Action verbs make presentations powerful.
Verbs Matter – The Right Verbs Make Your Presentation Powerful
How to Shorten Your Presentation without Losing Impact
Don’t panic. You can shorten your presentation without losing your impact.
Imagine, you’ve done all the work to prepare and rehearse a major presentation and at the last minute you’re told, “I’m so sorry, but we’re short on time. Can you give us the five-minute version?”
Is it possible to shorten a presentation without losing all of your impact? Yes. Don’t panic. After all, a sound bite is often more powerful than a lengthy dissertation. Here’s how to condense your speech without losing impact:
1. Don’t apologize or mention that you usually have much more time. Find confidence in the fact you’ve prepared. You can still get your central message across in five minutes.
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For Engineers – How to Speak Effectively at Customer Conferences
Connect with your audience, regardless of how tech-savvy they are or aren’t.
When you’re an engineer presenting at a user meeting or customer conference, you are the expert on the topic you plan to deliver to your customers. Remember, your audience does not want to know everything you know; they just need to know about the subject of your presentation.
You can connect with your audience, regardless of how tech-savvy they are, or aren’t! This approach will help ensure that your message gets across. (more…)
Criticism: How to Turn Gripes into Growth
Criticism, also known as feedback, can actually help us improve our presentation skills.
No one enjoys being criticized! Yet, if you want to succeed, you’ve got to overcome all your natural instincts and actively seek out feedback, good and bad.
As a professional speaker, I know how it is. I face my critics every week. They’re called audiences. Not only do they rate me with their applause and laughter (or lack thereof), but frequently they’re asked to complete written evaluations, providing feedback for the meeting planners. I want those meeting planners to look like heroes, so I do everything possible to keep in top form. That means that I embrace and value criticism. I study those “evals” and listen to all comments, no matter how off the mark they may seem. And, even though I’ve been an executive speech coach and a professional speaker for decades, I still ask professional peers to be my toughest critics and give their feedback.
If you want to improve, you need to develop a positive, flexible, and creative attitude toward feedback. Here are eight practical ways to make criticism a positive and harness the power of feedback for your own success. (more…)
