Delivery

TweetFollow @enjoypresenting
There are a lot of delivery techniques that you can use when presenting to enhance your presentation or speech; however the one factor that has the most impact on delivery is confidence.

Have you seen a speaker or presenter get on stage, or stand up in a meeting and be uncomfortable and nervous? How did you react to what they had to say? Did you do what they wanted you to do?

This is very similar to sales over the telephone. When you call someone up to introduce them to your product you had better sound and come across as super confident because if you don’t then the person on the other end of the line can hear it and will take the opportunity to get rid of you as quickly as possible. On days where I am confident my conversations on the phone are productive and fun. On days when my confidence is low (yes it happens to all of us) it is far easier for the people on the other end of the phone to get rid of me, and I struggle to make an impact.

When you are presenting they can’t get rid of you but they can zone out, switch off and start thinking about other things that they would rather be doing or things that need doing if they weren’t here.

The key to avoiding this is confidence and I believe that confidence come from two things preparation and practice.

Good preparation is essential to giving a good presentation. When you are preparing brain storm as many ideas as you can get (see our brain storming page for tips). One of the most important things is to know your subject inside out and to have far more than you could possibly present in your time frame. What this forces you to do is to cut out the weaker material and focus on the key points that will make a difference. Always have more to present than is possible, this one thing will build confidence in your next presentation.

If you know you are giving a speech or presentation in a couple of months then one thing you can do is to write the title of your talk on an envelope and place that in plain view on your desk. Whenever you have an idea about the speech in the run up to giving it write it down and put it into the envelope. When you come to start writing and brain storming your speech you should already have a multitude of ideas waiting for you.

Prepare well, know your subject, know your audience as well as you can, know the venue and the contacts, know everything you can about the presentation.

Practice, practice, practice. I know what you are thinking. “That sounds so EXCITING Alan!” Well it is not exciting but it sure does lead to a well polished and exciting performance when you give your next presentation.

Why do people think they are able to give presentations with no preparation and practice and then wonder why it did not go as well as they thought it should!? I have seen wedding speeches given when the speaker just said “I’ll wing it”, and I have cringed as I have listened to a rambling unprepared mess. Respect that your audience is giving up their time to listen to you and have the common courtesy to prepare well!

When you have prepared you material and know all about the venue start practicing. Here are some simple ways that you can practice that will help you to feel confident when on stage:

· Close your eyes and run the speech through in your mind seeing the audience reacting as you want them to react at the different points in your speech. See then laughing if you make a joke, see them leaning forward with interest to hear what you have to say, see them making notes at key points, think through the entire speech seeing it go as you want it to

· Practice the story parts of your talk on friends and family. The more times you tell a story, the more you practice the better you will get. Some of my best stories have been practiced hundreds of times to get them as good as they are

· Practice in the car on the way to the venue. This is one of the best places to practice as you can say it out loud and practice as you go along. Always say it out loud as this is far more memorable for you, and take a bottle of water with you as your throat can become dry after a few practices

· Write it out on flash cards. Something magical happens when you go through writing out what you want to say, the act of writing it down will help it go deeper into your subconscious ready for your presentation and will clarify your thoughts

So remember that confidence comes from practice and preparation. Do these two things and your delivery in your next presentation will be far more confident and smooth.

If you want to know more then come on one of our courses or for a brilliant place to practice where you can get feedback from experienced presentors find your local toastmasters club.