by Bob Goodyear
Imagine that a friend stops by and asks you to come along to help with some kind of an errand. The first questions you may ask is where are you going and what are you going to be doing. Wouldn’t you want to know that?
When we present, we need to tell our audience the same things. We need to tell them where they are going and what they will be doing or hearing. We need to give them a road map of our presentation up front.
A road map helps …
Read MoreMonday, July 4th, 2016 Tags: better presentations, business presentations, PowerPoint Presentations, presentation skills
Category: Analogies, Business Presentations, Presentation Coaching, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips No Comments
by Claudia Brogan
“If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten.”
<Attributed variously to Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Mark Twain, Tony Robbins.
regardless of the origin, what matters is the point this great quote makes.>
One challenge for professional speakers who have varied topics and presentations is the creative act of coming up with new speech topics –or new approaches to topics—that they can use in training for their staffs and audiences. As a matter of fact, getting ourselves into “jams” for new ideas and new approaches can …
Read MoreMonday, June 20th, 2016 Tags: better presentations, business presentations, presentation tools, problem solving, speech and presentation, spurring creativity
Category: Business Presentations, Conference Presentations, Presentation Coaching, Presentation Tips No Comments
by Tom Nixon
Presenting data to an audience is a challenge. If we just dump a pile of numbers on the screen we can expect those “eyes glazed over” looks that PowerPoint is so famous for. To make numbers meaningful we often turn to a graph or chart to show numbers as visual relationships.
Unfortunately, PowerPoint is all too ready to help us make those many layered, three-dimensional, color coordinated graphs that are just as confusing as the raw data. As the “tour guides” of our presentation we need …
Read MoreMonday, June 6th, 2016 Tags: business presentations, Improve Your Presenation, PowerPoint Presentations, PowerPoint Slide Tips, PowerPoint Tips
Category: Business Presentations, Conference Presentations, Data and Statistics in Presentations, Graphics in Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Tips No Comments
by Natalie Gallagher
When we are scared, anxious, or excessively nervous, our body kicks into fight-or-flight mode, a natural survival instinct.
Because public speaking can be a terrifying experience for many, the brain can trigger the “flight” response, and cause us to speak as quickly as possible in order to get off the stage as soon as possible. For me, speaking incredibly fast was one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome to improve my speaking. On stage, my nerves combined with excitement over my topic made it sound like …
Read MoreMonday, May 30th, 2016 Tags: better presentations, business presentations, Improve Your Presenation, Presentation mistakes, presentation skills, structure in storytelling
Category: Annoying Public Speaking Habits, Business Presentations, Conference Presentations, Presentation Tips, Speech & Presentation Coaching 1 Comment
by Claudia Brogan
One of the perpetual quests of good speakers is to create and deliver a pithy speech that “packs a lot of punch” without taking extra time. A speech that makes its points clearly and engagingly without becoming redundant.
Ironically, the best speeches can sometimes be the shortest ones. Trimmed and culled. Just like the cooking practice that is called “boiling something down to its essence,” an effective speech takes its ingredients and cooks them together until they are concentrated, well-combined and full of zest. When a cook …
Read MoreMonday, May 9th, 2016 Tags: better presentations, business presentations, Don't Bore Your Audience, improve your presentation, Presentation mistakes, presentation skills
Category: Annoying Public Speaking Habits, Audience, Business Presentations, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips No Comments
by Bob Goodyear
I just came back from a sales conference where I had the opportunity to train technical sales teams on various soft skills. One of the techniques that was taught was the 5 C’s of storytelling, that I’ve written about previously. After the sessions were over, I had several attendees talk to me. The most common question I heard was “When do I tell a story in a technical presentation?”
The “traditional” technical sales presentation is considered to be a “data dump” and the expectations are generally very low …
Read MoreMonday, May 2nd, 2016 Tags: better presentations, business presentations, Improve Your Presenation, presentation audience, presentation skills, purpose in storytelling, skilled storytellers, structure in storytelling, technical presentation
Category: Audience, Business Presentations, Communication, Conference Presentations, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips, Presentation Tools, Sales Presentations, Storytelling in Presentations, Technical Presentations 8 Comments
by Bob Goodyear
Several years ago, I was asked to do a technical sales presentation for a Fortune 100 company that could lead to a very large software contract. All of the technical decision makers for the company would be in the audience as well as the CIO. This was a very important meeting for the sales team and I was being asked to come in as an expert to close the technical end of the sale.
As I prepared for the event, the lead sales executive …
Read MoreMonday, March 28th, 2016 Tags: business presentations, Improve Your Presenation, PowerPoint Mistakes, PowerPoint Presentations, PowerPoint Slide Tips
Category: Annoying Public Speaking Habits, Business Presentations, Conference Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips, Presentation Tools, Sales Presentations 6 Comments
Last week, I was working on a new e-learning project with a company called Bigger Brains.
(The Bigger Brains platform and the e-learning project will be launching soon. And you just know I’ll be sure to share all that great information right here on this website!)
I was teaching a lesson about using PowerPoint as a presentation tool – while of course throwing in my 2 cents about better ways to use PowerPoint.
Even as I’m teaching Maren, my on-screen learner, about features and functions she didn’t know were available on …
Read MoreTuesday, August 14th, 2012 Tags: business presentations, improve your presentation, PowerPoint Presentations, presentation audience
Category: Audience, Presentation Tips No Comments
The first time I heard the word “default” used in the world of technology, I wasn’t sure what the person meant. I hadn’t been in IT long and everyone else seemed to know what the guy was talking about but me. I was embarrassed to ask but eventually I figured out from the context that the “default” was the way a computer program comes up as originally programmed. The program can be changed, but it takes action on the part of the person using the program …
Read MoreTuesday, July 3rd, 2012 Tags: business presentations, Don't Bore Your Audience, Hard to read slides, improve your presentation, PowerPoint Presentations, presentation audience
Category: PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Tips, Storytelling in Presentations No Comments
During my time in the IT industry, it became clear to me early on that technologist have to have mad problem solving skills.
Using existing technology, trying to meet the needs of the business, finding a work-around for an unusual need. Great technologists are master problems solvers. So of course a discussion of the organization of the most common technical presentations has to include the Issue – Resolution Structure
4. Issue – Resolution Approach
Called my many names, this approach general boils down to a combination of:
Here’s the …
Read MoreMonday, June 11th, 2012 Tags: business presentations, improve your presentation, presentation skills, technical presentation
Category: Presentation Structure, Technical Presentations No Comments
