Perfect Presentation Coaching

I’ve written to you before about what a coach can do for you.

I told you that a coach can help you succeed by looking for and finding obstacles that stand in your way.

But have you ever given thought to exactly how I can help you?

Well, just in case you have not, here are some of the ways:

Are you a student? If so, you probably have to prepare presentations for your teachers or professors. I can help you craft a presentation that will get you a better grade.

Are you a teacher? Engaging and interesting. Two words that rarely are said about any lecture a teacher delivers. I can help you improve your lectures by helping you improve your slides and delivery. Better lectures equal more student engagement equals higher student achievement.

Are a school administrator? Imagine inspiring your staff to help their students!

Are you a sales person? Does your livelihood depend on how well you present your self and your product? I can help you find ways to make it so that the only answer your customers will want to say is yes.

Are you a sales manager? Is it your job to make your salesman better at what they do? I can help you help them get more sales.

Are you a trainer? Do you have to train people to keep them safe or more efficient? Boring presentations will not work. I can show you how to keep you people interested in what you are saying.

Are you a motivational speaker? Are your audiences finding you less motivational than usual? Maybe you need some help adding some “zing” to your talk.

Do you do something I have not mentioned? As you have probably noticed. Success, no matter what you do, often depends on how well you present your material and how well you present yourself.

Want to talk about how I can help you achieve more success? Click the “Contact” tab on my website: http://perfectpresentationcoaching.com

*Quick note – this is a repost of an article from last summer, good information still, though!

Not preparing, not practicing. Two things that will ensure a failed presentation.

The third thing on our list of things to avoid is much simpler.

Bullets.

Yes, bullets.

No, not the kind that come from a pistol!

I mean the ones that people use on Powerpoint slides.

How are these a problem? Well, in and of themselves, they are not.

The problem comes with the way they are used. How many slides have you seen with what seemed like hundreds of bullets on them?

How much did you learn from that? Or, did you do like everyone else does and tune out after the first few bullets?

My guess is you did the latter.

And that’s the problem. Many people think that the more information they put on a slide the better.

In fact, that is exactly the opposite of what you should do! Research has shown that people remember information best when it is presented in small chunks of 3 or 4 pieces at a time.

So, the next time you get tempted to cram your slides full of bullet points, DON’T!

If you have to use them, use them sparingly. Its okay to have a few more slides if the extra slides help your audience retain your information better.

Remember, just because you have bullets, doesn’t mean you have to fire them!

I think you should really try to be mediocre.

I think you should set your sights low.

I think you should work hard (but not too hard)

I think you should try to get a “C”.

I think if you do all that you will be less than mediocre. I think you will actually fail.

So why do I say all those things?

Because that’s exactly what a lot of people do now days.

They don’t try to excel.

They don’t aim high.

They don’t give their best effort in school or at work.

Why do they do this?

The answer is so simple it will shock you.

So what is that amazingly simple reason?

The reason is that they don’t strive for excellence because striving for mediocrity is so much easier.

After all, think about it. Let’s think back for one moment.

Think back to when you were in school. How many times did you do an assignment just to get it done rather than doing it to get it done well?

I would be willing to bet that every time you did that you came away at least somewhat unsatisfied.

Now think back to an school or work assignment where you poured your heart and all your effort into it. I bet your satisfaction was a whole lot higher than it was on the things you finished just to get them done.

One of my favorite movies is The Incredibles.

I was watching it last night and one line from the bad guy really struck me.

“Everyone can be super! And when everyone’s super no one will be.”

If you boil this down what it means is that everyone will be the same.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be the same as everyone else.

I don’t want to be just another worker, or student, or parent, or spouse.

I don’t want to be the same.

I want to be “super.”

I want to excel.

I want to give my best.

How about you?

Did you get a free gift (or two, or three) from the recent self help giveaway?

Have you ever wondered why businesses give things away for free?

Is it to make money? Of course, just not directly.

Is it to promote their products? Of course.

But what is the real reason?

The real reason is to help others while at the same time helping themselves.

There is not one business out there that succeeds without somehow helping others.

McDonald’s helps people be less hungry.

WalMart helps people fulfill basic needs at an inexpensive price.

Mercedes Benz, yes Mercedes, helps people drive quality luxury cars.

I think you would agree that those companies are all successful.

Did they get that way by not helping people? No.

Which brings me to the real point of this message.

To be truly successful you have to do something that helps other people.

I succeed when I help you succeed.

You succeed when something you do helps somebody else.

It’s a great big huge positive feedback loop.

When I help you present yourself better, or help you find a way to make your presentation more effective, I help myself.

When you present yourself better and get that job or sale, or promotion, or whatever, you help somebody somewhere. Maybe you help your company, maybe you help your family, the point is you helped someone.

