Go before your audience expecting to make an impact! People aren’t interested in what you know. They want your information for themselves and passion is like the “grease” that lubricates that passage of information! Do you expect that your audience will receive what you have to say? Do you communicate that you’re excited to be there and you’re also excited that they are there as well?

Be mindful of the needs of your audience. As a professional speaker, we can get caught up with our message because you know it’s what your audience needs. The problem with that train of thought is that it leaves one key person out of the equation – your audience member. Prepare yourself beforehand to figure out what your audience may want to know or needs to know and then deliver that message.

Change things up for maximum impact! There are going to be times when you can’t stay stuck to your outline. Learn to improvise and adjust to the needs of your audience. Find ways to engage them as you proceed throughout your message. Do you remember in school that one teacher you had that you could never seem to connect with? Students were falling asleep in class and the teacher still plodded on with their message! How effective is that? Change your presentation and tailor it to engage your audience no matter where they might be! Don’t stay stuck in a routine!

Relate to your audience. Relating to your audience goes beyond just speaking to them. It encompasses everything from the greeting you give, the way you dress and your tone of voice you use to address them. Part of relating to your audience means knowing who they are and what appeals to them. You’ll have to research beforehand who your audience members are. If you do this, you’ll be positioning yourself to be more relatable to them.

Passion is the key that opens their hearts and minds to receive what you have to say! If you’re passionate about your topic, that will come across in your speech by default. Conversely, if you lack passion about your topic, that too will also come across. Do you really believe in what you’re talking about? Do you see the value that you and your message have to offer your audience? When you practice your speech, do you motivate yourself? Just about every professional speaker starts off practicing by looking at themselves in the mirror! Try doing that and take a good look at what you see!

You are the key to a successful delivery of your message. If you want to see results, understand that you set the tone in your meeting and it’s up to you to maintain control of that tone!

1. Know your stuff. Knowledge is power and so is preparation. Do you know your subject matter well enough to answer impromptu questions? If not, you should. Review the material and ask yourself potential questions that might come up. Look for inconsistencies in information within your presentation and then remove them. Prepare answers to potential questions.

2. Don’t react to negative comments or questions. You are the professional and you are the “guru” of information concerning the topic you’re speaking on. Reacting negatively destroys any positive images that your audience has of you. Believe it or not, your audience is not thinking “Oh poor speaker being heckled by audience member Joe!” Don’t give in to emotion because that’s not part of your equation. Stick to the topic at hand and take the stance that you are the information “guru” regarding the subject matter!

3. Always answer all questions. Avoiding difficult questions also questions you’re validity as a subject matter expert. One of your goals as a speaker is to gain the support of your audience. You want them jumping on the bandwagon idea that you’re pitching to them. In the process, you’ll want to eliminate anything that will cause you to lose your credibility.

4. Maintain your control. Responding to your negative audience with the same negative emotion will cause you to lose control of your topic. Focus on the topic at hand. Train your mind to deliver the message you were hired to deliver instead of letting emotional antics get in the way. A developed speaker is one who has control over his/her emotions.

5. Be prepared for the next potential negative encounter. Having one negative speaking experience certainly prepares you for the next. Instead of focusing on the negative situation, take a step back and begin to learn from what happened. Perform a self-evaluation. What did you learn?

6. Engage your negative audience member or group. A negative audience or member is one who is disconnected with your presentation. It should be your goal to connect with as many people as possible and to make your subject come alive in their minds that what you present is possible.

Train yourself to react professionally. In doing so, you’ll be establishing yourself as a leader and as a subject matter expert. Don’t let negative questioning override what you have to communicate – look at it as being just a learning experience. When you do that, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a top-notch professional speaker!

Since having this fear often has no bearing on whether you have to do a presentation or not, you’ll have to find some ways to overcome your anxiety. The first step is to know that you are not alone and that you can prepare in advance so that the level of fear you feel is significantly reduced. Here are some other interesting statistics.

- Proper presentation and rehearsal of your message can reduce your fear by about 75%.

- Utilizing breathing techniques can reduce your anxiety by another 15%.

- Preparing for your mental state can reduce your fear the remaining 10%.

With these statistics in mind, here are some preparation tips to help you relax and reduce how you feel before going in front of your audience.

1. Know the environment you will speak in. Become familiar with the area by arriving early and walking around. Know how much space you have and the physical distance between you and your audience. As you acclimate yourself to your stage, you will find yourself feeling more comfortable.

2. Know your audience. You should find out who comprises your audience and do some research to find out their likes and dislikes. When they enter the room, greet them and take time to get to know some faces.

3. Know your presentation inside and out. If you don’t know what you’ll be presenting how can you expect yourself to feel fearless?

4. Implement breathing techniques to help you relax. Breathing techniques have been scientifically proven to invigorate the body and help you get rid of nervousness.

