Fearless Presentations

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 you about a piece of technology that will revolutionize these types of meetings for you. So, stick around until the end. This product is a real game changer in hybrid meetings.

Show Notes: Tips for Hybrid Workshops (Both In-Person and Virtual Attendees)

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 the pandemic that help make instructor-led virtual training sessions more interactive and meaningful. Then, next week, I'll show you how to best organize a hybrid meeting where some people are in-person and some are virtual.

Virtual, instructor-led training is here to stay. In the past few months, many instructors and trainers have had to adapt to a virtual world. Trainers who embrace virtual platforms and adapt the best have an advantage over those who don’t. So, I thought it might be a good idea to cover a few Virtual Instructor-Led training best practices. So in this session, I’m going to cover a few tools and tips for virtual instructor-led training. In addition, I’ll start with exactly what virtual instructor-led” training is and how it is different from other types of training.

Virtual Instructor-Led Training Tools and Tips.

In this episode, we cover a few tips and best practices for your virtual training sessions. The closer you stick to these guidelines, the better your training sessions will be.

Just as an FYI, though… These are tools and tips for virtual training sessions. If you are organizing a virtual staff meeting or just need to “get your team on the same page,” you only need one tip. Keep the virtual meeting short. Virtual staff meetings should take 15 minutes to 30 minutes — tops. The moment you cross that 30-minute mark, retention, and morale both go down exponentially.

With that being said, if you are teaching or training a group over Zoom or Teams, these tips can help you increase retention and morale.

Show Notes: Best Practices and Tips for Virtual Instructor-Led Training

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 stories that big marketing companies develop for huge brands.

You can visit https://corporatestorytelling.com/guide and enter code soldtold23 to download the publication, 5 Paths to Passionate Storytelling eGuide. You can also sign up for Steve's Tuesday Tips & Tricks.

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 ways to find a high-quality speech coach. Then, finally, I will share with you a list of skills where presentation and executive coaching are most helpful.

The Pros and Cons of Public Speaking Coaching.

You have a lot of options for different types of presentation training. The most common way to acquire practical tips is by reading posts or books and/or watching videos online. This option is very cost-effective. (In most cases, it is free.) The downside of this type of training is that you won’t get feedback or coaching. So, quite often, this type of training can take a long time. You can also develop bad habits that may be more difficult to correct later.

However, if you hire a good public speaking coach, feedback is built into the process. For instance, a coach can help you design a sample presentation. Then, you can practice delivering that presentation in front of the coach. Your coach will give you feedback so you can improve your delivery. So, when you hire a public speaking coach, you can speed up your learning process quite a bit. Your presentation coach may have years of experience mastering the skill that you want to improve in. This shortens your learning curve.

Show Notes: The Pros and Cons of a Public Speaking Coach

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 Black with Will Smith, there is a scene where he goes for the MIB interview. All the interviewees are sitting in egg-shaped chairs. They then have to take a test. And for the next couple of minutes, they all try to take the test without a table. It's pretty funny, but it is also a good lesson about how important your room and venue are to the success of your speech.

Proper room setup for a presentation can actually improve your performance in front of a group.

The downside is true as well. Improper conference room setup can actually make you more nervous and make delivering the presentation more difficult.

This post has two parts. Part one is about The Different Conference Room Styles. In that section, I’ll give you different conference room setup options with pros and cons of each. Then, in Part Two, I’ll give you the Best Practices for How to Set Up a Conference Room and how to set up a meeting room. These best practices will help you avoid some of the big mistakes that presenters make when they set up the tables, chairs, and audiovisuals for meetings.

On this episode, I'm going to cover a few of the biggest myths about public speaking. These are some of the things that well-meaning friends, family, and even coaches will suggest to us that are absolutely wrong. So, if you are doing any of these things, you may actually be causing yourself to be more nervous when you present.

There are a number of myths about public speaking out there. Well, it’s time to set the record straight. ANYONE can be a fantastic, world-class speaker. It just takes a little bit of training, a little bit of coaching, and a little bit of practice. By the way, it doesn’t take years of study and practice. And it also doesn’t take thousands of dollars of investment.

One of the hardest things to get across to new presenters is the immutable fact that just about everything that you have ever learned about public speaking and creating good business presentations is flat-out WRONG! I like to tell people to do the exact opposite of everyone else, and you’ll do a lot better as a presenter!

So, in this episode, I debunk some of the biggest whoppers that are told about public speaking. Once you understand how wrong these public speaking myths are, it is much easier to reduce the fear of public speaking. You’ll also avoid terrible habits that actually increase public speaking fear.

