Content - Improve Your Public Speaking Presentation and Influence Skills Training Coaching Melbourne Australia

11Jan

Persuading Through Data And Stories – What We Can Learn From Nonprofits

Persuading Through Data And Stories Updated 2019 When your goal is to persuade your audience about an idea or argument, how much do you use stories? And by story, I just mean a human example - nothing long or elaborate needed. You've probably heard about storytelling in presentations, and there are many different resources to help you use them effectively. Persuading Through Data and Stories But in my work with clients I still often see reluctance to go beyond the data - and don't get me wrong: facts, logic, data, they're all crucial. But...numbers don't engage your audience unless they understand where the numbers come...

By Sarah DenholmContent, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, SellingAndy Goodman, attaching facts to emotion, Chip and Dan Heath, Contributions Magazine, data and stories for engagement and retention, identified individual victim, Made to Stick, nonprofits use of storytelling, Paul Slovic, storytelling in presentations0 CommentsRead more...

28Dec

Three key factors which reduce speaking stress

Studying 'stress hardiness' research is part of what I do to help clients become more resilient presenters; and there's been a lot of interesting work done in this area over the past nearly 40 years by two psychologists, Salvatore Maddi and Suzanne Kobasa. They've worked with 1000's of Control, commitment and challenge - key factors which reduce speaking stress professionals and have found three critical factors in resilient people. Resilience shows up when people go through life stressors and come out the other side showing the ability to grow and thrive. (Whereas non-resilient people suffer physical and/or mental ill-health.) These three critical resilience...

By Sarah DenholmBody Language, Content, Delivery, Mindset, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, Rehearsalcalm system, challenge public speaking, commitment to public speaking role, committed to words, control when public speaking, Dr Salvatore Maddi, Dr Suzanne Kobasa, help with speaking beliefs, internal locus of control, presentation anxiety, public speaking anxiety, public speaking opportunity for growth, public speaking practice, resilient presenters, stress hardiness0 CommentsRead more...

21Jul

Bad Presentations – What’s the Biggest Problem?

Bad presentations: I've been reminded recently of a observation by Scott Berkun, a writer and speaker who's spoken at conferences all over the world. Scott's also written a great book 'Confessions of a Public Speaker'. One of the ideas in his book is something I totally agree with. Burkun says: "The problem with most bad presentations I see is not the speaking, the slides, the visuals, or any of the things people obsess about. Instead, it's the lack of thinking." You'd probably agree that this is true. No amount of being polished and eloquent with beautiful slides will save you if you...

By Sarah DenholmContent, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, RehearsalScott Berlin, winging your presentations2 CommentsRead more...

28Apr

The Best Tool to Engage an Audience?

The best tool to engage an audience Updated 2019 What's our best tool to engage an audience? Assuming that our goal when presenting is to communicate well enough that our audience understands our message and can act on it. For this to happen of course, we need initially to get their attention. And this audience interest needs to happen almost straight away, or they'll drift, and we may not get them back again. (Smartphones are always beckoning!) So how do we get their attention? One great way is to: Create curiosity. Hopefully I did that with the title of this blog post! If you're reading this,...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Content, Delivery, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blogengaging presentation, engaging speech openings, engaging with audience, high audience engagement, Simon Sinek How Great Leaders Inspire Action TED, Tony Robbins Why We Do What We Do TED talk, using questions in presentations0 CommentsRead more...

25Nov

Public Speaking Mistakes I’ve Made

Public Speaking Mistakes I've Made I've made many public speaking mistakes: especially in the early days, when I was feeling my way and still learning what worked and what didn't. So today I thought I'd give you three mistakes that I used to make - mistakes which threw up roadblocks for my audiences and stopped me being as engaging and professional as I wanted. Hopefully by sharing these errors, it might help you to avoid making them yourself! public speaking mistakes Mistake No. 1: too much content Cramming too much content into your talk: this one took me a long time to learn -...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Content, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog0 CommentsRead more...

02Apr

Audience Brains Need Structure When You Speak In Public

Audience brains need structure when you speak in public Audience Brains Need Structure What's one thing that your audience really needs from you when you speak in public? A structure. It's so important to give them a clear framework for your content. Our brains are pattern-making machines. We're constantly scanning new information for patterns which we can relate to our current knowledge base, and we subconsciously try to create a logic by comparing and sorting information. If there's no logical flow, we'll be unhappy, even though we may not consciously know why. (Of course, if the presentation we've just sat through was a rambling...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Content, Delivery, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, Structurebrain patterns, clear message, confident presentations, confident public speaking, framework for public speaking clarity, presentation structure, public speaking structure3 CommentsRead more...

09Mar

9 Mistakes Presenters Make

9 Mistakes Presenters Make Mistakes Presenters Make Do you want to be a more dynamic presenter? You will be if you avoid these frequent mistakes. I've discussed all of these ideas in previous articles, but thought it was worth clustering them together for a 'common mistakes' overview. 1. Forgetting the WIIFM filter One of the most common mistakes that presenters make is forgetting to run their whole presentation through their audience’s No.1 filter – and that is always WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) From the moment you open your mouth, to the summing-up, you’re being judged through this filter, and in order...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Body Language, Content, Delivery, Mindset, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, Rehearsal, Structureaudience management public speaking, audience recall in public speaking, body language in public speaking, energy level public speaking, presentation structure, public speaking rehearsal, stories public speaking, storytelling in public speaking, vocal tone presence public speaking0 CommentsRead more...

03Oct

Two Great Ways to Open your Talk, Especially if you’re Nervous

Make your Audience Think to Focus and Engage Them The opening of your presentation is often the part where you're most nervous or self-conscious. You're faced with pairs of eyes looking at you, the audience feels like it's one big stare, and you're not enjoying the sudden attention. What can you do to take some of the unwanted focus off yourself, and create an engaging, effective start to your speech? Here are two ways which really work: Make a statement Ask a question Keep reading, because I probably haven't convinced you that these ideas are all that startling or great just yet! I'll explain why they...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Content, Mindset, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, Selling, Structureaudience focus, engaging presentation, engaging speech openings, opening of talk, opening your speech, using questions during presentation2 CommentsRead more...

08Aug

7 Ways NOT to Open your Presentation

The opening of your talk is crucial: your main goal is to capture your audience's attention and show them why they should listen to you. It also sets the tone and direction of your presentation. This is often the time where you're most edgy, and the audience is most focused on you, so you don't want to get it wrong! So with that mind, here are some suggestions for what NOT to do at the opening of your speech. With these tips, I'm assuming that you're speaking to a group for the first time, or one which you don't know very...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Content, Delivery, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, Structureapologising at start of presentations, audience attention, audience focus, good public speaking, opening of talk, opening your speech, rapport building public speaking, using jokes in public speaking, visual aid0 CommentsRead more...

26Jun

As a presenter, should you be interesting, or interested?

Be an interested presenter, not interesting When I was younger I used to worry that I was never interesting enough as a person; I was quite shy, and never one of the cool girls...and I used to fret that I had nothing special or exciting to say socially. Well one of the great things I've found about getting older is that I've become pretty comfortable with who I am - and I no longer worry when presenting to groups that I'm not an interesting or dynamic enough speaker. I know that my content is solid, and that the right audience will...

By Sarah DenholmContent, Mindset, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog0 CommentsRead more...