Presenting with Power

Dear Friend

Making presentations, whether in small groups where you have to put forward your monthly figures or targets, on a one-to-one with your boss, or to a large group of 50 or more people can be nerve wracking at best and career limiting at worst! The facts are that we usually overcomplicate the whole thing. Presenting to people, whether on a small or large scale should be informative, engaging and useful - and that applies to both the giver and the receiver. So why is it they are often confusing, boring and unimaginative? A huge number of corporate hours are lost putting together endless PowerPoint slides that lose the audience in their intricacies or bore people with their content and length. So where do we start?

LiveChange’s one-day programme, followed by individual follow-up coaching delivers an intensive mixture of the essentials that you need to make an impact in everything you present. It contains a mixture of theory, discussion and hands on practice (using video playback). The programme can be run as it stands or customised around your key areas of organisational or personal focus. At its root lies LiveChange’s techniques for enabling behaviour change – in this case yours!

1. Preparation

"Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond our control" - Richard Kline

a. Your audience
Whether you are presenting to your monthly peer group, having a meeting with a boss or subordinate or preparing for a major presentation you always start by thinking about your audience. In the same way that you should ‘write for your readers’ you should ‘speak for your audience’. In this first session we will explore a series of questions to enable you to better understand your audience, their expectations and what you need to consider for your presentation to them.

b. Create the story
Any presentation should be like a story. It should have a start that really engages people and excites them about what is to come. It should have a middle where the substance of what you need to say is delivered and it should have an end that reminds people what you have said, gives them something key to remember and perhaps has a ‘call to action’. This second session looks at how to plan ‘the storyline’ for a presentation.

c. Media
There are many ways to deliver a presentation and an over reliance on the ubiquitous PowerPoint is a mistake. This session looks at the various options available. How to use visuals and text, how to integrate different media through the presentation, and what sorts of media to use in different settings.

d. Logistics

• Rehearsal. Rehearsing the presentation is crucial for a variety of reasons: timings, familiarity with the material and ultimately confidence. The most important thing about rehearsing is so that by the time you come to present you know exactly what it is you are going to say and how you are going to say it.
• Timing. If someone asks you to fill a 30 minute slot, consider what it is you want to say, before you agree to the length of the presentation. Your presentation may need to be 15 or 40 mins depending on what you want to get over. There is nothing worse than rambling on to fill time.
• Setting up. What to consider when setting up to present. Flip chart(s), remote control to advance slides, water, sound system, etc.

e. Staying calm
For most people any form of speaking to groups can be stressful (and often the bigger the group, the more trepidation you feel). You can take away much of this stress through the right preparation, however on the day a dry mouth, quicker breathing and increased perspiration is quite normal. So how do you deal with this and what is the best way to look as though you have no nerves at all? This session will give you techniques and tips to controlling your nerves before you start your presentation.

2. Delivery

"There is no such thing as expecting too much" – Susan Cheever

a. Body language
This is a key area of presentation as are all the non-verbal areas. Great body language demonstrates passion, emphasises your key points and engages your audience. Poor body language has the reverse effect. However, like all aspects of presentation skills, there is no one size fits all. What you use and how you use it will depend on the occasion and the audience, the size of the audience and the topic of your presentation. In this session we will practice different ways of using body language. The key is that it must look and feel natural.

b. Voice
How many times have you found someone boring in the way they try to get something across? Seeing yourself on video and hearing your own voice can help enormously. This session will look at how to use passion, intonation and pauses to great effect.

c. Movement
How much should you move during a presentation? What is the best way to present in a meeting? Should you stand or sit, and when do you use a flip chart for maximum effect? Is it distracting to your group or audience, or does it help to engage them? Where should you move to and when should you move and stop? All these and more are explored in this session.

d. Dress
Everyday, when you leave your house and go to work you are 'on'. When you are on your feet talking to a group of people, you are ultimately ‘marketing’ yourself. People will look at you and make judgements, not just about the content of what you have to say and its relevance to them, but about how you look, what you are wearing and any mannerisms you have. In this session we will discuss all aspects of dress and your ‘personal brand’.

e. Putting it all into practice
Having discussed and seen video examples of all the elements of delivery, we will practise, all the elements of delivering a powerful presentation.

3. Follow-up Coaching
"When you learn something new always think, 'how could I apply this to my life?'"

Following the one-day programme, participants will discuss and agree on-going individual coaching they require on any aspects of putting the programme in practice.

Want to find out more?

If you would like to find out more then get in touch by email or phone and we can talk through your requirements, either for an individual, a team or even a department.

At LiveChange we have a whole variety of programmes that we have run with our clients over the years. Here are some related programmes that may interest you:

• Managing Change
• Creativity in Teams
• Facilitation Skills

For a full understanding of what we do visit our Website at www.livechange.co.uk

Kind regards

Ian