If you find yourself doing any of these things, make sure to stop. You might be increasing your presentation jitters.

Show Notes: The 5 Most Common Myths About Public Speaking Debunked

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 audience, so you don’t want to eliminate the filler words altogether.

However, that doesn’t mean they have to be a major part of your speeches and presentations either. Overuse of filler words has the potential to detract from your message, so as you become more and more comfortable speaking in front of a group, it might be a good idea to fine-tune your message by reducing these distractions.

The best speakers in the world have trained themselves, over time, to minimize their use of filler words. (Notice that I said minimize, not eliminate.) Excessive use frustrates the audience and makes the speaker less credible. With a bit of practice, you can also minimize filler words.

Show Notes: How to Stop Saying Errs, Uhhms, and Other Filler Words in Speeches.

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” personalities who all have experience leading presentations trying to work together to organize a single speech… Well… Let’s just say that the results can be a little frustrating.

Different personalities have different strengths. So, when you organize corporate presentation training sessions, you want to make sure to help each participant maximize his or her strengths. But you also have to help your presenters create a clear message that is focused on the same outcome.

Here is a checklist of a few of the best ways to deliver presentation skills training for a business team.

Show Notes: Business Presentation Training for Your Group

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 thing, the number of times you say “uhm” won’t matter. In addition, if you focus on this one thing, your gestures and not knowing what to do with your hands won’t matter. If you focus on this one thing, then the occasional loss of train of thought won’t matter. In fact, if you focus on this one simple thing, you can break just about every rule that public speakers are supposed to abide by, and you will still win over your audience.

Enthusiasm and Energy Make a Boring Speech More Interesting.

This one simple rule has transformed countless mediocre speakers into good speakers, scores of good speakers into great speakers, and numerous great speakers into world-class speakers.

This simple rule that can make or break a speaker is… ENTHUSIASM.

Show Notes: Make Boring Speeches More Interesting

This week, I'm going to give you a few simple ways to create some very effective presentation handouts. A couple are really easy and can be used effectively for internal presentations. The last one is the technique that I use when I create workshops and training programs. It takes a little more time but can elevate your presentations dramatically.

One of the most often overlooked parts of a presentation is the presentation handouts. So, in this post, we’ll give you a few examples of presentation handouts that you can create very easily and add impact to your speech.

Good speakers and lecturers usually give presentation handouts to accompany their speeches. As a result, a great presentation handout can make your speech more memorable. It gives your audience the freedom to listen to your presentation instead of frantically taking notes.

The handouts you provide also help them remember the key points and highlights from your presentation, making your talk even more valuable. People are grateful for good handouts and will remember you long after the talk ends. Finally, your handout can be used as an exceptional marketing piece. If it is good enough, your audience members will both keep it and share it with others.

To Download the Examples of Presentation Handouts Handout click here.

This is part two of a two-part series on Glossophobia -- the fear of public speaking. Last week, we talked about what this phobia is and what causes it. This week, I will give you a few of my best tips to overcome this fear -- even if you fall into the camp of having a full-blown phobia of public speaking.

How to Overcome Glossophobia (An Irrational Fear of Public Speaking)

1) Start Small.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. If your fear is intense, there is no need to schedule a high-level presentation in front of 1000 people right away. Instead, start by speaking up more in staff meetings, at church, or join a social organization. Set a goal for each interaction. For instance, if you never speak up in staff-meeting, just set a goal to share a single idea with the group. Then, over time, increase the goal. Next week, add two ideas, etc.

2) Look for Opportunities to Present, and then Be Courageous.

You will never conquer any fear if you simply avoid the situations that cause the fear. Instead, look for opportunities to speak where the consequence of failure is pretty low. For instance, you can offer to speak at career day at your child’s school. (If you totally bomb this presentation, so what?) Then, be courageous. I talked in the article 7 Qualities of a Great Speaker about the difference between Self-Confidence and Poise. Self-confidence comes from having a series of successes doing something. Poise, however, is where a speaker is not confident but performs courageously anyway. The more of these courageous successes that you can string together, the more self-confident you will be.

3) Document What You Did Well.

The reason that our presentation skills classes work so well is that our instructors help each student document what they do well in each presentation. For instance, the instructor will teach the student a way to make part of his/her presentation easier, show the student how to do it, and then when the presenter succeeds, the instructor reinforces that success. You can do the same after each of your presentations as well. Immediately after presenting, make a list of some of the things that you did well in the speech. Turn off your internal critic for a while. (All of us are our own worst critic, so you will have to fight this.) Then, before your next presentation, refer to the items on your list. These lists will help you reduce the phobia and build confidence over time.