5. See yourself on stage before you actually get there. Replay images of your successful presentation in your mind. If you visual success, you’ll find it.

6. Know that your audience wants you to succeed. Your success means they get what they want and need. If they’ve paid money to attend your presentation, they have a personal stake in your success. If you’re providing training, they have a personal stake in your success. If you’re delivering a graduation speech at a local university, the graduating class has a personal stake. Get the idea? Your audience wants you to succeed.

7. Don’t draw attention to your being nervous. Many people won’t even realize that you are nervous. Most times you will find that while you have your audience’s attention, they are really thinking about themselves. They are absorbing what you say and processing that into how that relates to them.

8. Know that there is a purpose to your message. You have a message to deliver. Sometimes it’s a cause that you are passionate about. Other times, it may be training that your company needs you to give.

Preparation is the key to your success! Through preparation, you can also overcome most if not all of the feelings of fear that you might have so prepare, prepare, prepare!

Since having this fear often has no bearing on whether you have to do a presentation or not, you’ll have to find some ways to overcome your anxiety. The first step is to know that you are not alone and that you can prepare in advance so that the level of fear you feel is significantly reduced. Here are some other interesting statistics.

- Proper presentation and rehearsal of your message can reduce your fear by about 75%.

- Utilizing breathing techniques can reduce your anxiety by another 15%.

- Preparing for your mental state can reduce your fear the remaining 10%.

With these statistics in mind, here are some preparation tips to help you relax and reduce how you feel before going in front of your audience.

1. Know the environment you will speak in. Become familiar with the area by arriving early and walking around. Know how much space you have and the physical distance between you and your audience. As you acclimate yourself to your stage, you will find yourself feeling more comfortable.

2. Know your audience. You should find out who comprises your audience and do some research to find out their likes and dislikes. When they enter the room, greet them and take time to get to know some faces.

3. Know your presentation inside and out. If you don’t know what you’ll be presenting how can you expect yourself to feel fearless?

4. Implement breathing techniques to help you relax. Breathing techniques have been scientifically proven to invigorate the body and help you get rid of nervousness.

5. See yourself on stage before you actually get there. Replay images of your successful presentation in your mind. If you visual success, you’ll find it.

6. Know that your audience wants you to succeed. Your success means they get what they want and need. If they’ve paid money to attend your presentation, they have a personal stake in your success. If you’re providing training, they have a personal stake in your success. If you’re delivering a graduation speech at a local university, the graduating class has a personal stake. Get the idea? Your audience wants you to succeed.

7. Don’t draw attention to your being nervous. Many people won’t even realize that you are nervous. Most times you will find that while you have your audience’s attention, they are really thinking about themselves. They are absorbing what you say and processing that into how that relates to them.

8. Know that there is a purpose to your message. You have a message to deliver. Sometimes it’s a cause that you are passionate about. Other times, it may be training that your company needs you to give.

Preparation is the key to your success! Through preparation, you can also overcome most if not all of the feelings of fear that you might have so prepare, prepare, prepare!

This means that you incorporate the use of triggers in your presentation. These triggers can be things like power point slides, props, and story telling that you’ll scatter throughout your speech. What the triggers do is prompt you to talk about the next point your trying to make. The triggers can also serve as a trigger to help you remember what to say next.

There are four primary ways to remember your presentation.

1. The first one is memorizing. This can work for presentations less than an hour, but if you’re teaching a six hour seminar course, you’re going to have to find some other way other than memorizing. This is actually one of the worst ways to remember your presentation because there are no safe guards that protect you once you forget.

2. The next way to remember your presentation is to read a full written version. People write out their speeches, but reading from the full written text can cause you to sound stiff and unnatural.

Most commonly occurring in business settings (i.e. – at board meetings or company meetings), reading your speech may be necessary. If you have to read your speech, there are things you can do to help you sound natural. Keep in mind the business tone may be necessary, but there may also be parts in your presentation that require the monotony to be broken!

3. The third way to remember your presentation is to use notes – a condensed outline form of your presentation. Have your notes on a single page sheet or on note cards. Highlight key points to make in a way that you can easily understand the emphasis that the points need. Having notes does not mean that you do not need to work with your presentation!

4. The last way to remember your presentation is to use visual aids (props) as your notes. Let your visuals and images prompt you to speak. Tell your audience a story about the image you’re showing. You can also let your visuals and images do the talking for you. You can post your outline on the screen and say that it’s because it will help your audience stay on track with you!

Work with creating mental images of the points you are trying to make. This will help you sound more natural and more “impromptu” with your audience. When you sound natural, you sound genuine.

Utilize one or more of these ways to remember your presentation. Use various ways to “trigger” your memory to say what needs to be said. Use overheads to lead you through your speech as you place keywords on the screen.