So, as you go about working on your success, keep in mind that when you succeed, you are, in effect, giving your success to someone else.

Makes me feel good, you should also.

Okay, okay, one final point – I can hear you saying, “But what about the people who step on others to get their success?”

I would argue that they have not really succeeded.

Go.

Give it away.
____________
PS Speaking of giving it away. Here’s another huge giveaway. Last time I checked there were over 600 freebies! Check it out: http://giantgiveaway.com/go/247

Every now and then I try to expose my readers to people who have expertise in areas that I am far from being expert in.

This week I bring you an article from my good friend and colleague Susan Wagers. Susan is a coach who specializes in organization. Susan’s contact information is at the end and if you find this article helpful at all I would highly recommend that you sign up for Susan’s newsletter.

Anyway, on to Susan. Enjoy!

“Organization is being able to find what you’re looking for – getting things done – being in control of your life.”

It’s all about Discipline, Organization, a Strong Routine, and Persistent Activity.

People who are successful share a common secret. They know that to get ahead, they must plan, set priorities, and always follow through. As a result, they develop systems that work for them. Their reward – Peace of Mind and A Gift of Time. Can you imagine – no more looking for the missing file folder, the letter that got away, or a client’s phone number?

With most people, I find that there comes a time when they simply have to face the fact that because of disorganization, their lives aren’t working for them: For one client her checkbook became so unmanageable that she closed the existing account and opened another just to know how much money she had; a long-term client originally sought my help because she couldn’t stand losing bills, paying finance charges, and then having her checks bounce; another missed social events due to finding the invitation after the date of the event.

Does your desk look like an archaeological dig, because there are so many layers of civilization to uncover?

NOW is the time to learn how to get organized. And I’ve got good news for you – Organization is a skill; it can be learned. The most difficult part is breaking those lifelong bad habits (like letting your paperwork pile up). Anybody can get organized if they want to badly enough. Just start with one small step and then take others, one at a time. Once you see the benefits in one part of your life, you will be motivated to go on!

Included in this article are some steps for you to start with – not too many at first but make a commitment for the next 30 days and follow these steps. Getting organized is the first step; persistence and follow-through will be the keys to staying that way. And that’s exactly why you should commit to only a few things at first. Do them, do them well and you will develop new life-planning skills.

PUTTING OFF PROCRASTINATING
1. Get started – develop a “Do It Now” attitude.
2. Be opportunistic – don’t waste a minute wherever you are.
3. Everyday write down “5 Things I Want to Accomplish Today”.

COUNTING ON YOUR CALENDAR
1. Write down everything.
2. Color code your activities to differentiate between work and family.
3. Check your calendar daily and review activities at least one week in advance.

DESKS FOR SUCCESS
1. Clear all the clutter off the top; find a home for everything and the top of your desk doesn’t count.
2. Use daily, weekly, monthly files; file and re-file immediately.
3. Set aside time daily for paperwork and clean off your desk every night.

FILE TO FIND
1. Have your supplies on hand before you begin – pens, file folders, file labels, etc.
2. Choose a simple system – alphabetical; title/sub-title (auto/repairs, etc.); color coded.
3. Set aside time to re-organize your system – a drawer/day or a letter/day or 1 hour/week.

WHAT’S IN THE MAIL?
1. Establish a specific time and place (beside a large wastebasket) to sort daily.
2. Sort by family member – put in a designated area; use large envelope if out of town.
3. Sort your own mail by the four D’s – DO – DUMP – DELEGATE – DELAY.

The process of getting organized will amaze you. You may find that what you’ve put off for years takes only an hour to do! Believe me, it takes less time to be organized – it’s actually easier to be organized – SO WHY DO YOU AVOID GETTING ORGANIZED?

It’s all about Discipline, Organization, a Strong Routine, and Persistent Activity.

_________
You can reach Susan through her website: http://ProductivityCoachSusan.com/sq

I was talking the other day with a lady from my church and she asked me what I did.

I told her I was a presentation coach.

She looked at me and I could see the question in her eyes, “What the heck is a presentation coach?”

So I told her that what I do is help people develop presentations and their personal presentation so that they can be more successful.

The confused look persisted.

I awkwardly wrapped up the conversation and drove home. During the entire drive I kept rolling it over in my mind, was there some better way I could have explained to her what I do?

I got home and after some thinking I decided I’d break it up into its two parts, maybe if I could explain each part, the meaning of the whole thing would be clear.

The First Part – Presentation

We all know what a presentation is. We’ve seen so many that we probably couldn’t count them. Every time we see something, an ad, a TV show, a preacher speaking, a Powerpoint slide show we are watching a presentation.

So that part seems pretty clear. What about the personal presentation half of that?

