You’re booked for a presentation. The months and weeks pass as your deadline approaches. I’ll work on the presentation tomorrow, you tell yourself. Time doesn’t stand still, yet your progress has stalled. All too often, good presentations fall short of becoming stellar presentations because of a bad habit of procrastination. Why do we procrastinate? There […]
Speaking Tips
Lost Your Audience? Ideas to Get them Back when Speaking
You delivered a killer introduction that grabbed your audience’s attention. Now ten minutes into your presentation, you begin to see the tell tale signs that you are losing them. This happened to me when I first starting teaching on the collegiate level many years ago; I would get frustrated. The course material was mostly theory, […]
Keeping Your Instrument Fine-Tuned
Recently, I woke up to a raspy voice on the day after I delivered a full day workshop. Why was my throat so sore and my voice not its usual self? Maybe it had something to do with how I had taken for granted my most valuable asset as a speaker – my voice. With […]
The One Big Thing That Every Speaker Should Do to Improve
What do you do after you have delivered your speech or presentation? If you are like most, you might or might not receive evaluations from your audience or meeting planner. Most likely, you packed your belongings and began preparations for the next engagement. And if you received evaluations from your audience, you possibly tweaked your […]
4 Ways to Grab the Attention of Your Audience
Gaining your audience’s attention at the beginning of your presentation is crucial for two reasons: your audience will remember the first things you say (primacy effect), and they will decide to stay engaged with you. Here are 4 ways to start your presentation on the right path for engagement. 1. Pause. There is immense power […]
5 Ways to Enhance Your Credibility as a Speaker
Like it or not, your audience, not you, decides on your credibility as speaker. Credibility is characterized as a speaker’s competence (knowledge of his/her subject matter) and character (trustworthiness and goodwill towards his/her audience). A speaker’s credibility can be a moving target as it can vary from audience to audience, and it can even change […]