Imagine the worst presentation ever. Now, read this post to compare. Read on to discover what not to do during your presentation. Learn from the mistakes of this Harvard professor.
He had impressive credentials. He was Harvard educated and a Harvard educator. He’d authored at least 15 books. He was endorsed by Jack Welch and had spoken to business executives around the world. Wow! Sounds impressive! But… he was a lousy speaker. Calling him “lousy” is being kind and polite to him but not to his audience. He certainly wasn’t kind and polite to the audience.
Orchestrate the first and last impressions of your presentation
Spend more time and effort getting your opening and close right.
When creating your opening and close, consider the possibility that they might only remember these two parts. If that was true, would they have received your intended message? If not, revise your opening and close. The body is the detail, the opening and close provide the motivation and the direction.
Two techniques to build rapport with your audience
Build rapport with your audience by demonstrating how you are like them. Imagine if you could be an audience whisperer.
The Three Most Damaging PowerPoint Mistakes
There are many mistakes that presenters make when using PowerPoint. What’s the most common and easily preventable mistakes? PowerPoint is not evil. It’s simply a slide presentation software that is easy to use and many presenters have used it for decades. Because many presenters have used it so poorly, we have become complacent about poor PowerPoint presentations.
PowerPoint is a tool. Don’t allow the tool to cloud your thinking about how to accomplish your presentation goals. Put the hammer down and think about the purpose and goal of your presentation.
How to Tame a Hostile Audience: Lessons from Marc Antony
What can you do when facing a hostile audience? How can you speak so they listen? How might you connect with them so they see your side of the message? Those are difficult challenges that we can learn to face by learning from Shakespeare – in particular the speech that Marc Antony gave after the death of Julius Caesar.
Notice the shift in tone of the audience and the techniques used to persuade the audience to change their thinking. Let’s visit the scene and listen to the speech and the changing tide of the audience.
Silly Linkedin Profiles: Entrepreneur, innovator, visionary- and King of the World
Another silly Linkedin profile. About
Entrepreneur, innovator, visionary, embracer of change elements, and pursuer of higher learning with tenacity, patience, and judgement in decision-making resulting in a great deal of stamina and resolve mentally and physically.
Entrepreneur – So What? Innovator – So What? What did you innovate? Visionary – So What? What does this mean?
Establish Your Credibility and Build Trust
To persuade your audience to act on your message they must believe you. To be believable you must be both credible and earn their trust. If you don’t have credibility, no one will listen. If you have credibility but your audience does not trust you, they will not believe you.
Are you a Results Driven Professional? Really?
A results driven professional with business and human resources mangement experience in a global environment. What mistakes do you see with this opening statement on their profile?
You might notice that it’s full of vague terms. There’s nothing specific. What has this person accomplished? Nothing that we can see. It feels cliché and nothing grabs your attention.
It appears that they have written their profile to attract “click bait”. Key words that they believe recruiters might be looking for.
Nothing specific, nothing about their accomplishments. Simple click bait or so they hope.