| |
| |
|
Presentation Information |
|
|
|
Is This Thing On?: Keeping Your Audiences Attention
First and foremost, you must deal effectively with your own emotions, ego, hang-ups, inhibitions, and fears. This will release you to focus on the audience is their attention level. A trainer must prepare thoroughly, believe in the message behind the words, and be committed to attaining his or her objective. But most important is a continual awareness of the audience members as individual persons, and not as merely a faceless mass. There is only one way to find out whether or not an audience is paying attention. That is to look at them, not through them. The best way is to look at individual faces and directly into their eyes. This reveals whether they are looking and listening, and forces them to do so if their attention has wandered. A trainer should make every effort to get and hold eye contact with the audience, since it is the only way to talk directly to people. This may be difficult with larger groups. Sometimes it is necessary to concentrate only on the first few rows and use them to gauge the rest. Yet it is possible with a little practice to look into the eyes of people fairly far back even in a large audience, or to make them sense eye contact. During a presentation, if possible, physically arrange the audience so that they're less distracted by late arrivals. Try to group them so that there is a minimum of space between them. Do not permit guests to remain on the podium during delivery. While setting up and choosing a room, remain aware of audience comfort-ventilation, heat, and cooling. Eliminate unnecessary material from the podium such as flowers, signs, or unused equipment. Keep visuals covered unless they are actually in use. Keep the chalkboard clean. Check lighting to be sure that it focuses on the podium and directly on the speaker. The podium should be the best lit spot in the room. Dress conservatively and impeccably. Be pleasant to look at! Do not wear highly reflective colors or jewelry. Stay on schedule so that the audience will not be distracted by time pressures. Gauges of how well an audience is listening are such things as shuffling feet, movement, scribbling, and general restlessness. All of these must be circumvented if you are to get and maintain attention. You can deliberately elicit feedback to provide data to measure your progress through the use of "predetermined response points". An example is the "double-answer" technique, recognizable in many sales presentations, which essentially asks a question that gives a choice between two "yes" answers with no negative responses. Such questions can be subtly interwoven into a training presentation without a trainee being aware of the affirmative net being woven. For example, "Do you like the first method of time management or the second better?" or "Which long-term range planning goals would best suit your office?" Keeping control of your audience and eliciting honest feedback will help your presentation in the long run. Copyright AE Schwartz & Associates All rights reserved. For additional presentation materials and resources: ReadySetPresent and for a Free listing as a Trainer, Consultant, Speaker, Vendor/Organization: TrainingConsortium CEO, A.E. Schwartz & Associates, Boston, MA., a comprehensive organization which offers over 40 skills based management training programs. Mr. Schwartz conducts over 150 programs annually for clients in industry, research, technology, government, Fortune 100/500 companies, and nonprofit organizations worldwide. He is often found at conferences as a key note presenter and/or facilitator. His style is fast-paced, participatory, practical, and humorous. He has authored over 65 books and products, and taught/lectured at over a dozen colleges and universities throughout the United States.