Well, many people have trouble succeeding not because they lack the skills or knowledge to be successful. Rather, they don’t succeed because they don’t know how to present themselves.

It could be something as simple as not knowing how to write an effective cover letter or resume, not understanding how important personal appearance is when trying to create a favorable impression, or it could be as complicated as trying to discover the cause of and overcoming some serious public speaking fears.

Whatever the cause, being able to effectively present yourself AND your information is incredibly important to your success.

Alright then, that seems pretty easy to explain, so it must have been the word “coach” that was causing the confusion.

The Second Part – Coach

The dictionary says this, “A coach is a tutor who gives private or specialized training.”

Now we’re getting somewhere, but that still seems a little formal.

Here’s my take, a coach is someone who guides people towards success. The usual association people make with that word is with athletes. Coaches there guide their athletes, either individually or as a team to success. Which, in their case is winning the race or the game.

The kind of coach I am is different. I still guide people towards success.

The difference is that success here is different for each person I work with.

For some success is simply being able to get up in front of a group of strangers and speak confidently. For others, it is finally getting that job they’ve always wanted. For some, success is defined by getting a good grade on their presentation at school.

Regardless of what the word success means to somebody, a coach’s job, my job, is to help you discover and overcome obstacles, teach you new skills, refine skills you already have, and be an honest sounding board if I see you are heading in the wrong direction.

Now putting presentation and coach together I see this: A presentation coach is someone whose job it is to teach people how to create and deliver high quality, effective presentations – with or without slides, and help people prepare themselves to make the best possible impression they can to who ever it is they are speaking with.

I know that is a whole lot longer than what I started with but I think it is easier to understand.

So, finally; a question for you. Which one of those things do you need help with?

I am here and I am ready to help.

One of my good friends is Dr. Jeff Betman. Jeff is a life coach who specializes in helping people make their lives easier. He has some valuable insights, this week he is focusing on people who complain. If you like what he has to say I would highly recommend singing up for his newsletter, he has included some contact information at the end. Anyway, here’s what he has to say:

Don’t you hate it when all people do is moan and complain?

Doesn’t that bring you down?

Are you one of them?

I know some colleagues and friends who seem to make a life long habit of complaining regardless of how well their life is going. I had a great supervisor during training that called this type of person a, “pisser and moaner.”

Pisser and moaners will complain about anything. If it is hot, it’s too hot. If it’s cold, it’s too cold. If it hasn’t rained, then we need rain. If it’s raining then we are getting too much rain. There never is enough money, no matter what.

I suppose you could interpret this newsletter as me complaining about people complaining. Oh well. I suppose you are right.

But, I write to make a point.

Suppose, just suppose for a second these people could have the perfect job. I would bet you all the money in my Swiss bank account that they would still complain. “My boss is too nice‚” or‚ “I get too much vacation time‚” or‚ “the food is too good in the cafeteria‚” or‚ “I’m not working hard enough.”

These people identify with complaining, its part of who they are. It’s not external. It’s internal. If I took a person who complains and transported them to a new environment, they would still complain.

Even if a complainer was placed in utopia my bet is they would still complain. “It’s too nice here‚ ”or maybe even they’d complain, “there is nothing to complain about.”

The point is it takes too much energy to be pissing and moaning all day long or for even part of a day. For every minute you spend complaining, it’s a minute you aren’t being productive or working toward your goals.

By default, I am this way. I used to complain about everything.

I am different now.

New and improved.

Do I occasionally complain about something? Yes. But the moment I realize it, I stop and give gratitude.

That is my recommendation for you. Give gratitude instead of complain.

It puts you into a totally different mindset.

Gratitude trumps complaining seven days a week.

Your Life Is Easy Coach,

Jeffrey A. Betman, Ph.D.

P.S. For an easier and more fulfilling life, check out my new audio CD at http://bit.ly/secretscd

P.P.S. If you have a strong desire for an easier life then sign up to receive my articles in your inbox: http://lifeiseasycoaching.com/sq

Follow me at www.twitter.com/life_is_easy and www.facebook.com/lifeiseasycoaching

I’ve written before about one of my favorite sayings, “If you never try you will never know.”

Its a great saying that can teach us a lot about being willing to step out of your comfort zone.

I’d like to take a look at the other side though.

What happens if you try and fail?

Trying and succeeding is pretty easy to deal with.

Trying and failing is not as easy to deal with.

What do you do?

You spend weeks working on the presentation for work. The day comes to present and you get up, go through all your material, and when you are finished you look out over the audience expecting to see a bunch of impressed looking faces, but….

What you see is just the opposite.

What do you do?

You finally work up the nerve to do the thing – hiking, running, typing, jumping off the high dive, whatever – that you have never been able to bring yourself to do. You get to the point right before its too late to turn back and you hear that little voice start to whisper…

What do you do?

