Power of Presentations

Last week Wednesday I had the enjoyable experience of being part of a judging panel for the Jack Petchy Foundation, Speak Out competition.

This competition provides a platform for young children between the ages of 14 - 16 from previously disadvantaged areas to talk for 3 minutes about a topic which they are passionate about.

I was involved in the Hackney regional final, where the winner of this event stood the chance of presenting in front of 900 guests at the main gala event on the 2nd July.

At the event there were 15 youths who took to the stage with enthusiasm and passion, whereby each took the opportunity to persuade us with their personal ideas. I was extremely impressed with the level of the presenters, conscious that many of these youths mostly likely never had a platform to present to such a large audience.

We had to mark the presenters in three areas namely, content, deliver and structure.
The overall winner was a young lady who talked about gang wars and how youths are killing each other over the simplicity of a entering their territory which is defined by the post code they live in. When she arrived at the stage she went straight into the incident of when she was personally involved in a turf war scuffle, using excellent body language and vocal verity she allowed the audience to get a glimpse of what it's like to be right in the middle of a extremely hostile and dangerous time a place. At the end of the 3 minutes she left us with a defining question of is it really worth dying over a postcode?

But the evenings success was not just one talented young lady but each and every one of the presenters, because it showed me how important it is to empower our youth. The evening also taught me how getting on stage really develops a person's self confidence. I'm sure everyone of those participants are looking to the future with more confidence that they will be able to secure employment and go on to become leaders of the future.

Therefore I encourage you after reading this blog to see where you can get involved to empower the youths of the future.

Mark de Stadler

Public speaking nightmare

You’re preparing to give a presentation to a group of your peers. As the time draws closer you notice your heart is beating twice as fast and your palms are getting sweaty. Your mind is plagued by thoughts of how this is going to go wrong. You tell yourself that your colleagues don’t even care what you're about to say, they’ll be bored of you after the first 30 seconds and all be playing with their phones by the time you reach your conclusion.

A polite round of applause welcomes you to the front of the room. You feel a small bead of sweat trickle down from your brow and you stutter in your first sentence. A polite cough echoes around the eerily silent room. The computer has frozen and isn’t moving onto the next slide. Make a joke about it? Pretend like you don’t need the power point you worked so hard on? People shuffle in their seats, growing impatient as the temperamental soul that is technology brings your whole presentation to a halt.

Panic overwhelms you. You’ve lost sight of where you were and frantically look through your notes that now seem like a language unknown. You start to rush your words, desperate for the ordeal to be over. You care no longer whether your presentation makes sense or conveys the point you intended. You conclude your message half heartedly and the same polite applause accompanies you back to your chair. You sink back, wishing you would fall straight through the chair, the floor and into a place where presentations were not a part of your job.

Any of that sound familiar?

Dale Carnegie work with thousands of individuals who have felt the same worries, anxieties and doubt over their public speaking as you do and seek to develop those skills to ensure they no longer need panic when in front of a crowd. We can work with you to make sure you engage your audience, use positive tone and body language and provide you with confidence that once you’ve finished your presentation, you can sit down knowing the message you wanted to put across, has been received.

We will be running a complimentary preview to one of our Presentations development programmes (High Impact Presentations) on Thursday 10th May. For more information give us a call on 0207 379 4323.

Brett Mills

Create change and see what happens

With The Apprentice returning to our screens next week it’s timely that I should discuss an entrepreneur in this blog post. One who had an idea for a product and who followed it through with grit, determination, initiative, passion and trying something different. Here’s some things I learned which I wanted to share.....

Sara Blakely came up with an idea of creating underwear which makes you look thinner and solves the VPL which so many women try to avoid. Spanx was born. And now at the age of 41 she is a self made billionaire (1 billion USD, £638 million). I have no idea whether she was in it for the money or if she wanted to create something she was passionate about, but however you measure her success, she is in no doubt successful. So just how did she do it?

Her past jobs certainly helped her. She worked at Disney as a meeter-and-greeter which no doubt gave her a background in Customer Service (as Disney are renowned for excellent customer service). She then worked as a door-to-door salesperson and was used to hearing ‘No’s’ and having knockbacks.....no doubt with the odd door slammed in her face. She also was a stand up comic in her spare time which meant she had no problems presenting to crowds, some of whom I can imagine could be a tad difficult.