MORE RESOURCES:
Presentation - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Clear Communication: The Benefits and How to Achieve Them Communication is a complex and often difficult process for both the receiver and sender. Barriers on both sides of the process often deflect the real meaning of the message and inhibit clear, open, and rewarding communication. Speech in Business The social skills of a small businessperson, franchisee, independent contractor or manager are all important. Speech and body language are first impressions and weigh heavily on the decision making process of a potential prospect or customer. Improve Your Bottom Line with What You Say When was the last time you thought about what you were actually saying to potential clients? Are you closing the deal more often than not? Or maybe it's time to revamp your elevator speech or introduction.Remember potential clients do not want to hear statistics about you and your company; they want to know how your product or service will benefit them and make their life easier. How to Chair a Meeting You don't have to be on a stage to be a public speaker. Your platform may be a meeting room. Present Your Message with Power and Pizzazz If you're ready to kick your career or business up to the next level, then make it a goal to become a powerful presenter. People view savvy communicators as being more capable, intelligent, and knowledgeable than those individuals who have difficulty in communicating their ideas. Show the World Your Wares Easily and Inexpensively You've spent a lot of time preparing your PowerPoint presentations and now you're ready to show the world all your company has to offer. You set up some appointments for sales presentations with a few members of the local Chamber of Commerce. Top Ten Rules for Effective Presentations I am of the belief that the majority of people can improve their presentations dramatically by focusing on eliminating bad habits and presentation skills more than seeking to add anything on. How often have you come out of a seminar and overheard someone say, "Wow, she was great! Did you see how effectively she used her hand gestures?"That said, here are some ideas to help you become a better speaker. Conducting Successful Training Activities Whether you are training preschoolers in the classroom or executives in the board room, here are 15 premises you might want to keep in mind the next time you're designing training activities.1. Being Real From the Platform "Let it be known, no person, thing, or situation can validate you. You validate yourself by realizing who you are. Death by PowerPoint! The most critical job of a manager, when you boil it all down, is communication. To be successful, a manager has to be effective in communicating one-on-one, in writing and in groups. Practice Makes Perfect - 7 Tips for Making the Most of Your Presentation Practice Believe it or not, preparation is a better determinant of presentation success than knowledge, experience, or even talent. The best presenter is almost always the presenter who is the most prepared. How to Attract New Business Like George W. Bush Wins Elections THE LITTLE-KNOWN SPEECHWRITING SECRETS THAT WON GEORGE W. BUSH THE US ELECTIONHe's been accused of "mangling the language, destroying its meaning by avoiding the use of verbs, twisting nouns into verbs, and endlessly repeating phrases until they become zombified" (Source:'Bush and Blair accused of mangling English' by Kate Kelland, Reuters. Presentation Paranoia "The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public." (Sir George Jessel)Have you had this feeling before? Rest assured you are not alone. The Crucial Components of a Lesson Plan MAKING INFORMATIVE LESSON PLANS: --The performance objectives should answer this very basic question - what should the trainees be able to do at the end of the training period that they were was not able to do at the beginning of it? --For evaluation procedures, how will the trainee's accomplishment of performance objectives be demonstrated or measured (written test, skill test, skill demonstration)? Evaluation procedures should provide documentation of the achievement of all performance objectives. --For equipment and supplies needed, what is available? What must be used? What cannot be used? What unusual items will be needed? Any special student materials? Instructor materials? Handouts? Lesson plan for the students? Manuals? Visual Aids? Props? --When entering space requirements calculate room size, number of rooms, seating requirements, seating arrangement, writing surface needs, and any special training environment needs. Shamus Browns Top 5 Sales Presentation Tips When its time to give your next sales presentation, here are my favorite tips for delivering powerful, charismatic, and engaging sales presentations. #1 - PLANT YOUR FEET SQUARELY ON THE FLOOR How you hold your physical body during your sales pitch communicates a tremendous amount of information about you to your audience. Handling Questions with Authority At some point in your presentation you will be expected to answer questions from your audience. They might have some burning questions that need to be answered before they buy into your message. Close Deals in Record Time! Remember back when the ability to create a slide show presentation using PowerPoint was cutting-edge technology? PowerPoint presentations changed the way that companies and seminars did business. It was easy to take along your presentation material; just grab your laptop and go. Tech Tips: PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts for PowerPoint Slide Shows Whether you use a mouse or a remote control to navigate through a PowerPoint slide show presentation, it is also handy to use keyboard shortcuts. Here is a selection to try:? Run a slide show: [F5]. Data Visualization Flash Charts: Information in a Flash Flash chart, flash map, flash graph may be mistaken for flashy visual aids. It is true that many data visualization tools are flashy and consequently overwhelming and counterproductive, but the market has produced data visualization capable of simplicity and speed-thus "flash" does not stand for flashy; it stands for information in a flash. How to Begin a Lesson Plan DEVELOPING LESSON PLANS: In developing lesson plan formats, two things are paramount: extraordinarily careful documentation and room left for possible changes. Sloppy accounting of the direction your class will be going is worse than none.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |