Presentation skills - Energizing Your Presentation

Have you ever been to a boring presentation? Many of us have, and most of them are boring because there is no life or passion in what the speaker is saying. People remember more of what they see and hear to the contrary of what they read. But to be truly memorable, we need to add some 'life to what we present.

So, how can we add life to our presentations and wake up the audience?

Still nervous?

In a sense, getting nervous before speaking is a good thing, if you know how to properly channel the nervous energy and use it productively to enhance your presentation. Think of yourself as a vapor, boiling pot. You have two choices. You can try to keep the internal energy, or you can unleash and use it to help revitalize the presentation, in essence, letting the steam out of the pot.

Too often, presenters choose to burn the nervous energy from restlessness, holding or grasping at things, walking or rocking back and forth.

Learn how to deliver this energy productively. This will make you feel more comfortable and help you look better. You can also start to enjoy your presentation, you can relax, and the audience feels.

Working from the bottom up, we start with the feet and a balanced attitude.

Rebalance your location

The first thing is to take a position that is both balanced and also allows you to avoid or walk or want to rock back and forth. Presenters often oscillate back and forth, lean to one side, or step around the room in an unconscious attempt to burn all that extra energy that the flight-or-fight syndrome had filled his body with. Since the buttocks and the quads are the major muscle groups of the body, the brain knows that by moving these muscles, the body can burn the greatest amount of excess energy per unit of time. Unfortunately, none of these movements helps your cause. They do nothing but distract from the message and send a telegram to the public that you're really nervous. This is not the message you want to transmit.

You do not have to be like Yul Brynner in "The King and I" with the way meters, or drag like John Wayne. Consider instead a comfortable balanced attitude.

This means that the hands comfortably down the sides (neutral) with your feet slightly apart and weight evenly distributed on the balls of your feet. Use your knees as shock absorbers to support upper body comfortably. This will help to avoid favoring one party over another, and "rocking" back and forth.

Pacin 'the Cage

Can you take a step forward or back from time to time? Yes, but do not start dancing or rocking (We call this the hula-hoop). Try to stay in one place without sounding like a tree firmly rooted in the soil. Walking back and forth continuously, without any apparent reason, usually drives the public crazy. Yes, a couple of overzealous motivational speakers or mid-night TV kitchen appliance vendors can get away with it, but generally do not fly in the business world.

On the other hand, if you want to pause and take a few steps forward to explore this special spot or take a step back to reflect and consider something, that's fine But constant unintentional movement is weak.

With your hands properly

Then, determine what you will learn with their hands and gestures from the shoulders, not your elbows. Use your hands to describe and emphasize. Drop your hands down by your side (neutral position) when you're starting your speech or gestures when you're done.

When you act the fool, your gestures become more emphatic. If everything comes from the central position of the magnet seems to be stuck in a phone booth. Drop your hands down at your sides for many is difficult to do without constant practice. With most people's hands immediately go together like magnets or start grabbing things like clothing, body parts like your face, or they go back in your pocket.

If it comes to increasing sales, we show by raising your arm. If we speak of something to reduce the cost, once again, show us and make sure that the gesture is different from that used for increased sales. It 'amazing how many presenters use the exact same gesture to an increase in the desire to decrease. This is confusing.

Keep in mind that gesturing helps you think. Have you ever noticed any-one who speaks on the phone? What they do with the other hand is not holding the phone? They constantly act and gesture. Why? Because it helps them to think and helps them find the right words. Gesturing helps to relax and find the correct box. And, you have something to do with those damn arms!

Finally, certainly not want to seem robotic, but most of us need to think about how we will act for any concept that we are presenting, and how we will bring our attention to life with movement of the hand of the event. It takes time and practice, and should be carefully considered.

Peggy Noonan is used to say, speaking of the audience, "They do not care how much you know until they know how much you care." Appropriate gestures, get your body involved in the delivery process, is the easiest and most emphatically to show your passion for the topic ....