4) Practice in a Controlled Environment.

If you want a faster way to conquer glossophobia, join us in one of our fear of public speaking workshops. One of the great things about being in a controlled environment like a class or workshop is that the risk of failure is reduced to just about 0%. The only way to conquer glossophobia is to string together a series of successes that outweigh, in our minds, the causes that we talked about above. As each participant masters each part of a fantastic presentation, the fear is reduced exponentially. In fact, in many cases, the growth is so fast and so dramatic that the irrational fear is replaced by confidence. The process isn’t foolproof, and it isn’t easy. However, it works almost 100% of the time!

Show Notes: How to Overcome Glossophobia (An Irrational Fear of Public Speaking)

Want to know how to overcome glossophobia? Does stage fright sometimes make you pass up opportunities in your career? Do you feel like you have an irrational fear of public speaking? You are not alone!

Glossophobia, or the fear of public speaking, is very common. I’ve been in the presentation skill industry for decades now. During that time, I realized that the statistics about this fear were confusing. Some studies say that as few as 7% of the population has glossophobia. Other surveys claim that over 95% of people experience this fear.

However, the statistics depend on the definition of Glossophobia that you are using.

Show Notes: How to Overcome Glossophobia 

This week we're getting back to how to reduce public speaking fear. And on this episode, I give you the four main causes of public speaking fear. Once you understand why you are feeling the way you are, it becomes a lot easier to reduce that nervousness.

As I cover each of the four causes of nervousness, I'll give you my best techniques for eliminating that particular cause.

Here Are Some of the Causes of the Fear of Public Speaking and How to Overcome These Fears.

Once you understand the root cause of your anxiety, you’ll often immediately begin to experience less fear. A lot of the fear comes from imagining the worst-case scenario in our heads and then psyching ourselves out before we ever even get in front of a crowd. The major thing to remember, though, is that all of the most confident speakers in the world started out as nervous speakers. Many of them felt the same physical symptoms of nervousness that you are feeling. They overcome this fear. You can too!

Here are the main causes of public speaking fear that we see most often. If you are experiencing any of these fears, click the link to access additional information about how to overcome that specific cause of performance anxiety.

• Lack of Experience Speaking in Front of a Formal Audience.
• A Concern that Others Are Judging You.
• Insufficient Preparation (Or Just Thinking that You Haven’t Prepared Enough.)
• Past Negative Experiences or a Prior Traumatic Experience.

Full Show Notes: What Causes the Fear of Public Speaking?

A couple of weeks ago, I started a series on how to get paid to speak. I mentioned that a professional speaker is just a person who gets paid to give a presentation. So, teachers, trial attorneys, salespeople, and really any supervisor or manager who leads internal presentations are professional speakers.

They all deliver information in presentations or briefings that their audiences need in order to solve a problem. But almost all of them give away this important information for free. So, in this series, I'll show you that the information that you have is very valuable. And by just changing a few things, you can build up your credibility as an expert to generate additional streams of income. Last week I gave you a five-step process to create good content to speak about. This week, I will back up a little and show you how to identify what to speak about if you want to get paid to speak.

Show Notes: Get Paid to Speak: How to Make a Fortune Speaking for a Living (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-make-a-fortune-speaking-for-a-living/)

Last week I started a series on how to get paid to speak. And if you are a new listener to Fearless Presentations, you might be thinking, how can I get paid to speak if I'm scared to death to stand up in front of a group? If that is the case, just go back to some of the earlier episodes for tips on how to reduce nervousness. In this episode and the next couple, I'm going to show you how you can cash in on one of the highest-paid professions in the world.

Last week, I mentioned that a professional speaker is just a person who gets paid to give a presentation. So, teachers, trial attorneys, salespeople, and really any supervisor or manager who leads internal presentations are professional speakers.

They all deliver information in presentations or briefings that their audiences need in order to solve a problem. But almost all of them give away this important information for free. So, in this series, I'll show you that the information that you have is very valuable. And by just changing a few things, you can build up your credibility as an expert to generate additional streams of income. Today, I'll give you a five-step checklist to accomplish to get other people or groups to pay you to stand up and speak to them.

By the way, if you are enjoying the episodes, I need a favor from you, please. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave me a review wherever you download the podcast. Your subscriptions, downloads, and review help us keep the content of the show free because it allows us to reach a bigger audience.

