The Venue is SO Important

A little series of episodes has occurred over the last few weeks which highlights just how important the venue and the organisation of the facilities is for any professional presenter.

A very large financial institution who shall remain nameless seems to have got it into it's head that when running courses you should have an events organisation AND a training organisation to put on courses.

And guess what, its a mess every time. The trainers arrive to find the venue staff have little or no idea of the number of rooms, the layout and equipment needed or that the trainer will need a little time to set up. So we find ourselves arranging matters the night before with the venue staff who have been left in the dark.

The event organiser and trainer either need to work closely with maybe some co-ordination by the client training manager (part of their role?) or we can loose the event organiser to save money that would be better spent on keeping highly experience presenters and trainers happy!

Too much delegation I think.

Training the Trainers

Sylvia Modu has just returned from the first (of many to come) train the trainer sessions at Shell UK. Now these were all highly experienced trainers who have been on the job for years. The sort who "have seen it all", and a potentially worrying prospect for the inexperience trainer.

But Sylvia had come prepared with her "unstructured structured" approach to provide these guys with a challenge and worthwhile experience that will benefit them all. With providing presentation skills training, knowing your audience is paramount. But even the best trainers can improve.

The course was so well received that a round of applause was initiated at the close of business. A telling compliment indeed.

Successful Monaco Trip

Inspirational Seminars Ltd, in the guise of Sylvia Modu, has been training senior staff at the Single Buoy Mooring Company in Monaco since 1998. Up to this trip over 80 staff from Monaco's biggest employer have benefited from Public Presentation Skills Training, even though the majority are French speaking, but presenting in English.

Single Buoy Mooring had booked 4 days training last week where a further 22 staff, including directors, were tutored, video'd and assessed. Feedback was excellent.

Whilst Sylvia was training, John Burke held exploratory meetings with the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) in the region and met up with Mike Lorimar (President BCC) and Carl Henry (Committee Member) initially at the renown Cafe de Paris in Monte Carlo, opposite the Casino.

Inspirational Seminars will be joining the BCC in the region and will provisionally give a talk in November or January about the merits of better public speaking skills for most businesses. The intention for Inspirational Seminars is to have a base in Monaco and to build a core of regular clients with whom we can work. Carl Henry also introduced us to some very interesting contacts with whom we expect to be working shortly.

At the time of our visit Monaco was in the middle of its preparation for the world famous Monaco Grand Prix, and barriers and new road markings were being set up. In addition some of the world's finest motor cars were being casually driven around the Casino square, including a Ford GT40, and beautiful examples of Lambourgini, Ferrari, Porche, BMW and Mercedes!

Web Site Nearing Full Functionality

The website at http://www.inspirational-seminars.com is now almost fully functioning.

It has events for public/open courses being listed now with the ability to make on-line bookings for these events, including seeing how many places are left.

The newsletter service is ready to roll, with a series of training focussed articles that should benefit any training manager or director.

The site also has a small range of tightly focused courses available on CD, on web marketing that are available to buy via the secure Paypal system.

There are also details on the impressive range of courses and training available which cover communication skills to customer relations training. At Inspirational there is the belief that we can compete in the marketplace with any other training organisation, due to our ability to call upon the services of over 30 of the most experienced trainers int the business.

We also have a test site at http://www.inspirational-seminars.co.uk which is available for registering interest.

Be "a finely tuned, precision honed, presentation machine"!

We are fortunate to get another satisfied customer, who because of the benefits we bring are only happy to thank us.


Sylvia

Apologies first on the late sending of this email - since our in-house
course recently we've all been swamped with work!

I wanted to say, on behalf of myself, John and Mike, how much we enjoyed the

course which you delivered and, indeed, how much we got out of it.

Both Mike and I have done important presentations since which have gone very

well, far better than before your course.

So, thank you and congratulations on a brilliant job in turning us into a
finely tuned, precision honed, presentation machine!

Steve


Steven Blewitt
Sales Manager
Sandtoft Roof Tiles Ltd
01427 871226

You too can be "a finely tuned, precision honed, presentation machine"!

Thanks for the help so Far-Give Me More

Thanks - I've already actioned some of your suggestions on preparing presentations - and have been congratulated by my clients! How can I book a place on a course you'll be running?

Even the Best Need Mentors

Ask anyone at the top if they need advice, and it's more than likely that they already have their own "mentor", even a few mentors. Why is this so? Well only the utterly arrogant will feel that they cannot improve their current level of performance, in what even field they consider.

Therefore, most competent speakers within an organisation can benefit from a mentor, who has the depth of experience to assist them to excel! With public speaking, a mediocre performance is considered a failure, worse still if you cannot get your message accross, what do think will happen?

Lets say your audience is made up of city analysts and such like who can influence the share price. Or made up of shareholders?

These situations can make or break a presentation, speaker or even the company.

Therefore even competent speakers can be improved, and their technique refined. Public Speaking is in practice a self development process rather than an acquired skill. It's something to be worked on for life, as the audience itself becomes more "sophisticated" and public opinion changes upon a variety of issues.