One of the most difficult aspects of making your presentation is getting started. You may be feeling overwhelmed even if you’ve been working with your materials for years. Maybe you’re looking for a way to simplify your research process. In any case, the first step is to jump in there and get started.

1. Research your material. Collect and read as much information as possible. Make some notes and also look at the validity of the information you are collecting. Is the information outdated? Is it relevant to the actual subject you are going to talk about? Start taking notes and highlighting potentially key points of your presentation.

2. Once you feel you’ve gathered enough information to present, review your notes and select the information you are going to present. Look for key ideas that support the purpose of your talk. Decide how deep you will go when presenting your information? Consider your audience. What do they need to know to take action on your subject? How much detail do they actually need? Consider also, the length of the time you’ll have for your presentation.

3. Organize your key ideas into an outline form. Start with the key points you will make and add two to three supporting elements to it. When you speak, you will be leading your audience from point A to point B. You’re taking them somewhere even if it’s only in their minds. Does your outline show a path to take? Is it relevant? Adjust your key points until you do lead your audience to where you want them to go.

4. Decide how you will present your organized information in your presentation. What visual aids can you use to strengthen your points? Is there data or research that you can bring into your presentation? How can you vary the delivery of your message? Your presentation will be more interesting if you do more than just talk. People can easily tune out of your message especially if it’s during a meal or immediately following one.

5. Organize your presentation outline to incorporate your visuals and method of delivery in your presentation. Review what it looks like on paper. Your outline is like your map for success. Is your map clearly defining the information you want to say? Are there any weak points were the information is not as strong as you’d like it to be? If it’s not, revise and review and keep doing this until you get your map the way you want it to be.

Organizing the material for your presentation is a process. As you take your audience from lack of knowledge to having knowledge, your background work is to create an outline map of your journey. This map is the key to your success and the only way to be successful is to have a plan of action. Start today in creating your map of success!

What kinds of mannerisms are distracting?

- Swaying to and fro in front of the audience
- Hanging on to the podium
- Finger tapping
- Licking your lips or biting your lips
- Fidgeting with clothes, pockets or jewelry
- Frowning
- Fussing with hair
- Bobbing your head
- Flailing arms at inappropriate times

The movements you make in your speech should be planned or at least controlled by you. Any movement that is not planned could potentially be distracting. Many of the above mentioned mannerisms stem from being nervous about being on stage. Additionally, they could also come just because you don’t know you are doing them. Either way, you’ll need to minimize and eliminate as many of these movements as possible.

1. Make a video tape of yourself. Do you even know that you are making these movements? Probably not. A video will help you identify which distracting movements you’ll need to work on eliminating.

2. Review your video tape for places where you make distracting mannerisms. Make a list of the mannerisms you have and thoughtfully practice your speech without those mannerisms. Rerecord yourself and keep reviewing your tapes until you a satisfied that all the mannerisms are gone.

3. Work on feeling comfortable with delivering your speech. You should feel natural as you speak about your topic. You should feel like you are sharing information with a long time friend. This will come when you’ve spent many hours practicing, reworking and revising your speech. This will also come because you speak from your heart and let others know the way you feel about your subject.

4. Work on eliminating nervousness when delivering your speech. This will come as you get more familiar with your material. This will also come as you take the time to focus on delivering your message instead of focusing on the feelings of fear and anxiety.

5. You can also review your video tapes for place in your speech that you need to add body movements into your presentation that will make it more interesting. Let your movements show the way you feel. These movements should be natural and can work in your favor as you emphasize specific points in your presentation.

6. Consider this when deciding which body movements to incorporate into your presentation. Body movements should look natural. You can use facial expressions and make eye contact with your audience for maximum effects.

Every movement should be planned during your presentation. You can easily lose your audience with distracting movements because your audience’s focus and attention will be turned to these movements instead of what you have to say!

The first message type is the verbal message. First off, your verbal message should be clear and concise. Your discussion points should be detailed and well supported by data, testimonials and perhaps even visual aids. Discussion and transition points should flow and lead your audience from point A to point B.

Supporting this verbal message is the message you send with using the tone of voice. The tone of voice has the ability to liven up your topic. Emphasize highlighted points with excitement and enthusiasm. A quiet, somber tone of voice can bring seriousness to identifying problems you present when you present your solution. A loud, booming voice can emphasize definitive statements.

The second type of message is the visual message. These messages (along with the message you send using your tone of voice) are often inferred messages that aren’t directly spoken but they still have lots to say about you as a leader and the message you bring.