She was passionate about her product and invested her life savings to make it happen. And in order to get her product noticed she really had to fall back on to her previous sales role.

Sara also had initiative and in her 10 min slot with a potential buyer she took her to the ladies to show her a before and after demonstration of her product rather than spend the whole precious ten minutes explaining to the buyer why she should stock her product. There certainly wasn’t a confidence issue there. But her big break came six months after that meeting whereby she sent a sample to Oprah Winfrey who was so impressed with her product that she added it to her Favourite Things Show. What better free advertising/PR can you get than an endorsement from a world renowned celebrity on a show which is seen on a global scale? Needless to say Sara never looked back after that.

As a result of her success, she set up the Sara Blakely Foundation to help women through education and entrepreneurial training which also funds scholarships in South Africa, as well as donating $1 million to Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy.....therefore giving back to the community.

Some of us will have an idea which we want to pursue and some of us won’t. Some of us will have most of the tools we need to pursue that goal and some of us won’t. If you would like to know how to present to groups, or build up your confidence, then by all means drop us a line. We are friendly, helpful and above all, really listen to what you require. And we would love to help you achieve your dreams.

I will leave you with a quote from Sara Blakely which I think sums up her success:

‘Now I give speeches and I always ask: If no one showed you how to do your job, how would you be doing it? Take a moment and ask that question. Often your way is better. Maybe it’s a fresh new approach. If you are doing something the way that everyone is doing it, you are not really creating change by doing it that way.’

Helen

The difference between confidence and nerves.

As I am coming up to the half way point of the Dale Carnegie course I thought I could use this blog to maybe describe one of the key breakthroughs I have made so far. The course is designed to develop a variety of skills and mentalities which in turn will be beneficial in your relationships with others, enable you to project confidence and maintain a positive attitude in all situations.

I have recognised through the presentations I have made on the course and speaking to others partaking that we all get nervous. Whether its presentations or something entirely different, I don’t know anyone who does not get nervous at some point. I use to think that by being constantly nervous I was somebody who suffered from a lack of confidence but would often be given good feedback in the areas I thought I was not confident in.

I have come to realise that nerves are more related to the significance of an event and confidence is linked to our preparation for it. If I have to give a presentation on a particular subject and I’m not prepared, then I will be nervous and have no confidence in myself to carry out the presentation. If I have prepared for the presentation then I have total confidence in my ability to deliver a good presentation but it does not stop me from feeling nerves.

I have learned to welcome the feeling of nerves in any scenario in life as for me it underlines it is something of importance. If I don’t feel confident about my ability to get through it, then I need to find what’s missing in order to rectify it.

I would encourage you to embrace nerves as a means of motivation. Next time you have a presentation and you feel nervous…good, it means that what you are doing is important to you! Next time you have a presentation and you don’t feel confident…work out what is missing, change it and give yourself the confidence that you have all the tools to give the presentation of your life.

Brett Mills

Christmas Wish

Did you get your Christmas wish this year?

Ok, how about your ideal Christmas gift? A quick search on ebay using the term “unwanted Christmas gifts” returns 1018 items. A search under “unwanted gifts” returns more than double!
Personally, I am keener to give gifts than receive. However, I do accept any gifts with open arms. So if anyone feels that they want to get me an ipad 2 after reading this, please do not let me stop you.

All jokes aside I want to share a couple of things about two people I admire. These two people have worked very hard and smart to get to where they are.

The first is one of my mentor’s, who just the other day mentioned that he was sitting with his fiancé looking at their respective and collective 2011 to do list. Marking off all the things that have been achieved and getting ready for the things that need to be achieved in 2012. He is always clear on want he wants to achieve in the business and personally. In fact he could describe a 3 year plan for the business “off the cuff” because he has spends so much time and energy on it.

I am sure you have been told that writing down goals makes them more real. Let me explain why I believe this is the case. By writing down your goals, instead of having a vague idea of what you need you force yourself to be more specific. Secondly, if you look at your goals on a regularly basis, you will be continuously reminded of what you should be focusing on each day.

