For the last few weeks, I've covered a number of topics about how to create great presentations. And on social media, I've received a few questions like, "What does a presentation design have to do with public speaking fear?"  The answer is simple. If you try to deliver a terrible speech to any audience, you'll be way more nervous. However, if you design a fantastic speech, you may never even get nervous in the first place. If your audience likes and respects your content, they will overlook a lot of minor glitches. The opposite is true as well. If your presentation stinks, every minor ..read more

For the last few weeks, I've covered techniques that you can use to design better presentations. We talked about ways to start a speech first. Then, we covered how to design a good presentation. Next, we covered how to end a presentation.  For the next couple of episodes, though, I'm going to share a few secrets about designing presentations that may also come in handy. Today, I'll give you a very simple three-step process to help you make your presentations more persuasive. This simple process works very effectively if you are trying to sell an idea or a product to your audience ..read more

For the last few episodes, I've shown you how to start a speech, how to design a speech, and, last week, how to end a speech. But before we end this series, I wanted to cover one often-overlooked part of creating a compelling presentation. Today, I'm going to show you how to introduce yourself to an audience so that your presentation starts off on the right foot. Remember, when you are speaking to a new audience, they don't know who you are, what you want from them, or why in hell they should even listen to you.  In this short session, I'll give you one of the best ways to establish yo ..read more

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