can’t watch it all – just make sure you watch it to the five minute mark.    

Tantalize the taste buds

My favourite weekend tradition is sitting in a sunny spot with a cappuccino and a crispy honey soaked crumpet to read the Weekend Australian paper cover to cover. And I never miss reading John Lethlean’s review in the Magazine.

This week he reviewed Pee Wee’s at the Point in Darwin, and he wrote:

“Dinner starts with a notice at the gate: dress code is “smart casual or at the manager’s discretion”… The tone continues with the opening page of the menu: stipulations about surcharges on certain credit cards and on public holidays and weekends and dictates on where smoking is and is not allowed.”

And as he often does, John got me thinking; a speech is a lot like a good meal – a poor first impression can leave a bad taste in your mouth that can take a while to overcome. John goes on to compliment the restaurant in several areas, but it seems his whole experience was tainted by the initial impression.

It’s the same with your speech. If you tell the audience that “this is a dry topic, but I’ll do my best” or you overwhelm them at the start with “10 learning outcomes you will know at the end of this workshop” Your audience will start to feel their stomachs churn and wish they had not booked a table at your presentation.

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.