The easy thing to do in all these cases is to just give up and say, “Maybe next time, I will do XYZ…”

That’s the easy thing, but is it the right thing?

Obviously, well, at least I hope its obvious, giving up is not the right thing to do.

Giving up does not move you forward.

Giving up does not teach you anything.

Giving up does not help you in any sort of positive way.

I know this sounds like a bunch of cliched and trite pieces of advice, but stop and think about it for a minute.

Does giving up ever really accomplish anything?

If you try and fail, do you really learn anything or get any closer to being successful if you give up and never try again?

We all know that the answer to that is no.

A great basketball coach, Jim Valvano, once said “Never give up. Don’t ever give up.”

He also said, which I think is one of the best things to keep in mind when you are struggling to find success, “Don’t give up. Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding.”

So what are you going to do?

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If this is your first time here (or even if its not) you can get these articles delivered directly to your inbox by going to http://perfectpresentationcoaching.com/sq and signing up.

Have you ever gotten an email that was written so poorly that you couldn’t even read it?

I have.

My wife gets them regularly from a co-worker.

Other than his horribly written emails this guy is a competent, productive worker.

But he looks incompetent. Why?

Because his emails are hard to read. Sometimes they even lack basic sentence structure, it is painful and humorous at the same time.

How about you? Have you ever dashed off an email or a presentation so quickly that you missed some basic, simple mistakes?

If you have, join the club.

If you have, don’t do it again, take a small piece of time and check over what you’ve created.

You have to remember that once you send something it is out there forever, constantly doing damage to your reputation.

Keep in mind this simple thought: Every message, every presentation, every “thing” you send out stands in your place. That’s right, every poorly worded message, every bad slideshow you send out paints a picture of you in the reader’s mind.

Take some time and make sure that the picture that you paint is the one you want people to see.

Here’s a few easy tips to help with that:

Slow down:
Many mistakes are made because people type so quickly that they make mistakes without even realizing they have made them. Slow down a little, which leads to the next tip.

Pay attention: Yes, pay attention. As you slow down in your creation you will be able to pay more attention to what you are doing. Paying more attention will make it easier for you to catch the little mistakes and the big ones will literally jump off the page at you.

Don’t depend on spell check: This is a big one. People have become dependent on spell check. But it has a problem, it misses a lot of things. Here’s an example from something I have a problem with. Occasionally, my fingers get dyslexic and I type form instead of from. Will my spell checker catch that mistake? Nope. Both of those words are spelled correctly.

Read your message or watch your presentation backwards: Watch them backwards? Yes, it will force you to focus on what the slide or message actually says rather than automatically seeing what you think it says.

Will these tips make your messages and presentations perfect? No.

Will these tips make your messages and presentations better and more effective? Yes!

If the things you send out look better and are more effective,then you will look better and be more effective and, after all, isn’t that what its all about?

Now go proofread something already!

Your coach,

Mike

PS: Did you find any mistakes I missed? I’d love to hear form you!!

I am in the process of putting together a webinar to help people make their presentations more effective.

The preparation I am going through on this is really making me focus on what I need and want to say.

As I was working I had some random thoughts on presenting that I’d like to share.

First thought: secrets.

Secrets?

Yes, secrets.

Many people like to keep what they are doing a secret.

Maybe they are afraid of criticism, maybe they are afraid they’ll be told to stop.

If they are preparing a presentation they may think that in order for the presentation to be effective they need to keep their audience waiting…

Keep their audience waiting? Yes, by not telling them what they are going to learn.

Simple presentation advice, don’t keep a secret from your audience, especially if it is a teaching type of presentation.

Tell them what they are going to learn, teach them and then tell them what they learned.

Very effective method of presenting.

Another random thought: easy to assemble.

I see this on a lot of directions for things I need to put together.

Presentations are easy to assemble as well.

The problem is that easy to assemble does not equal assembled well.

Anybody can use PowerPoint to assemble a presentation. It takes time and skill, however, to put together a quality presentation. (Shameless promotion: Want to learn how to put together a good presentation? Sign up for the webinar when its ready!)

Last random thought: orchestra

Orchestra? What the heck does that have to do with presenting?

An orchestra is a collection of a lot of different instruments all working together to create a beautiful piece of music.

A presentation is a collection of a lot of different instruments all working together to create a beautiful piece of communication.

What are these parts?

There’s the software, the individual slides, the colors used on the slides, the text, the animation, and lastly but definitely not least is the conductor, the person who puts it all together, the presenter.

So as you work on your next presentation keep these things in mind.

Keeping secrets from your audience – bad.

Using an easy to assemble method – not the best.

Sounding like an orchestra – excellent!

Good luck!