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- The one and only way to conquer fear is to keep doing the thing you fear to do.
- Whether your presentation is two minutes or two hours long, your audience will only remember two or three key points.
- Put this knowledge to your advantage by always deciding, in advance, what you want the key points to be. Then structure your talk around them.
- Remember the most important part of any presentation is the end. The second most important part is the beginning. An audience’s attention will be high at the beginning, gradually declines over the next twenty minutes and then rises quite steeply at the end. Make sure the message you want them to remember is delivered clearly at the beginning and the end of your presentation.
- To prepare your voice before your speech begins, try saying your phone number aloud several times over at different pitches. This only takes a few seconds but will
ensure your first words flow more smoothly. - How long do you spend preparing the content of your presentation? Remember it may only account for 7% of your effectiveness. If you always ensure you spend as much, if not more time preparing the delivery, you will dramatically improve the impact you make. Manner always wins over Matter.
- Remember the lighthouse technique. Sweep the audience with your eyes, staying only a few seconds on each person – unless it is a dialogue.
- This will give each member of the audience the impression that you are speaking to them personally and ensure attention, in the same way as a lighthouse keeps you
awake by its regular sweeping flash of light. - Above all, avoid looking at one (friendly-looking) member of the audience or at a fixed (non-threatening) point on the wall or carpet.
- Timing of a presentation is critical. Remember the 50% rule – rehearse it, time it, cut it by 50%. This will ensure that you allow for a late start or over run by previous speaker and enable you to share passing thoughts triggered by the interaction with your audience.
- Always stick to your allotted time. Over-running on a presentation is always bad because:
• The senior participants will conclude that you can’t plan.
• Non-speaking participants will stop listening and start thinking about coffee, lunch or even their next holiday. - Yawn to remove tightness in the throat. But make sure you do it before you are in front of the audience.
- Always play Powerful Presentations:
• Get into their minds.
• Get into their hearts.
• Talk in their terms.
• Tune to WIIFM.
• To be sure you have tailored your speech to the audience, play devil’s advocate and ask “how could I best offend them if I really wanted to?”
• We only remember about 5% of what we hear and 25% of what we see, but we remember a whopping 90% of what we do.
• So if you want to improve, ensure that you put into action the principles from this workshop.
• Forget the tips and the techniques, all you need is a knowledge of what you are going to talk about and a burning desire for other people to hear it.
- The one and only way to conquer fear is to keep doing the thing you fear to do.
- Whether your presentation is two minutes or two hours long, your audience will only remember two or three key points.
- Put this knowledge to your advantage by always deciding, in advance, what you want the key points to be. Then structure your talk around them.
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"If you do not raise your eyes you will think you are at the highest point"