The environment that you hold your presentation in impacts your message as well. The room itself can be a distraction and you can lose your focus and worse yet, you can lose the attention of your audience. Details like the room temperature (too cold, too warm) or noisy traffic (beeping horns and emergency vehicle sirens) may seem like they are out of your control, but you do have some control. Other environmental considerations include the appearance of the room. Is it professional? Is it warm and cozy? Does it enhance the message you want to convey or does it take away from it? It behooves you to minimize as much as possible all of these types of distractions from your presentation.

Another visual presentation you make is the one with your personal appearance and attire. Your audience doesn’t know you. If you say that you are a professional, do you look like it? You don’t have to have the Armani suits or the Dolce & Gabbana dress, but you should at least look like the professional you claim to be. Men speaker should avoid loud colored shirts. Leave those shirts at home for the night out. Women should dress conservatively. You don’t have to be wearing a burlap sack, but low-cut blouses and high skirts don’t belong here. Your goal is to create credibility as a professional.

There are many other messages that your audience picks up during the course of your presentation. They know exactly how you’re feeling about the topic you present by the enthusiasm in your voice. They already make assumptions regarding your credibility as a true professional. Don’t take chances and send the wrong message!

1. Make it interesting. As simple as this sounds many beginning professional speakers fail to engage their audiences simply because their message is not interesting. This doesn’t mean that what they had to say had no value, but rather the message did not inspire anyone to take a sincere interest.

2. Stay on track. Even the best professional speakers can get off track in their delivery. This adds confusion to the basic message they were trying to communicate and could hinder anyone receiving the message at all.

3. Make your message clear and concise. You can overload your audience with detailed facts. While you do want to be precise and give accurate information, too much information will literally boggle their minds! If you have a lot of details that you want them to have, use a separate handout and refer to that. Doing so will make it easier on your audience to digest the wonderful news you have to share.

4. Make your message effective. Do you have a goal with your presentation? What actions do you want your audience members to take once they are done hearing you? Your presentation should lead your audience down a path to take action on the things you want them to do. Consider yourself to be a tour guide leading them to key highlights of information within your presentation. Your presentation should always conclude with an action step whether it means taking a test or buying reference products and materials.

5. Make your message personal. While you speak to a group of people, your message is tailored to each and every single person in your audience. You can connect with them individually by relaying personal situations they might find themselves in. You can connect with them by bringing in the emotional aspect (i.e. – fear, inspiration, dreams) into your presentation. The bottom line of your presentation is to connect with your audience one on one while addressing the entire group.

6. Check the “political correctness” of your message. You can lose or offend your audience if you don’t pay attention to the political correctness of your message. Talking about sensitive subjects like money, culture, and even type of language used requires you to exert sensitivity concerning your audience.

Delivering the best message comes with the diligent attention and care to the details of your presentation. Take time to refine and hone your message so that you can have confidence that you’ve presented your information well and on target. Be specific about what you say and engage your audience to ensure that you are the answer to their problems! Professional speakers take the time to polish their message!

Humor accomplishes many things in your presentation. Here are some things that humor can do for you!

1. Humor helps you connect with your audience. Make yourself more relatable with your audience as they begin to see that it’s not all about the information. Humor draws your audience to you because people are naturally drawn to positive things.

2. Humor makes you more approachable and likeable as a speaker. Your audience will see you as being more down to earth and again, relatable.

3. Humor creates interest in your topic as well as yourself. Humor just makes things interesting to follow. People like to laugh.

4. Humor helps to keep the attention of your audience. Your audience tunes out because they get lost in your presentation. By using humor, it’ll be harder for your audience to tune out because they will want to hear your humorous story.

5. Humor strengthens point and ideas you want to highlight in your presentation. Funny stories are memorable and can strengthen the point of your message. Television sitcoms are famous for taking real life situations and presenting them in a humorous fashion.

6. Humor removes hostility in your presentation. If there were any ill feelings towards you or your message, humor lightens the mood of your audiences and disarms negative emotions.

7. Humor helps connects pieces of information in your topic. Work humor into the transition points of your presentation. In that way they will be the bridge that connects the points of your message together.

8. Humor helps paint mental images in the minds of your audience. Self-effacing humor is often relatable to your audience because they can see themselves having those same situations.

9. Humor makes your presentation more memorable. People remember when they laugh. They’ll remember funny stories or funny instance during your presentation.

10. Humor lightens a heavy topic. People can only take so much of heavy topics. You don’t want to make your audience feel depressed even if your topic discusses a very grave matter.

11. Humor can bring in better evaluations and more product sales. Humor warms your audience up to you. In doing so, your audience will be more open to purchasing your back of the room products as well as give you a better review.

12. Humor will make people happy. People want to enjoy your seminar. They want to have a good time and they want to be happy. Humor helps you achieve that.

Humor can add so much variety to an otherwise dull, information only presentation. Helping to connect you with your audience, humor is a great addition that can bring you better speaker reviews and increased revenue. Add some spice to your message by incorporating humor!