We've spent the last few months covering ways to reduce nervousness and the last couple of weeks uncovering a few low-risk venues to practice presenting. For the next few weeks, I'm going to show you how to make your presentations more fun and interesting. There are two major components of a fantastic speech. First, you have to have good content that the audience wants or needs to hear. Second- and this is the part that many presenters overlook- you have to have entertainment value in your presentation. You can have great content, but if your content is boring, no one will really hear you. S ..read more

This is part two of a two-part series about low-risk venues where you can practice public speaking.  In the introduction last week, I mentioned that the absolute best place to practice public speaking is in a public speaking class with a great coach. A good public speaking class is a controlled environment, so the risk is very low. However, over the years, I've come across a bunch of other low-risk venues to practice public speaking.  Last week, I covered a number of low-risk virtual venues where you can practice speaking in front of a group. Virtual venues can be great for fine-tu ..read more

This week we're starting 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. When that happens, you confidence will go up. In this session, we'll cover a few different ways to start a presentation effectively. What most presenters find is that once they say the first couple of sentences, their nervousness drops pretty dramatically.  These seven presentation starters will help you win your audience over—even in the first couple of minutes of your presentation. By the way, the ..read more

For the last couple of weeks, I've given you a series of presentation enhancers -- things that make good presentations better. This week, I'm going to cover a way that you can enhance persuasive speeches exponentially. If you are trying to win your audience to your way of thinking, then audience participation is a stellar way to do that. In essence, you can get your audience to convince themselves that your idea is sound. There are several different types of audience participation, though. So, I'm going to cover my top nine audience engagement ideas. Show Notes: How to Get Audience Particip ..read more

For the last couple of weeks, we have been covering different types of persuasion speeches. A couple weeks ago, I gave you a three-step process to win audiences to your way of thinking. Last week, we covered how to put together a sales presentation. This week, we will show you how to present a proposal to management. For instance, if you have identified a problem or opportunity for your company, you may need to get approval. So, how do you present a proposal to management that will get approved? The process is actually pretty simple. The method of how to present a proposal to management that ..read more

One of the most common questions that I get as a public speaking coach is, "Where can I go to practice speaking?" It is usually a good idea to practice your presentation skills somewhere that is more low risk than in front of a big client, or your boss, or the board of directors. Obviously, I'm pretty biased, but with good reason. I believe that the absolute best place to practice public speaking is in a public speaking class with a great coach. A good public speaking class is a controlled environment, so the risk is very low.  Also, you get practice presenting in front of real people ..read more

We just finished a series on public speaking fear and how to reduce nervousness during a speech. This week, I discuss how to better prepare for your presentation. For most people, the absolute most nervous part of the speech -- the place where they feel the most uncomfortable -- is right as they step foot in front of the audience. That nervousness builds to a crescendo up to that point. So, in this episode, I give my favorite tips for reducing presentation jitters from that day to a few minutes before you take the stage.  ..read more

This is part 3 of a three-part series on public speaking fear. If you've been with us for the last few weeks, I started by explaining the difference between glossophobia and public speaking fear. In those episodes, we basically discovered that glossophobia is an unreasonable fear of public speaking that keeps people from presenting in the first place.  Last week, I covered a simple four-step process that will help you eliminate this fear. This week, I'll give you ten tips to help you implement this four-step process more easily. These ten public speaking tips can help you reduce nervousn ..read more

This is part 2 of a three-part series on public speaking fear. If you've been with us for the last few weeks, I started by explaining the difference between glossophobia and public speaking fear. In those episodes, we discovered that glossophobia is an unreasonable fear of public speaking that keeps people from presenting in the first place.  Last week, I covered part one in this series about where public speaking fear comes from. We covered a number of different activities that presenters do to reduce nervousness that actually causes nervousness. For instance, relying on notes to delive ..read more

In the last couple of episodes, I covered the difference between Glossophobia and just normal, everyday public speaking nervousness. In the episode, I'm going to delve more deeply into where public speaking fear comes from. I'll talk a lot about triggers that make people more nervous when they stand up to speak because if you know what is causing your fear, you can better eliminate it. Because of all the info, I'm breaking this into two sessions. Then, in the third week, I'll give you my ten simple tips that will help you eliminate public speaking fear. So, enjoy this fantastic series ..read more