Free public-speaking class (in Sydney, via @AuthenticBen)

The best 2 hours I’ve ever spent…

Are you serious about wanting to improve your public speaking? If so, do yourself a favour and listen to what Benjamin J Harvey has to say about it. I did that last Wednesday night, and it was probably the best 2 hours I’ve ever spent on improving my presentation skills!

What a great move that was!

Ben’s a Sydney-based entrepreneur who offers occasional free public-speaking workshops. As I’m in Sydney too, and his workshop happens just every few months, I skipped a meeting of my Toastmasters club and went along. What a great move that was!

Why so great? There are 3 factors:

Secret #3 of star presenters: @NakedPresenting on preparing

Ask yourself, honestly: How long will you spend preparing your next presentation? It can be a long process of course. Yet, it’s likely you’ll often get distracted by your other work and not get to spend the time your talk needs. Or your slides may become so vital to your talk – or so detailed – that you spend nearly all your available prep time grooming them.

So with that in mind, consider this quote from Emma Sutton (@NakedPresenting on Twitter), who’s a presentation coach and blogger in the UK:

2½ reasons why (to me) Seth Godin’s wrong about how many words to put on your slide

Check out this startling quote by author Seth Godin about how many words you should put on a slide:

“No more than six
words on a slide.
Ever.”

(If you’d like to see the quote in context, it’s the 1^st item in the numbered list on page 7 of this PDF.)

Are you wondering where he got the magic number 6 from? I certainly am. (Sadly he doesn’t say. So Seth, if you ever happen to read this, I’d love to know why you chose the number 6.)

Apart from the seemingly arbitrary nature of Seth’s rule (which is the “½” reason mentioned in this post’s title), let’s focus on 2 types of helpful slide content that the rule would severely hamper:

How to FIX the #1 mistake when you present online

Have you read my recent post called Do you make this #1 mistake when you present online? If you have, you’ll know it asserts that the top mistake of online presenters is time-wasting, and it names 3 of the biggest symptoms:

• Spending too long on introductions
• Staying on the same slide too long
• Fixating on interaction instead of value

In that earlier post, you’ll find those 3 problems laid out, but you won’t find any solutions. So that’s where this post comes in.

Below, you’ll find ways to solve each of those 3 problems:

Why present? JFK said it all…

On her excellent public-speaking blog, Dr Michelle Mazur published a post this week called The Most Overlooked Step in Creating Great Presentations. In it, she says (if you’re like most people) you’re likely to start preparing for a talk by making slides, whereas you’d be better served by first working out what type of talk you’ll give:

Do I want my audience to know something,
to do something immediately after my talk,
or to feel something?

I agree about how most speakers prepare, as I wrote here, but I disagree about there being 3 types of presentations:

• Informative (Know something)
• Emotive (Feel something)
• Persuasive (Do something)

Let me explain why I disagree with that 3-part model.

Do you make this #1 mistake when you present online?

What’s your most precious resource? Think about it for a second.

Don’t spend long though, because I’d say:

The answer’s your time!

It’s precious because it’s a finite resource for which competition is fiercer than ever.

No prizes, then, for guessing what your audience’s most precious resource is. Yup, they’re time-hungry too, just like you and me.

So what’s the number-1 mistake presenters make, especially online?

When you speak, how often and how long should you pause? Best answer: “Try 1-2-3”

You might have heard public-speaking experts recommend pausing when you’re presenting. But how often – and for how long – should you pause during your talk?

Secret #2 of star presenters: @ConnieDieken on confidence [Video]

When you speak in public, do you speak boldly? According to Connie Dieken, former news anchor and author of Talk Less, Say More, speaking boldly is one of 3 ways you can avoid stumbling for words.

In her 4-minute video below, she says:

“Either deliver [your talk] boldly or stay home”

If you’d like to see Connie’s quote in context, you can either skip to the relevant part (3’07”) of her video on YouTube, or watch some or all of the 4-minute clip right here:

 

Connie’s quote really struck a chord

Connie’s quote really struck a chord with me personally, because after my most recent speech at Toastmasters, the evaluator had encouraged me to speak more boldly, for more impact.

Building confidence as a speaker is one of the main reasons many people join Toastmasters – it was certainly my main reason. And because fear of public speaking is so common, it’s highly likely you want to be a more confident speaker, too.

What can you do, then, to build your confidence and speak more boldly?
For a start, try these 6 tips:

How consistent should you make your slides? (I say “Go for cohesion instead”)

Has anyone ever said you should make your slides more consistent? What was the issue, and how did you respond? (I’d love you to leave a comment at the end of this post with your own thoughts and experiences on consistency.)

Last week, speaking coach Susan Trivers wrote a short post called Avoid uniformity for the sake of uniformity. It resonated so much with me – and consistency is probably a hot topic for you too – so I hope you find both this post and Susan’s helpful.

Susan wrote:

“During a recent discussion …people were pushing for [several slides’] titles to read either Improvements or Innovations, even though what was being proposed [on the slides] were neither all of one or all of the other.”

Here’s my 1^st thought on those slides:

Here’s the RIGHT way to show your company logo on your slides – Be distinctive (not dismissive)

Do you use a PowerPoint template with your employer’s logo on every slide? If so: Yikes! Having your logo on every slide just creates “blur”, or noise. By that I mean it subtly distracts your audience, because it doesn’t help them to understand or remember your specific message.

Don’t just take my word for it, though – these 3 experts make the same point: