If you are preparing a presentation, you need to learn how to structure a presentation, in order for your message and purpose to come across effortlessly as well as ensure that the audience is engaged throughout the entire presentation. Having the right structure is important.
Public speaking can be one of the most daunting experiences in life. It can be nerve-wracking to stand up in front of a group of people and talk about your ideas. It becomes even more intimidating when the group you have to present to gets bigger and bigger.
However, you don’t have to let your anxiety for public speaking holds you back from achieving your goals and following your dreams. You can take the necessary steps to overcome your fear and become a successful public speaker.
At Speak with Persuasion, we spend a lot of time focusing on who you are as a speaker, with that building on your confidence and taking away nerves. We have a lot of experience with it ourselves and have read a lot of books on the topic. In this article, we want to share some of the best books that can help you in overcoming your public speaking anxiety.
Author: Mike Acker
This book focuses on 7 strategies you can use in your battle to anxiety. The book gives you the understanding to develop a new and positive mindset towards public speaking. This guide to public speaking is very relatable. The book is great for those that really have a big anxiety for speaking in public. The author touches on the psychological sides of public speaking and writes very understandable.
Author: Clare Cairns
Clare Cairns, a very experienced speaker, shares her tips and inside theatrical knowledge of how to deliver a great presentation without anxiety. Clare has a great understanding of people, which shows in her writing. If you feel like you cant do it, Clare’s book will definitely help.
The short book can serve as a quick guide or a check list when preparing for an important speech or presentation. It is clearly written and has some good exercises in it.
Author: Fred Miller
In our training sessions we pay a lot of attention to perception of the audience. This book will show you how If you speak, people consider you to be an Expert. Perception is reality. This angle is important in the tips and tricks presented by Fred Miller.
Anyone who does any type of speaking or teaching in front of groups can benefit from this book. The book focuses a lot on the how to but with that addresses the fear of public speaking indirectly. By looking at techniques, the fear goes away.
Author: Perez Dalton
How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking is a guide for people who want to break the chains of fear when making a speech or presentation. The book has step by step guidelines teaching you to be better and more comfortable in speaking in front of groups.
Author: Bas van den Beld
Of course, we have to highlight our list of tips and tricks that will help you become a better speaker. In this book, you can find 50 of the best tips Bas shares with his students. Next to public speaking tips, you get tips on structuring a presentation, persuasion and handling nerves.
These tips and exercises will help you become a better speaker and conquer your anxiety at the same time.
The best way to learn how to be a great communicator is by watching people who are already good at it.
Look for people who have the following qualities:
They listen. They don’t just wait until they can talk again. They’re listening, waiting to hear what you have to say, and then responding to your point of view.
They say what they mean and mean what they say. They’re direct and honest, and when they make an apology, it means something.
They’re flexible and open-minded in their approach to problems. They don’t get stuck on their own ideas because they know that there are always other ways of looking at things.
They use positive language — not negative or critical language — when communicating with others (and themselves). For example: “I want this done,” instead of “This needs doing.”
Do you know people who do this will? Start looking at them a bit closer and learn from them!
As Hamlet said to Horatio, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
A lot of people are afraid of things like public speaking, speaking out or networking for example. They are afraid because of something called “Negative cognitive bias”.
Negative cognitive bias refers to the tendency to focus on negative or dangerous outcomes rather than rewarding ones. If you are biased toward negative outcomes, if you are looking for them, they will become true.
Most people that are afraid will recognise that they tend to talk negatively about whatever they are afraid of, even if they’re not actively involved in them. The words “public speaking” alone can make some people feel negative.
Do you recognise sentences like “I know I will fail” or “I will forget what I have to say when I’m on stage”? You are not alone.
To change this, you need to develop a positive mindset. That is easier said than done, but it is doable!
You can do this by reorganising the negative thinking. This is called cognitive restructuring. It means going from a negative reaction to a positive mindset.
Here’s how it works:
Create three columns on a piece of paper. In the first column, write down a list of examples of negative self-talk that you use. You could write down sentences like “I’m not a good public speaker” or “I am bad at networking” for example.
The next step involves the second column on the page. Next to your negative self-talk, write down a positive statement that can help you. For example “I can learn to speak” or “there are people that can help me with this” next to the negative sentences above.
In the third column you complete the list where you turn around all the statements. “This is a make-or-break-situation,” becomes “If it doesn’t go great, it’s only one speech” and so on.
Look at the list and you will feel better already. And keep looking at this list until you feel more confident!
This is an example from the e-mailseries on Speak with Persuasion. Sign up here or below!
How often do you say the word “uhm” or “um” when you talk? Probably a lot. Because many people do. These words are called “filler words”. But how can you fix this?
When you use filler words, you are thinking out loud. And that’s where the solution to stop saying “uhm” lies.
Bas van den Beld explains
When you are presenting, in pitching, on a stage or in a training session, it’s important to think about your pitch vocabulary: what words to use. There are two words you should avoid.
These are two words you are using a lot in your pitches, probably without realizing it. These two words can make you lose your pitch in an instant. Subconsciously, your audience will hear something that will make them doubt you if you use these words. What to say instead? What should be part of your pitch vocabulary? The answer is in the video!
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Because of the Corona virus, of lot more people are creating videos. They do this to connect with their peers, to show what they are doing.
It’s good that so many people do this. It helps create connections, it helps show that you are still out there. Creating videos is now a huge part of making yourself more visible.
Like with speaking in front of ‘real people’ however, you need to pay attention to what you are doing. A video can be very useful, but it has to be good.
Many of those that are now creating videos, are making some simple mistakes. I made those mistakes as well. And when corrected, the videos became a lot better!
In this video I will show the 12 most common mistakes made when ‘vlogging’ or creating a video.
The late opera singer Luciano Pavarotti was not just a great singer, he was also a very loveable person.
There is a video on the web where Pavarotti answers questions from the audience. The questions are about the most embarrassing moments that he ever had while on stage.
The way that Pavarotti answers these questions are a great example of what you can learn to become more loveable to your audience.
Become more loveable on stage, during a meeting or in a face-to-face talk using three things that Pavarotti did.
For some speakers building slide decks can be difficult. They spend hours crafting them. They add images, they add text and in some cases too many bullets. When they then get on stage, the presentation doesn’t work.
They don’t work, not because the speaker isn’t good, but because the slide deck isn’t working.
These speakers don’t know how to use slide decks to benefit their talks. Instead, the slide decks prevent them from doing a good talk!
These speakers often don’t understand why they have slides in the first place. With some changes however, they could make their slides work for them.
I want to point out three important elements when it comes to slides to you. If you stick by these rules, your slides will instantly become better.
The biggest element in communication is not your words, it’s your body language. What you say with your body is more important than what you say with your mouth.
Being able to communicate with your body makes that your impact on an audience can be much bigger.
That’s because your body brings emotion to the story.
In the last video we discussed how World Champion Public Speaking 2015, Mohammed Qathani, uses some smart techniques that help him capture the attention of the audience.
In this video, we break down how Qathani uses body language to make a more powerful story.
You’ve only got 30 seconds to grab the attention of your audience. That’s a very short time. It means you have to do it right!
In the first 30 seconds, the audience is going to decide whether or not they will trust you. They will make up their minds in regards of like-ability, trustworthiness and whether or not you are worth their time.
This means you have to pay attention to the first 30 seconds!
The World Champion Public Speaking 2015, Mohammed Qathani, uses some smart techniques that help him capture the attention of the audience early.
In this video, we break down three steps Qathani used in his winning talk. You can use these steps to right away capture the attention of your audience.
For some, presenting is a need. For others, it’s something they love doing and want to do more. But can you make a career out of it? You sure can, I did!
If you are like me, after your first talk, you will want more. Public Speaking is addictive. The applause, the connection with the audience, the fact that you are teaching others. All these elements could be reasons why you want to pursue a speaking career.
Why do we do storytelling? Because we heard we should? Or because it’s fun? Or because the audience wants it?
Yes, it is about the audience. But not because they want it, but because it changes the way they feel. If you tell a story on stage, something happens with people.
What happens? For example these things…
An important element in public speaking as well as in storytelling is to get close to your audience. The closer you get, the more powerful your story.
I recently sat in a presentation with a friend of mine next to me. After the talk, I asked my friend what he thought of the presentation.
“To be honest,” he said, “I got distracted halfway through and couldn’t get back on track after. So I missed most.”
It happens to all of us. We get distracted easy. For a speaker, that means it is crucial to put elements into their presentations that will prevent that from happening.
You want to keep your audience attention. But how? By adding in unpredictable elements to your speech. Elements that will keep your audience on their toes.
Which elements are that? Here are five.
“You all think smoking kills? Let me tell you something. Do you know that the amount of people dying from diabetes are three times as many people as dying from smoking?”
It’s how Mohammed Qahtani, 2015 World Champion Public Speaking, starts his talk ‘The Power of Words’. The statement wasn’t correct, but that wasn’t what mattered. He got what he wanted: the attention of the audience. And a chance to explain his point.
Statements and especially bold statements are a great attention grabber. You trigger people to listen to you. They want to hear how you are going to prove your statement.
Qahtani was quite extreme in his statement. You don’t have to go that far. But you can still trigger. When pitching you could, for example, say something like “We are better than Apple”.
The important part: you’ll have to prove your statement after!
A second way to get and keep the attention of your audience is to be funny. Make your audience smile and they will love you for it. Being funny is a great way to do that.
At the same time, being funny is tricky. Be careful here. Not everybody has the same humour. And you have to know the difference between being funny and telling a joke.
When it comes to being funny, timing is everything. And not too much. A funny story can help, but it has to be relatable to the topic of your talk! A good idea is to keep it personal and not insult your audience.
It is a great way to keep the attention. But as said, be careful, not everything is considered funny.
We know that people are hardwired to listen to stories. When done well, telling stories is one of the most powerful tools in a presentation. A story keeps attention because people want to hear what comes next.
Telling a short story in your presentation can do wonders for the attention. What you want to do is connect the stories to the content of your talk. In other words: make it relevant.
I often use stories in my presentations. The stories can be about my kids, about anything. But I always make sure they connect to the topic of the talk.
“According to Comscore, 25% of internet users have an ad blocker installed.”
It’s a sentence from one of my presentations. These statistics are staggering. It will make people think. “That’s a lot!” (or in some cases “that’s not much!”. Whenever I use statistics like these, I can see people look up, take pictures or write them down.
I have their attention at that point. Statistics do that. But like with the stories and fun stuff, it has to be relevant and at least a little bit bold. Telling your audience 100% of people drink water won’t help much.
The last way to get and keep attention is your slide design. We all know ‘death by PowerPoint’. Too many bullets will kill your presentation.
A great design will keep people focused. This can be the use of the right colours, but also usage of the right images.
Personally, I use a lot of animated gifs. These to me are like the pictures used in Harry Potter movies. They come to life.
With all the things you can do to keep the attention, one thing is important: it has to be relevant. It has to make sense.
To conclude, I’d like to share my favourite gif to use in presentations. Here’s why I use this gif: it’s funny, it’s relevant and it tells a story. I use it to explain how we should always be looking beyond the obvious because that’s where the real gold lies.