10 Things to Guarantee a Successful Speech

From our Guest Contributor from the US
by Tom Antion: to get more detailed material from contributors like Tom
click here

RESEARCH YOUR AUDIENCE

It amazes me how some speakers will show up for a speaking
engagement and really not know anything about the audience they
are speaking to. Many speakers just get lazy and feel that their
message is so important.

PRACTICE

The only way to look polished while speaking is to practice. This
is one skill you cannot delegate to anyone else. It is you that
is on stage with the microphone and it is you who will look
either great or terrible. You are sadly mistaken and egotistical
if you think the Powerpoint slides that either you or someone
else created will make you a dynamic speaker.

TAKE CARE OF HECKLERS

This is my famous asterisk technique I use to make sure hecklers
don't interrupt my presentation. I get people in the group to
identify potential trouble makers BEFORE I get to the event. I
phone these people and interview them to give them the attention
they are craving.

USE EMOTIONAL LANGUAGE

Boring old facts rarely move people to action. Learning to use
words that evoke emotions in people will make a much greater
impact when you speak. There are many emotions you can trigger in
the audience just by your choice of words. Happiness, anger,
sadness, nostalgia are just a few. You must pick the words that would mean something to
your audience.

REVEAL YOURSELF

Some people have trouble implementing this idea because they like
to remain aloof and private. This will hurt their chances of
making a good connection with people in the audience.

USE PROPS

A prop is worth a thousand words. People can really anchor a
thought in their minds when it is connected to an object that
relates to the point you are trying to make.

USE HUMOR

Even Shakespeare used humor in the middle of the tragedies he
wrote. Humor is a powerful and effective tool that gives the
audience's mind a chance to breath in the face of heavy material.
It also makes you more likable and fun to listen to. Humor is
also much more likely to make your information more memorable.

MOVE 'EM TO ACTION

If you are going to bother taking up people's time to speak to
them, don't you think it would be a good idea to get them to do
something positive because of your presentation? Even if they do
something negative, it's still better than doing nothing because
they will at least get a chance to learn something from their
mistake.

BRING SOLUTIONS

One of the best ways to make sure the audience loves you is to
bring solutions to their problems. If you have done a thorough
job of researching your audience, you already know what their
problems are. It's your job to bring ideas for them to try.

PAY ATTENTION TO LOGISTICS

All the best preparation, practice and audience research could be
ruined if you forget to pay attention to all the details
surrounding a presentation. You want to know what is happening
before you speak, and what is happening after you speak.

Presentation Skills Top Tips

This is an extract from the Inspirational Seminars Ltd web site on "Top10 tips" about making presentations in public or to a group. Please request the full article by clicking here


1 Why Am I Giving This Presentation?

This might sound simple but is not as simple as it seems. Many people when faced with having to give a presentation grab their laptop and march off to ‘do’ their presentation. It’s one that they have done many times before and they plan to ‘do’ it in the same way they have always done it.

They have overlooked that although it is the same presentation the audience is different! Every presentation needs to be tweaked for different audiences otherwise you will find yourself putting the emphasis on the wrong things. For example, one of the main reasons for buying a product or service in the business world, is saving money. If you don’t know why you are giving the presentation beforehand you might not know that this audience doesn’t care so much about saving money as much as they care about reliability and a good service. So ask yourself ‘what do I want my audience to do or feel or say after they have listened to my presentation?’

2 Get Ready

Try to write your presentation yourself. Do your slides later not now. Imagine you are standing in front of your audience, what do you want to say and how will you say it? Think it through and write it down as you would like to say it. This will show you the complete picture and help you bridge any gaps in the logic of your argument. Plus it begins the process of helping you to remember. From this you can create your ‘speaker notes’ as well as relevant slides.

Get to know as much as you can about your audience: who’s going to be there, what they want to know, how much do they know already and so on. Then try to get to the venue before your audience (even if it’s your client’s premises) so you can set up and be happy that all equipment is working ok. This also gives you much more control as you will be the one welcoming everyone as they enter the room!

3 Talk To People

4 Believe What You Say

5 Like Your Audience

6 Speak Up

7 Look ‘em in the eye

8 Control Yourself

9 Open and Shut…

…properly. “Today I want to talk to you about…” is not a good opening so don’t use it. Think of something like “when we met last month, you were kind enough to tell us of your requirements…” See how much better that is?

And when you close, avoid finishing with “any questions?” Listen to what this type of closing says to your audience: “I have not prepared a really memorable close so I shall resort to a bad finish with this real wimp of a question”. So don’t use it. Instead look for something like: “let’s remind ourselves of the benefits to you…” And then itemise them.

10 Wag your own tail

Tails do not wag dogs, dogs wag tails. If you let PowerPoint take over from you to such an extent that you couldn’t do your presentation without it, I am afraid it is a case of the tail wagging the dog. In Tip 2, I suggested you should write your presentation as you would like to say it. If you do this you will find it much easier to create slides.

Here are the rules: If you can show the real thing – do. If you can’t but can show a model – do. If you can’t then show a picture and if it is not possible, then by all means use word but make them few and interesting.

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