5 Essential Ways to Engage Your Audience

Welcome to the first edition of Presentability Matters for 2013. This year will see much debate over presentation content, delivery and style being a national election year, and how effectively our political leaders can engage us with their vision for the nation. 2013 also heralds the 50th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King’s infamous, influential and inspirational ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. We’ll be taking a closer look at the content of this groundbreaking presentation in a future edition of Presentability Matters. Today though, we give five essential ways to engage your audience before, during and after you speak.   Before Your Presentation  There are many ways to engage your audience before you speak to gain a greater understanding of ‘what’s in this for them.’ Here are two: 1. Survey them. Use a free tool such as www.surveymonkey.com to send out a brief survey by email. Give people a time frame to respond by to give yourself enough time to digest and integrate the answers, then refer to their answers in your presentation. 2. Make some phone calls to attendees beforehand. Ask them questions about what they’re looking for from the presentation and why. This gives you the added benefit of creating a personal connection with an audience member to easily establish rapport on the day. Make a point of seeking them out just before the presentation (at the venue) to further the connection. As long as you keep mindful of their time and space you’re bound to impress with your genuine interest in them. If appropriate, you can also refer to that person in the presentation to let others know there’s a connection to this group beyond simply showing up.  During Your Presentation  3. Think Pink. That is, think like a rock star or pop icon at an event. They localise at least one or two points or current topics of interest. Lookout for daily news and local views on the way to the presentation. See if there’s something you can tie into your presentation that proves or supports a point and is, ideally, relevant to your audience – such as a quirky billboard driving into town or something you’ve noticed in the foyer. This gives you great opportunity for humour without being forced because the joke can be shared purely to break the ice, without resorting to making a forced joke at the beginning of the presentation. 4. Be Your Own Warm Up Guy (or Woman). Meet and greet them on arrival to give yourself a warm audience to speak to. This way you’re building rapport before the event as opposed to spending precious presentation time doing so.   After Your Presentation  5. Have handouts for them with at least two to three actions or follow up resources to take away and put in action. Make sure your contact details are on there, and any other relevant info or links to further position you as a trusted source. If you’re selling to your audience, you’ll want to have a clear marketing piece with a compelling call to action. BONUS TIP: Give email reminders to further the engagement (either through the event organiser or directly from yourself). You’ll need to make sure you gain permission to collect email addresses to do this, however it’s an ideal way to build your database and further the conversation. To find out more about the ways in which we can support you simply contact support@presentability.com.au   Until next time, keep practicing your presentability,  Phil Preston & Michael Neaylon FOUNDERS & DIRECTORS On behalf of the presentability team

_________________ Workshops & Webinars Tailored specifically for your company, industry or association presentability workshops and webinars give you accelerated learning for you and your people at a time and place that suits you.  In-House Workshops Delivered on-site or in a venue to suit you’ll receive: > Proven presentability training adapted to your people, brand and industry > Tailored follow up resources and e-course to embed the learning > Highly productive return on your investment with your people sharing and communicating a common language for greater consistency in enrolling both your internal and external stakeholders   Tailored Webinars  Given as one time webinars or a complete series, our webinars have the flexibility to be given on your existing platform or ours. Apart from many of the benefits of the face to face presentability programs you’ll also gain: > Tailored learning modules at a time to suit you and your people > Even greater productivity as they learn from their desk or laptop > Recordings for your people to review the material Contact us at support@presentability.com.au to find out more.   'The course was a great way of sharpening my focus around presentation skills – particularly content structure and delivery skills.' - Ben Robinson, Head of People and Purpose, CHOICE 'A very well structured, practical approach, and much learning experienced, drawing on lots of ‘real case studies’ and experiences.' - Mark Lyster, Director, Net Balance Management Group Friend on Facebook  Follow Us Forward to a Friend

Deepening Your Influence

This is an example of deepening your influence we highlighted in a recent webinar for ACHSM.

Picture This Scenario in Your Workplace

You have some team members who have to do presentations to the rest of the department in order to try and influence change, but they are falling way short.

Essentially, you want to influence your team to get on board with the idea that they improve their presenting skills. 

How could you introduce the layers of consequence in a way that has impact but does not insult the people in question?

“In the departmental presentations…

1. I’ve noticed that some of the important departmental staff have a tendency to be distracted or switch off [Immediate issue]
2. As a result we are not making the most of our opportunity which, as we know, affects all of us in various ways [Bigger consequence]
3. In fact, there’s a lot of pressure on our presenters because their batting for us all, and after a couple of bad experiences I bet they’re losing sleep or feeling stressed before, during and afterwards. [Personal implication]

Therefore we should ask 'why this is happening?'

'What could we achieve if our presentations had more impact?'

'How good would we and our presenters feel if we nailed them every time?'

And from there, you set the scene for the people with the problem to be much more engaged in your discussion about a proposed solution.

