janice's posterous

Legal Marketing Association ~ March 3/10

Presentation Skills

I have only one skill that I want you to learn today. Yes, just one...

Keep it Simple

My job is to persuade both you and my clients that no one wants to listen to a brain dump. In todays world there isn’t the time to listen and really people don’t care. Clients just want the facts. Yes, a presentation needs to be engaging but it must be clear, concrete, and sticky.

As for introductions - Do you care if my curriculum vitae is 20 pages long? Do you care if I have travelled the world? Do you care if I donate to three charities and the history behind those charities?

But what you do care about is if I have the credentials to be up here, whether I can answer the questions that you have been thinking about, and if you can come away with new ideas.

Janice Tomich
Presentation Designer
Bachelor of Professional Communications
Analyzer of Presentations 
And Winston Churchill is my hero - yes, I’m a geek...

What I am particularly good at - is keeping it simple - not dumbed down, but information in its purest form - the skill that is needed to be a good speaker and designer of presentations

Flip Chart 

One word descriptor of a great presentation

One word descriptor of a bad presentation

Let’s get the elephant out of the room right away.

Hand up everyone

Please sit down if you equate public speaking to root canals
if you think of public speaking as a necessary evil
if you will volunteer to present but do so reluctantly
if you like public speaking but don’t love it

So do I understand that those left standing love public speaking?  

A dirty little secret to share with you all - I’ve been on both sides of the fence. In high school the thought of public speaking made my knees turn to jelly. I used batting eyelashes to convince male teachers to excuse me from speaking. Returning to academia at a mature age has turned me around. And the more I do it the more it fuels a desire to improve and give others the bug.

I don’t believe in Fear of Public Speaking - it really is lack of confidence in yourself public speaking and presenting. There is that simplification process again.

But I do know that we all feel an adrenaline rush when we are in front of an audience. It is the flight or fright response. The speaker is standing alone in front of the pack. This is your opportunity and use the adrenaline to your advantage.

Index Card 

Worst thing that can happen
Best thing that can happen

Discussion

Relaxation techniques

Blowing out a candle
Hands at side - thumb and index fingers touching

Three key point structure

  1. Public Speaking Skills
  2. Content
  3. Visuals

PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILLS

Assumptions and Impressions are made in the first 30 seconds

#1   Your introduction should be made by your host - and you should write the introduction - make it short (clear, pointed & concise)

#2   Don’t apologize for your poor public speaking skills or lack of preparation - that would be insulting the audience and not respecting their time

#3          Voice modulation 
Very from high to low
  Light to loud
  Quickly & slowly

#4          Facial Expressions 
              Varied but not over the top
Smile - situational

   

Eye Contact
Pause your gaze for a few seconds on a 3 - 4  people in the audience (connect to the audience)

    Unfocused gaze at the back of the room - providing a broad scope of your room awareness and 
  appears that you are focussing on someone in the back

#5           Speech habits 
  The ums, ahs, err’s
  The remedy is silence
                (Mine is .... so)

#6           Do not turn your back to the audience

#7   Do not read your slides 

Along with keep it simple, this ranks second....

Be yourself, comfortable, show the audience who you are - this is the cornerstone of being a quality speaker (and not everyone will like you and that’s ok) 

In order to speak to you today I had to consider the parameters of how to present (the level of professionalism to speak to) but I also had to take into account who I am. I tend to be informal, like to have fun while I work, and am I need to be fully engaged. 

If I had decided that this audience was very formal, I still need to be me - perhaps turn me down a notch but not resort to super-professional. My presentation would bomb if I am not myself. There are times that you may need to make the difficult decision of whether you are the correct presenter for the occasion. Audiences can spot a phony easily - if you default to a rubber stamp persona, you set yourself up for failure.

CONTENT

Opening 

 

Hook them on entry - a shocking stat, a story, or a joke (caveat only if you are a good joke teller)

Audience
  • preaching to the choir
-  drive home how important audience and how easy it is to veer off course 
  • drilled Catherine twice about this audience
  • while writing the outline for today I often referred back to my notes on specifics of this audience
  • and it is why, although audience is the most important part of presentation I will be brief with it because as marketers you get it.
  • a word of caution it is easy to bask in the light and make it about you!

Touch on engagement strategies:
speak to audience member before presentation  - also helps with audience analysis

Focus/Content 

  • Speak to a Core Message 
  • with three supporting key messages
  • Concrete strategy - do not speak in abstractions 
  • To be sticky and memorable the content must be concrete and be unexpected
  • Think urban legends - Vanishing hitchhiker or insure that you scrub cans before opening because of rodent droppings
  • Don’t always give it all away - leave the audience thinking and wanting more

Storytelling

  • Connects the speaker to the audience
  • Gives the audience a peak into the human side of the speaker
  • We all know how to tell stories, we grew up with the, and when we communicate with friends and colleagues we tell them
  • Again - simple - there is nothing worse than a diatribe - the person who doesn’t know when to finish his story
  • A story facilitates a visual connection and generates concrete argument 
  • The Heath Bros. use the example of Michael Moore’s film Sicko where he doesn’t talk about bad health care but he gives examples - he interviews a carpenter that must choose between fingers to reattach - he lets the carpenter tell the story which exemplifies the US heath care problems
  • Think about which is more compelling raw data or the story that creates the data

Closing

Rinse and Repeat
- Tell your audience again your core message and your  3 supporting key messages

Visuals

-  No bullet points
-  High ratio of image vs text
-  Distill charts to the lowest common denominator & hand out complicated stats at the end of the session
-  Continuity - use a colour palette and maximum two fonts 
  •  
    •  
      • san serif for the heading
      • and serif for the content
  • Use white space
  • Full bleed is desirable and powerful
  • Rule of thirds
  • Blank slides in your slidedeck for a visual rest & audience focus on speaker
  • Number of slides - Situational - Use only what you need to use - error on the side of less is more

-  Tooble (download free software to embed Youtube videos)

Practice - Practice - Practice

Story of Jose

Winston Churchill

Online Resume/Job Application Discussion

Questions

Hand out folders

Ask that evaluations be completed

Working session offer - 2 people 

778-327-8861 

Twitter: janicetomich

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