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Seven Tips for Coping with Pre-Stage Jitters
Whether you need to address large groups or small, familiar faces or new, you may feel that the stress of speaking is always with you. If so, these seven tips will help you work through tension and communicate with confidence. 1. Recognize that stress is natural: It helps you sort out which situations are "dangerous" and which are not. The problem occurs when presenters allow their minds to dwell on the stress rather than on the situation. They become short of breath, the brain doesn't get enough oxygen, and tension sets in. Most presenters manage to remain below the panic level -- avoiding the fight/flight syndrome -- and most survive each experience. However, there's more to life than mere survival. 2. Focus on the message. Think to yourself: "I'm here to share information" -- whether to inform, persuade, clarify, or serve some other purpose. "The participants are attending to hear what I can share with them." "They want me to do well because that's to their benefit, too." 3. Check your room before anyone arrives. Look at the seating arrangement and visualize people in the chairs. Move around the room: Become comfortable in your surroundings. Walk to the lectern, stand there. Move away to break the barrier -- as you should do periodically when presenting. All living creatures need to adjust to a new environment. 4. Practice operating your visual equipment. Dexterity improves with experience and reduces the mind's concerns. That, too, contributes to calmness. 5. Practice -- aloud -- delivering the opening and closing parts of your presentation. Then practice the middle of your presentation with your visuals. Mental rehearsal is beneficial but it can never substitute for speaking out loud. More muscles and mental processes are involved and, once again, experience contributes to a calmer mind. 6. Do some stress-burning exercises before you speak. Find your own, personal, stress points and work on those. Yours may be in the neck, shoulders, lower back, temples, or elsewhere. Clap your hands and rub them together briskly then place them on the tension spots. As you do, massage gently, stretch lightly, and think about relaxation. These actions and the mind's positive responses to your take-charge steps will also reduce stress. 7. As you walk to the front of the room, think about your message and move with confident body language. Between the two, your brain will assume that everything is okay. Breathe fully. And think only positive thoughts: "I am pleased to have this opportunity." "I am sharing important information that others will value." "This will be a good experience because I am prepared." Stephen C. Rafe, president of Rapport Communications, Reston, VA, has been a counselor and coach in the field of behavior-based communication for more than two decades. He is the author of three books on this subject with HarperBusiness, a monograph with Communication Briefings, numerous manuals and pamphlets, and more than 100 published feature articles. His methods also appear in oothers' books. His clients have included Johnson & Johnson for the Tylenol crisis, AT&T for its divestiture, President Reagan's committee on strategic forces, and numerous heads of corporations, countries, and organizations. He teaches communications subjects at the university level and is a doctoral candidate. He can be contacted at: rapport@comcast.net
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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. Choosing a Presentation Remote Control If you deliver electronic presentations using PowerPoint or other programs, you can manually move forward to the next slide with the keyboard or the mouse. One way, however, to deliver more effective presentations that improve your connection to your audience is to add a remote control to your presentation tools. Presentation Power Does Not Come From PowerPoint You speak before a group. You present your message. 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. A Powerful Presentation Technique-Story Telling Appealing to emotions is the most powerful way to transfer learning in an information cluttered training or presentation. A compelling story woven with a lot of information in the telling with a conclusion that appeals to the emotion can permanently etch the learning in an otherwise unresponsive training or meeting fatigued audience. Building a Trade Show Display If you are taking your newest products to a trade show then you will need to come up with some ideas on how to build a trade show display in order to adequately market your products. You might seem at a loss and cannot think of anything, however building a trade show display is not so difficult if you sit down and think about it. Can Stage Presence be Learned? What is stage presence? Can it be learned?There are, undoubtedly, some 'naturals' in this field. The fine Welsh actor Richard Burton, for example, on his debut performance at 16, playing an extra scrubbing steps, was said to distract the audience from the Shakespearean play! Many actors commented on Burton's extraordinary stage presence, in particular his stillness - the audience were drawn to him even when he was apparently doing nothing. 1,000,001 Reasons To Connect With Your Audience Eye contact is mandatory when giving a public presentation.The goal of public speaking is to connect with your audience. 35 Surefire Ways to Kill a Meeting 1. Play "find the meeting" by changing the location and time of your meeting at the last minute. Transitions: Building Bridges to Your Points Presenters often tell me that they fear losing their train of thought. When listening to their talks I realized that for many people, the problem is not forgetting the words or main points. Creating a Powerful Sales Presentation The quality of your sales presentation will often determine whether a prospect buys from you or one of your competitors. However, experience has taught me that most presentations lack pizzazz and are seldom compelling enough to motivate the other person to make a buying decision. The Seven Deadly Sins of Presentations Every day, so many tens of thousands of innocent clients and employees are bored to tears by presentations that it ought to be considered a crime against humanity.Are your presentations guilty of the following sins?Illegibility. How to Teach: Lecture vs. Discussion WHEN ONLY A LECTURE WILL DO: Under certain circumstances, of course, the lecture is the only workable format. For instance, when it is necessary to reach a large audience in a short time frame, or when the attendees have no knowledge of the subject whatsoever, there is really no choice. 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. How to Give a Great Speech As a former owner of a National Speakers Bureau, I have learned from several thousand professional speakers "How to Give a Great Speech." Here are some techniques that I share with my coaching clients who want to become paid professional speakers or business professionals who want to deliver masterful presentations. Guidelines for Rehearsal Criticism It is both good planning and considerate to provide auditors with a guide for their criticism. It would be quite difficult for them to note everything which needs attention without some reminder of what to look for. Group Meetings: Being Prepared Makes a Difference MANAGING MEETINGS--BEING PREPARED MAKES A DIFFERENCE: You can schedule all the meetings you want to, and if you are not prepared to take charge then you're wasting your time. The time you invest planning a meeting is time well spent. Ancient PowerPoint Secrets: Ask Your Grandma! Yes, there are ancient PowerPoint secrets.. Using Your Audience to Your Advantage Regardless of what response technique may be convenient in a given situation, one thing is certain for the aware trainer: different techniques will drive you deeper and deeper into the realm of subtlety, which is precisely where the art of using response points belongs. For most trainers, these direct questions will be the best method to determine how well the idea presentation is progressing. Grand Opening: The Key To Great Presentations Whether you are speaking in front of a civic group or making a sales presentation, your opening can make or break the deal. Unless you grab the audience at the beginning, they'll be sleeping through your most important information.
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