Giving a presentation is scary for most people. We found the perfect way to make it EASYer for you. Just present with the ABCDs in mind. (ABCDs is our trademarked Presentamagic™ speaking system)

A stands for ATTENTION. Unless you gain their favourable attention, you will not have a successful speech. Do not waffle about at the opening. Get their attention with something that makes your point and sets the stage. Make it funny, profound, thought provoking or startling, but get their ATTENTION.

B stands for BLUEPRINT. People need a road map of where they are going to feel comfortable and to keep from getting lost. After you have their ATTENTION, tell them what they will hear during your talk so they get their minds in synch with your message.

C stands for COASTER or roller-COASTER. Riding a train on a flat, straight track after 2 minutes is not very exciting while EVERY moment on a good COASTER with its ups, downs, twists, surprises really gets us excited. A good speech is the same. You need highs of laugher and enthusiasm, lows of serious and profound thought and a few twists, turns and surprises along the way. Flat track is BORING.

D stands for DESTINATION. Hearing a speech is one thing but what do we do at the end? We need a clear destination, a goal to reach, a call to action; something that leaves us with a profound WOW or life changing thought.

`But Mike, I am only speaking to my team about the new waste cutting measures.` So what? If it is not important, do not waste people`s time with it. If it is worth sharing, it is worth sharing WELL. Tell them how cutting waste is saving the planet for their children, ensuring their rice bowl (job), being good stewards, produces profit and improves their quality of life.

Remember: Speaking is actually quite easy. You have been speaking since you were about 2-years-old. We just have to get back to the basics and relearn our ABCDs. Got comments or questions? Just leave your comments here.

Smile Maker : Words of Power and Passion.

The most destructive habit - Worry
The greatest joy - Giving
The greatest problem to overcome - Fear

The most effective sleeping pill - Peace of mind
The most powerful force in life - Love
The worst thing to be without - Hope

The deadliest weapon - The tongue
The two most power-filled words - I Can
The greatest asset - Faith

The most worthless emotion - Self-pity
The most beautiful attire - SMILE!
The most prized possession - Integrity

The most powerful channel of communication - Prayer
The most contagious spirit - Enthusiasm
The only person responsible for your lot in life - You!

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3 Speaking, Training and Meetings Tips! Speaking, training and meetings need not be hard nor should they ever be dry or boring to the participants. Here are 3 quick tips to make each one easier for you to deliver and a LOT easier on your participants.

1) Speak to individuals, never to the group. Even if I have an audience of 2000+, I only speak to one person at a time. Mother Theresa once said, “One never cares for a crowd, only for an individual. If I visualized a crowd, I’d never get started. The important thing is, the individual.” People get nervous speaking to crowds but rarely to their closest friend…an individual. By the way, it is far easier to look at a face in the crowd smiling at you rather than a hostile face. The smile feeds you energy and confidence while the frown or scowl takes it away.

2) Training is more about influencing behaviour than conveying words. Remember that. Why give them 10,000 words if they change nothing? Instead share what you would like them to DO, get their buy in by having them say it makes sense. Then have them practice it, rewarding them (praise, monetary, feed them, etc.) for successful completion. Now you have ‘trained’ your people.

3) Meetings are for a ‘meeting of minds’, not for attendance. You attend a funeral. You should not simply ‘attend meetings.’ If you are not going to speak, share, challenge or participate, you should not be there. If the meeting is simply to give information, skip the meeting and post the information on a Web site. Everyone at EVERY meeting should be sharing. Design your meetings to be true meetings, not passive ‘information dumps’.

Amazingly simple yet so profound…speaking, training and meetings need to be geared to involved individuals who take action.

If you’d like to know simple techniques for getting people to Open - Up and share their ideas in a meeting or a training session? Check out my “Mining For Gold! Facilitation Skills to Unearth a Wealth of Ideas From Your Team” Package.

I wrote this “Mining For Gold!” to help managers on facilitating meetings; trainers on running coaching sessions and how to extract great ideas from your participants.

——–
“Wow! “Mining For Gold! is a must read if you are in business it makes child’s play of turning a meeting with your people into a meeting of minds… and, when minds meet, action is the result.”