The second is my best friend (sister and another one of my mentors). She has done really well for herself. She always has goals for the short term, mid term and long term. In fact, I am sure if you were to bump into her today you will find that she carries a notepad with all these respective goals written down. A few years back she wrote a five-year plan on where she wants to be. She then went about trying to connect with people that are doing the very thing she would like to do. Emails, phone calls, whatever it took to get some time with these people to find out how they got there and what they like, dislike about what they do. By doing this she created a clear path that she knew (provided she was willing to work extremely hard) would get her to where she wants, nay, needs to be.

Both of these people are a massive positive influence in my life, so much so that I have made out my game plan for 2012. As opposed to a list I have written my vision in a document which details all the things I want to achieve both professional and personally over the course of the next year. I have also ensured that I used positive and powerful language in the document. I also talk about my feelings on reaching my goals, so it is written in the present tense.

It will not cost you anything to do this. Spend some time leading up to 2012 thinking about everything thing you want to achieve then articulate this in the form of a vision. I recommended you keep somewhere you can see it regularly, whether that is by your desk or by your bed side so that it is the first and last thing you see everyday.

I will leave you with a couple of quotes.....

Robert Collier
Imagination gives you the picture. Vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own.

Peter Marshall
Give to us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for - because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Amar Garcha

Engage Your Audience

A Grand Piano on a beach...how strange you might say? This is probably what the people of Florida thought when a Grand Piano suddenly appeared on a sandbar near Biscayne Bay. An article in The Telegraph tells how the piano prompted great speculation about why it had been put there, people were intrigued. One photographer swam over to it so they could take a closer look and take some photos and another person spoke about how they had seen someone playing it and someone filming it. Whoever put the piano there and for whatever reason, they have definitely engaged an audience.

Whenever you want to put a message across in whatever situation it is always important to engage your audience so they listen to what you have to say. Whether you are presenting to an audience of 100 or presenting to your team in the office, you really want them to take notice and act on what you say.

Here are some tips for engaging your audience during a presentation:

1.Ask a question and give people time to think. Don’t rush to fill the silence.

2.Make eye contact so people feel you are communicating with them.

3.Your voice, face and body language must tell participants that you want questions and responses.

4.Avoid questions that have obvious ‘correct’ answers, especially rhetorical questions.

5.Prepare questions in advance to stimulate thinking, create interest and add transfer of training value.

6.Be prepared to drop your agenda to focus on hot topics for the group.

For more tips on presenting why not join us at the preview of the High Impact Presentations Programme on Thursday 10th February, click here to register.

Sophie Whittall
Marketing Co-ordinator

www.London.dalecarnegie.com

Opening a Presentation

Most airplane difficulties occur at two critical points: take-off and landing. The same is often true of presentations. A strong opening will create additional confidence and is an opportunity to make an immediate positive first impression.

Key Points

• Get favourable attention quickly
• Lead naturally into your presentation
• Build goodwill
• Create points of agreement

Techniques

• Use an exhibit
• Dramatise your ideas
• Get participation
• Cite points of agreement or common ground

Avoid the apology. "How often we all have heard speakers begin by calling the attention of the audience to their lack of preparation or lack of ability. If you are not prepared, the audience will probably discover it without your assistance." -- Dale Carnegie

www.london.dalecarnegie.com

Leap of Faith .....

Is now the time to take risks and do things you've never done before? I was running a seminar for a group of business managers two weeks ago and was particularly struck when during a discussion about the dreaded 'credit crunch' one of the participants suggested if you weren't in sales before 1997 you were in for a rude awakening about what it was like to sell in a difficult market.

As business people we are being called upon to go and sell the value of our products and services in a way we haven't had to do in the past decade. If bookings on presentations skills programmes is an indicator that people are being asked to get out there and see more clients then the answer is definitely YES.

We're certainly in a time when we have to try new things to succeed. So ... in challenging times is it important to look before you leap? This final question came in into my mind when I found myself standing on a ledge in the French Alps last week ... snow board strapped to my feet and asking myself the question .. How did I get here? Stupiditiy is one answer!

My conclusion to the quesiton of looking before you leap is ... look but don't look for too long, the drop just seems to get bigger!

Now is the time to take action ... be it in business or French Mountains!:-)

David Anderson
Managing Director
http://www.london.dalecarnegie.com/