Show Notes: How to Get Paid to Speak (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/want-a-career-as-a-public-speaker-ways-to-build-public-speaking-credentials/)

I'm starting a new series on how to get paid to speak this week. And I know that a lot of our regular listeners subscribe to the podcast for tips and tricks to reduce nervousness and become more comfortable in front of a group. However, public speaking is one of (if not THE) highest-paid professions in the world.

In this episode, I'll dispel the myth about what a professional speaker is. Basically, a professional speaker is just a person who someone has paid to give a presentation. So, elementary school teachers are professional speakers. So are trial attorneys. So are salespeople, Realtors, and combat officers who give mission briefings.

Each of these types of presenters delivers information in presentations or briefings that their audiences need in order to solve a problem. However, almost all of them give away this important information for free. So, in this series, I'll show you how you can generate an additional stream of income by speaking about your expertise.

Next week, by the way, I'll give you a step-by-step process to help you refine your presentation to build up your credibility in the marketplace. This, in future episodes, I'll show you how to market yourself as a speaker.

By the way, if you are enjoying the episodes, I need a favor from you, please. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave me a review wherever you download the podcast. Your subscriptions, downloads, and reviews help us keep the show's content free because it allows us to reach a bigger audience.

Show Notes: How to Get Paid to Speak (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/want-a-career-as-a-public-speaker-ways-to-build-public-speaking-credentials/)

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 Participation in a Presentation (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/9-reliable-ways-to-add-audience-participation-to-your-presentation/)

Last week I started a two-part series on how to make a presentation more interesting. If you recall from the first episode, I mentioned that you can be the most charismatic and confident speaker on the planet. But if your presentation is boring or complicated or uninteresting, your skill as a speaker won't matter.

So last week, I gave you the first three presentation enhancers. This week, I'll give you four more ways to make a speech more interesting.

Just as a reminder, I know that most people who listen to or download the show are looking for ways to reduce nervousness and feel more confident when they speak. However, there is a HUGE part of the presentation process that often gets overlooked that is critical to help you communicate better and more confidently. You have to be saying something that your audience finds interesting.

You can be the most charismatic and confident speaker on the planet. But if your presentation is boring or complicated or uninteresting, your skill as a speaker won't matter. So in the next couple of episodes, I'm going to reinforce a few things that we have covered in previous episodes that will help you design and deliver better presentations so that your nervousness drops dramatically. (This review is really short, though, and I will include links to those episodes in the show notes.)

Enjoy seven ways to make your presentation more interesting.

Show Notes: 7 Ways to Make Your Speech More Interesting (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/7-stellar-presentation-enhancers-that-add-impact-to-any-speech/)

I know that most people who listen to or download the show are looking for ways to reduce nervousness and feel more confident when they speak. However, there is a HUGE part of the presentation process that often gets overlooked that is critical to help you communicate better and more confidently. You have to be saying something that your audience finds interesting.

You can be the most charismatic and confident speaker on the planet. But if your presentation is boring, or complicated, or uninteresting, your skill as a speaker won't matter. So in the next couple of episodes, I reinforce a few things that we have covered in previous episodes that will help you design and deliver better presentations so that your nervousness drops dramatically. (This review is really short, though, and I will include links to those episodes in the show notes.)

Then, I  cover seven time-tested ways to make a good speech a fantastic speech. You can call these things ways to add impact, presentation enhancers, or just ways to make any speech more interesting. But these are a few of my favorite public speaking secrets that can really elevate your presentation.

Show Notes: Make a Speech More Interesting (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/7-stellar-presentation-enhancers-that-add-impact-to-any-speech/) 

One of the biggest causes of public speaking fear and nervousness is having too much time in between each speech. I mentioned last week that if you only drove a car once a year, each time you got behind the wheel, you'd be nervous.

If you are a comfortable driver, it is because you get behind the wheel pretty often.

It is the same with public speaking. The more often you present, the more comfortable you will be each time. So last week, I began a two-part series on venues where you can practice speaking in front of a group.

We started with a few virtual venues that were the least risky. Those were fantastic speaking venues to get started in. As your confidence grows, try presenting in the speaking venues we cover this week. The more you practice, the less nervous you will become when you present.

By the way, if you are enjoying the episodes, I need a favor from you, please. Would you mind taking a few seconds and leaving me a great review on your podcast app? On Apple podcast, if you go to the show's main page, you can scroll down until you see the review section. Just leave a review letting folks know what you think of the show. The show and all the great content we put out every week is absolutely free, and your reviews help us keep it that way. This helps the show so much and allows us to reach more people. Thanks for the help.

Show Notes: Venues Where You Can Practice Your Presentations (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/podcast-15-how-find-great-venues-practice-your-presentations/)