Follow This Simple Process To Transform Your Presentation Skills
I used to be a terrible public speaker.
I’d read from my notes. Be too long and boring. I was fascinated by my material but my audience obviously wasn’t. I struggled to make the impact I wanted to.
But that’s all in the past.
Now I find people are so engaged with what I say that they ask me to coach them to become great speakers too.
How did that dramatic change happen? How did I go from being an awful, boring speaker to someone who is regularly asked to coach others?
It took time, but by following a simple process. I gradually got better and better until I reached the point that others recognised my skills and wanted to learn from me.
And if it worked for me, as bad as I was, it can definitely work for you too.
So here’s the simple 5 step process I followed that led to my transformation.
Step 1: Identify an aspect of presenting you want to work on
Firstly, identify one aspect of presenting you want to improve. In a sense it doesn’t really matter where you start because this is part of a longer journey. But key areas to think about are:
*how to tell a good story
*finding a structure that makes your content powerful
*engaging use of body language
*how to grab attention in the first 60 seconds
*using visual aids to boost your presentation rather than bore people
Step 2: Discover some ideas you want to try
Once you’ve picked an area then search for the best ideas you can find on how to do this well. You are looking for specifically techniques and tools you can use. Read highly rated books, search online for articles or videos, ask for advice and watch other speakers. You need to study the area in detail so you can assess what would work for you (here’s 4 great books I recommend).
A mistake I made early on was just to follow any advice I could find, assuming they knew what they were talking about. However you need to be aware there is some terrible advice out there, that can be really common. Such as to follow this structure:
- Intro — tell them what you are going to tell them
- Main content — tell them
- Conclusion — tell them what you’ve told them
This is an awful structure that is guaranteed to bore your audience.
You need to think carefully about the advice you receive and whether it is actually good advice. This may be difficult to do in the early days but the more you develop the more you’ll be able to spot bad advice that is just copied off the internet.
You also need to assess whether the ideas you discover work for you and your style. Are you comfortable with it as an approach? Does it fit with the context in which you normally speak?
I remember getting a massive opportunity at work to pitch for a big project and decided it would be a good idea to try out a sophisicated technique for designing a presentation. I was really confident it was going to impress the senior managers I was presenting to. In truth all it did was ruin my style and make me appear stuffy and formal. I didn’t win the project but did decide itwas the last time I was going to adopt a communication technique that didn’t fit me.
Step 3: Try out your new techniques
Once you’ve discovered some specific ideas you want to use, then try them out the next few times you present. Don’t add in too many new techniques though. You may have identified a lot of new ideas you’d like to try but you’d be wise to just focus on practising two or three at a time.
Maybe you are going to experiment with visual slides rather than packing them full of text. Perhaps you are working on having an engaging opening that raising intrigue in what you have to say. Or even taking the approach of telling some personal stories.
The key is that it needs to be some deliberate practice that you have researched and are trying to implement. It will feel hard to do at first and will take longer to prepare. But stick with it and be assured it will get quicker and easier each time you try it out.
Step 4: Reflect, tweak and try again
The next step is to evaluate what you tried out. You will want to assess two things. Firstly the technique itself.
- Does this work? You probably didn’t implement it perfectly, but are there signs it will improve your presentations?
- Does the approach need tweaking at all? Can you see any ways it could be made better?
Secondly, you also need to reflect on your implementation of the idea:
*What did you do well?
*What do you need to work on doing better?
This is a crucial part of the process because it is isn’t easy to change your practice. It is hard and takes time. But it is worth it.
After your reflection, clarify what you are going to do differently nex time. Then try it out it again, reflect on how it went and ask for feedback. Based on what you learn from this, adjust your approach next time. And keep trying out, reflecting and tweaking.
You will need to keep doing this until the technique becames easy for you and fully incorporated into your approach.
Step 5: Move on to a different area and start again
When the new idea becomes fully integrated into your practice, you can then move back to step 1 and pick a new area to work on.
Warning: Only move onto a new idea once you can use this one with ease. Otherwise you will limit your real growth and not fully improve.
Once you are ready to move on to a new area, then follow the same 5 step process:
Step 1: Pick an aspect of presenting you want to improve
Step 2: Discover some ideas you want to try
Step 3: Try out your new exciting techniques
Step 4: Reflect, tweak and try again
Step 5: Move on to a different area and start again
Keep going round these 5 steps again and again and I promise you. You’ll eventually become an astonishingly, engaging communicator. If you follow this process this dramatic transformation is inevitable.
And that will bring you all sorts of rewards you could never imagine!
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