This week, we're continuing our series on how to design presentations that are more engaging for your audience. When your audience enjoys your speeches, they will give you positive feedback, which will boost your confidence. A couple of episodes ago, I showed you a few fun ways to start a speech. Last week, I showed you a simple way to design a speech so you don't have to memorize the presentation word-for-word. And today, I'll cover a few ways to end your speech so you leave the audience wanting more from you.  Remember that the last thing you say in your delivery will be what your aud ..read more

Last week, we started a new series on how to design presentations that are more engaging for your audience. When your audience enjoys your speeches, they will give you positive feedback, which will boost your confidence. Last week,, we covered seven ways to start your speech. Today, we'll cover a simple three-step process for designing a great presentation. When we teach presenters how to reduce nervousness when they speak, a major component of the process is designing a great speech in the first place.  For instance, what most people do is write out everything they know about a topic ..read more

Last week, I recovered a few tips for better virtual training sessions where your entire group is participating through Zoom or Teams. This week, though, I'm covering tips to help you lead better hybrid training sessions. These are sessions where some of your team is sitting in a room with you while you teach, and others are participating virtually. This type of workshop delivery is more challenging, but over the last few years, we've come up with a few simple tips to ensure everyone attending the meeting has a better experience. And, in the last 10 minutes of the episode today, I will tell y ..read more

The last few weeks I've been traveling around delivering a series of in-person training sessions all over the world. And I noticed that when I'm delivering this training in major urban areas like Washington DC, Chicago, New York, and the like, inevitably, my client will turn on a Teams meeting or Zoom meeting as I'm setting up.  In many of these cities, coming into the office is still somewhat optional. These poor meeting organizers are trying to include virtual team members in their training sessions as well. So, this week, I want to go back and review a few tips we came up with during ..read more

STEVE MULTER is a veteran corporate spokesman and trainer for more than 100 global brands, including Cisco, Panasonic, Siemens, Fujifilm, HP, NTT Data, and Bayer. He is known as the chief storytelling officer for these and other brands. I wanted to have him on as a guest to give us a few tips on how to become better storytellers and use stories as a way to communicate more effectively and create more persuasive presentations. During the interview, Steve explains what a corporate story is. He also explains how the stories that we tell in presentations are almost identical to the marketing stor ..read more

Do I need to get a presentation skills coach? Well, unfortunately, the answer is probably… It depends. A public speaking coach can be very helpful in certain situations. However, in many cases, a public speaking coach can also be a complete waste of time and money. (The process may actually make you more nervous as well.) In this episode, I cover the pros and cons of public speaking coaching. I give you a few circumstances where hiring a good public speaking coach can be very helpful. We will also cover the situations where a presentation coach can be detrimental. Next, I’ll give you a few way ..read more

Today, I'm covering the importance of proper room setup and how the room that you present in will either make you more nervous or help you deliver a better presentation. The way that you set up the room before you even say a word has a lot of impact on how well you present. It also will determine how you can interact with your audience. The main thing, though, is that if your audience is comfortable, they can help you present better. If they are uncomfortable, or worse, if you make them participating in your presentation hard, the audience will not be on your side. If you ever saw Men in Bla ..read more

On this episode, I'm going to cover the dreaded errs and uhms. Yup, those filler words that High School teachers and Toasting Clubs try to eliminate from the speeches of their students and members. However, I think you will be shocked to learn that just about everything that you have ever learned about those errs, uhhms, and other filler words is just flat-out wrong. So stick around, and I will share with you a few truths about this symptom of nervousness. Filler words are a natural part of everyday conversations. In fact, if they aren’t there, you’ll sound strange (or even fake) to the audi ..read more

Have a team that needs to build communication skills as a group? Well, just as an FYI, business presentation training is quite different from university-level public speaking classes or what you might pick up at a tasting club. For instance, a good presentation that you deliver for your friends or coworkers may actually backfire if you deliver the presentation to senior executives. In this post, I’ll cover a few best practices for organizing fantastic business presentation skill training classes. Effective presentations don’t happen by accident. And, when you get a bunch of “Type A” personalit ..read more

This week, I'm going to give you my secret to delivering boring presentations. In fact, this secret is the absolute most important thing that you have to know to have every audience fall in love with you as a speaker. I'll give you a hint... There actually is no such thing as a boring speech or a boring topic. There are only boring speakers. But you don't have to be one of them. Enthusiasm and Energy is the absolute most-important skill in public speaking. If you take only one piece of advice about public speaking, make sure that it is this pearl of wisdom. If you focus on this one simple th ..read more