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Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog

Resources to improve your public speaking and presentation skills.

16Nov

The Value of Volume When You Speak

What do I mean by the value of volume? The amount of sound we make when speaking in public has impact far beyond simply people being able to hear us. And it doesn't matter if you're highly experienced, or new and nervous: working with aspects of volume is a great way to access greater courage or presence. 1. Let's look at volume and nerves first: If you're anxious, your system tends to shrink and contract. And you may recognise any of these as a result: low breath, low energy, mind-blanks. This contraction happens to both your mind and your body...one follows the other: and the...

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19Oct

Low Clarity Equals Low Impact When Presenting

A super-short video on how low clarity equals low impact and why it's so common when speaking in public or giving a presentation. Whether you're experienced or just starting out, it's easy to forget this. And if we're not clear for our audience, we're in trouble. It's obvious, isn't it? If you want to have any chance of being paid attention to, let alone remembered: being clear about your goals, your message(s) and your audience is essential. So why is it so common for this not to happen? There's one big reason that can then lead into lots of smaller ones. The transcript...

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07Sep

Asked a Difficult Question? One Way to Navigate Away

Do you struggle with knowing what to say when asked a difficult question? One way to navigate away from it is by using a specific 'attention-directing' technique. Whether it's being hit with a tricky question during a meeting or presentation, or caught in a 1:1 situation and don't want your answer to be "I don't know" or "I'm not sure": here's a redirecting technique that can get you out of trouble: Asked a difficult question? One way to navigate away Zoom in or zoom out. 1. Zoom in: this is where you redirect by saying something like: “That’s taking a broad focus, which isn't within...

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18Aug

Speaking Too Fast When Presenting

If you find that you're regularly speaking too fast when presenting, there can be many reasons for this. Nerves, enthusiasm for your topic, or your natural speaking style are just a few. And when this happens and your mouth is moving faster than your brain, it's easy to feel out of control and say something you don't intend to, stumble or make mistakes. Is this typically you when you speak? You can end up gabbling and accelerating, sometimes chaotically, to the end. And breathing properly? Demonstrating presence? Forget that! Presence doesn't exist when we're not present - and rushing means exactly that. Instead,...

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10Jul

For More Influence, Try Grounded Cognition

What does your brain do when you hear the word 'pepper'? What about 'grasp'? Or 'hat'? All these words fire up not just your language circuits, but different senses through other relevant brain circuitry. 'Pepper' activates your taste circuits. 'Grasp', your motor movement circuits. 'Hat' - visual circuits. Whatever you see as a hat from past experience fires up the 'seeing' part of your brain. To influence more effectively, we can improve our chances of motivating our audiences by using language that's: Concrete Specific We'll come back to examples of these in a moment. By being concrete and specific, we build a richer, more powerful experience for...

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02Jun

A Key Audience Engagement Piece

Want to engage your audiences more effectively? Remember this key point: the audience nearly always takes their cue from us. If we want them to be more than just informed by our presentation - and we usually do - we need to enable them to follow our lead easily. To motivate, lift, persuade or inspire...all of these need us as the speaker to model that behaviour. I'm not talking about being over the top - unless that's your style. Often quite subtle tweaks make all the difference. Here's how to think of it: An example from music I once worked with a conductor (in my...

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04May

Exhaustive Detail = Exhausted Audience

Exhaustive detail = exhausted audience! If you've ever been in an audience and suffered through a stuffed - and possibly rushed - presentation, you'll probably relate to today's topic in exhaustive detail Cramming too much content into a talk or presentation is a bit like somebody feeding us, and continuing to put food into our mouth before we get the chance to swallow…let alone digest! We end up feeling bloated, distracted and uncomfortable. So if we now flip perspective, and you're the speaker or presenter: do you ever find yourself stuffing too much in? Cantering to the finish line to try to get through everything? I used to do...

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24Feb

4 Steps to Stay in Control when Challenged by an Audience Member

If you speak regularly in front of groups, at some point you're probably going to have your ideas, opinion or control challenged. And it may not be a perspective you hold lightly. Sometimes audience members can touch a nerve or challenge a deeply held value…if this has ever happened to you, you'll know that it can hit hard. Or perhaps you're not holding a strong viewpoint, but simply feel a bit raw that day: something in your life isn't working, or you feel vulnerable or unwell. I've certainly had to step up and run a group or speak to an audience while...

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27Jan

To Influence, Think White Space, Not White Noise

To influence, think white space, not white noise Just as visual white space designed into documents and slides is a very good thing, so is verbal white space in meetings, presentations and conversations. Visual white space allows the content to breathe and to be digested without cognitive strain. Verbal white space does exactly the same. Ideas and solutions need room to be conjured up, and to be heard. White space in this sense could be seen as a metaphor for communication opportunities. How often do we get white noise instead? It's everywhere nowadays! So much certainty, so much content being churned out. It's relentless. And...

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27Jan

For Confident Public Speaking, Be On Your Own Side

For confident public speaking, be on your own side   Speaking confidently when speaking in public, a skill often referred to as "confident public speaking," can be challenging, to state the obvious. And sometimes people don't make it easy for themselves either: their self-talk is harsh and critical. Maybe you recognise yourself here. There are ways to counteract this negative self-talk, without turning it into a fight. One of these concepts, learned from U.S. psychologist Rick Hanson, can aid us in accessing inner strength and capacity: "Be on your own side". And I thought of this phrase specifically this morning when receiving emails from a...

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