- Winston Marsh
Australian Marketing Guru

Public speaking is something everyone has to do from time to time. For some, it is a joy and an opportunity to shine. For others, a torment and a drudgery. Here are 3 quick tips to help you overcome the FEAR of public speaking.

First, remember FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real. We think they, the audience, is not on our side. RUBBISH! I have never gone before ANY audience that was hoping I would be bad. Every audience wants you to be GOOD and wants you to be effective and interesting. In other words, they are on your side!

Second, NEVER EVER speak to a CROWD. Crowds are tough audiences. Speak to INDIVIDUALS. It is easy for most of us to speak to one person at a time.  That is, speak to just one person in the audience at a time. Speak to a friendly face for 30 seconds. Then look towards another friendly face and speak to him or her for 30 seconds. By speaking to just ONE person at a time, you minimise your fear and maximise the impact upon your audience.

Third, look at those who smile more. Happy, pleasant people feed you energy and relax you. Never look at those who appear to be sucking on a lime. They are the black-holes of your energy and enthusiasm.

If you focus on these 3 suggestions,  you are instantly a more confident and capable speaker. In future blogs we’ll cover dozens more ideas for speaking and presenting as well as ideas for career development, sales, time and stress management, leadership and team building.

Smile Maker: How can a wife tell when her husband is dead?

The TV is still on but no more beer is getting drunk.

You still don’t see him but the pay checks stop.

He starts to smell worse than his socks.

He no longer breaks wind.

You finally get caught-up with the dirty laundry.

You get your first good night’s sleep in years!

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To be an MC, I asked the masters, Ty Boyd CSP, CPAE and Joe Larson CSP, CPAE back in the mid 80’s.

Here’s what they told me:

1. Prepare well ahead of time and talk to everyone before hand to know what they will share, how long they will take, what AV they will need, etc. Get a feel for them as to speaking ability.

2. Develop a block of material to go with the theme, the titles of the speakers talks and to keep the energy up, without you becoming the whole show.

3. Know every piece of equipment and AV to guarantee their are no problems, it’s part of your responsibility.

4. Put all your notes for each intro and outro on index cards and number then so you can change on the fly. Practice so you don’t really have to have the notes.

5. Plan jokes, segways, stretch breaks into your sections to keep energy up.

6. Practice with any event organizer or show provider for lighting, cueing AV and where presenters will enter and exit from.

7. It’s helpful if you have some material planned in case of a no-show or some short presenters.

8. Refer back to previous speakers when introducing the next speaker. Help to weave a thread so its one continuous event rather than just separate speeches.

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One of the biggest myths about public speaking is the whole notion of stage fright. Stage fright DOES NOT EXIST! If you doubt me, have you ever seen anyone go into a meeting room, auditorium or lecture hall and come out screaming, “Oh no! There is a stage in there. Run for your lives!”??? Never! What happens is, when people start speaking, they never are afraid of ‘the stage’. They only get afraid of people. It is not stage fright, it’s people fright.

ONE: How many people do you need in your audience before you get ‘afraid’? If you speak one-on-one, are you afraid? No? two on one? Five on one? How about 10 people in your ‘audience’? 20? 50? 100? 1000? There comes a point for most people when the NUMBER of people is what makes them nervous.

TWO: Sometimes it is WHO is in the audience. If you are with your best friends, are you nervous speaking? No? What about your top 5 bosses? A critical group of peers? A group of top clients? Celebrities? Sometimes people are afraid of individuals in the audience, another form of people fright.

THREE: Another common fear is from not knowing the subject matter. You are speaking to your church, temple, mosque, school or some other group of friendly people but you did not prepare your remarks. You think you will make a fool of yourself. Again, that is not stage fright, it’s people fright.

Get rid of the myth of stage fright and you can begin to work on what is REALLY the matter, your fear of people. In future blogs, we will address how to cope with people fright when speaking.

SMILE MAKER: 5 Little Known Facts
1. It is impossible to lick your elbow.
2. A shrimp’s heart is in its head.
3. In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand.
4. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
5. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

To your success and find out how Michael Podolinsky will help you and your organization by browsing through the links below:

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