Finally, here is a link to the ‘Quit Now’ advertisement copy we mentioned in the same recent webinar for ACHSM. This gives a succinct, creative example of how to influence your audience with few words, well placed images and a powerful scenario. 

Parents TVC Copy

Phil Preston & Michael Neaylon

Founders, presentability

On behalf of the presentability team

5 Quick Lessons from the Presidential Debate

- by Nick Morgan

The received wisdom is that President Obama lost the debate and former Governor Romney won; 2/3rds of Americans polled thought so, and the commentators certainly did.

So what follows is a contrarian view.

My belief watching the debate was that all 3 participants lost, heavily – including Jim Lehrer, who was unable to function very well as a moderator and should not be asked back.

Read more >

Book Review: Become a Key Person of Influence

Daniel Priestley's book is a call to arms for entrepreneurs to distinguish their space and claim their micro-niche by becoming a KPI - a key person of influence.memorable.

Read more > 

Define Your Own “Style” to Become a Memorable Speaker

As we have found when delivering our public programs, there is always healthy enthusiasm for the style elements we focus on. Content and delivery are both important for structuring a clear message, making that relevant for your audience and engaging them, however it’s introducing your own style that will make you truly memorable. 

 

Why? You are unique. The more you acknowledge and emphasise your personal speaking and communication style, the more you stand out in meetings, board rooms, and your presentations in general.
 

To develop your style, here are five simple, effective tips to become even more memorable: 

1. Get feedback: Ask people who see you communicate professionally for feedback on what engages them most about you and your personal style. Make sure you get a mix of people whose opinion you respect to make the best decision on what works for you.
    
2. Grow the good: when we’re coaching people we like to emphasise what’s working for them - in all aspects, including style – more than what’s not. Perhaps it’s your well-placed humour, natural enthusiasm, or charismatic stillness and authority that work for you the most.
    
3. Discover other styles: once you’ve found the qualities that work for you, avoid resting on those alone, as you’ll limit, rather than expand, your communication style. It’s not unlike going to the gym and only doing the same routine for months or years on end. You’ll end up developing only one muscle, rather than making the most of your own physique by mixing up your routine from time to time.
    
4. Avoid imitation. Phil and I are both members of the National Speakers Association of Australia. A well-regarded and highly paid fellow speaker recently said that he never watches his competitors. We want to concentrate more on our audience and the authentic connection we make with them rather than our competitors or colleagues. By all means watch other speakers for their techniques and their skills, but avoid too much comparison and imitation.
    
5. Bring more of you to the room than you think you need to. Now that you’ve mined your points of difference, bring as many aspects of those parts of yourself and the way in which you communicate to the situation as you possibly can. Most people – in a diligent effort to be professional, or sometimes out of nerves or fear – bring only one aspect of their personality to a presentation. We’ll remember more about you and your material, the more we feel we’ve got to know you. 

There are many people wanting to be heard in meeting rooms, and in the marketplace. Make yourself one of the ones whose are not only heard, but remembered.
 

 

Coaching for even greater presentability

To fast track the definition of your own style and be more memorable in the boardroom, your next meeting or an upcoming presentation, contact us for coaching or details of our upcoming courses. 

Click here to find out more.

Video - presentability Capabilities

Phil Preston & Michael Neaylon give you an overview of presentability capabilities for greater presenting influence: Click here to view video

 

Until next time, keep practicing your presentability, 

Phil Preston & Michael Neaylon
FOUNDERS & DIRECTORS

On behalf of the presentability team

Crafting Content to Captivate Your Audience

We recently gave a webinar on Crafting Content to Captivate Your Audience. 

For all who were able to attend we hope you gained some good ideas that will help inspire you to create captivating content for your next presentation.

A recording of the webinar isn't available unfortunately, however you can view the slides for the webinar here.

If you're in or around Sydney and want more around crafting your presentations for greater clarity, cut-through and influence why not consider our one day public program on Sept 18. 

Click here for more details: Public Program Tuesday Sept 18

Keep improving your presentability

Michael Neaylon & Phil Preston

your presentability team 

support@presentability.com.au.

Gaining Boardroom Influence

How do you gain more boardroom influence with your peers?

In a recent private webcast for a leading association Phil gave a range of effective tips to help people increase their peer to peer persuasiveness, including:

Use framing to defuse issues or dismantle barriers

Give your audience an understanding of you, the topic and them.

• Let them know your role and background and how it pertains to addressing the issue (even if it seemingly doesn't).

• Give them your take on the topic, and display your full understanding of its nuances.

• Show them you acknowledge them and their point of view.

By using this simple, effective technique you can raise the bar on your effectiveness from 4 out of 10 to 7 or 8 out of 10.

To find out more about creating content to captivate any audience we have the following FREE webinars available that you can register for, click on a date that suits you:

Thursday, 9 August - 12:00PM AEST

Wednesday, 15 August - 12:00PM AEST

Keep improving your presentability

Phil Preston and Michael Neaylon