Recently, a colleague on LinkedIn asked how do you present yourself as the most important person [...]]]>

Not too long ago I wrote about how to find the most important person in the room by reading specific body language cues. (By the way, thank you to all the magazines and other blogs that picked up this story!)

Recently, a colleague on LinkedIn asked how do you present yourself as the most important person the room?

Great question!

While the body language cues I discussed in the first article came primarily from how people react around you, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few things you can do to bring the “air of power” back to you.

1.) Look the part: As nice as the saying is “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”, we still do it every day. You want to be as well dressed and as well groomed as possible. Don’t worry about having to stretch your credit card limit on clothes. You can find some great looks for low prices. You want to make sure whatever you wear it is fitted, current, and classy. Good image consultants can be very helpful in this area.

2.) Feel the part: The first person you have to convince is yourself. If you feel shy, insignificant, and scared, it will translate to your facial expressions, body language, and voice. Think of ways that you can pump yourself up. Before going to any event that intimidates me, I play my favorite “go get ‘em” music in my car – loudly. Music is one of the best ways to get your mojo flowin’. You can also get a friend to give you a pep talk. Use them as your pre-game coach. However you get there, get there! The more confident you feel, the more powerful you present yourself.

3.) Be the part: Once you’ve accomplished looking powerful for a first impression and feeling powerful inside, you can then project your powerful nature to the rest of the world. Here are a few power stances you can use when networking and wanting to appear approachable. Nothing projects power like confidence. If you want to appear confident and approachable, you’ll want to be sure to:
Have a genuine smile
Open body language (uncrossed arms and legs, no hands in pockets, palm up gestures)
Strong eye contact
Nodding when listening
Slight tilt of the head
Feet pointed in same direction

While some of these suggestions on “be the part” may seem simple and obvious, you’d be amazed at how many people overlook these necessary confident signals. The main reason why people fail to project these signal is that they don’t believe it. They don’t believe they are powerful. They don’t believe they are significant. They don’t believe in their confidence. This is why step 2 is so critical to this process. You body language leaks the true thoughts your mind (both conscious and subconscious) has.

If you believe it, they will see it.

This month I re-started a very rigorous work out routine (P90X). This is my second time with the 90 day program. I only made it through 60 days at the beginning of this year. Since then, I’ve worked out occasionally, [...]]]>

Ever wondered how weight loss is just like presentation skills? No? Me neither – until today.

This month I re-started a very rigorous work out routine (P90X). This is my second time with the 90 day program. I only made it through 60 days at the beginning of this year. Since then, I’ve worked out occasionally, but within the last few weeks I’ve hardly worked out at all and have enjoyed many tasty foods. I’m sure you can imagine the result.

I have been thinking about beginning the workout program for quite a while now, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Why? Because I was judging myself. I was disappointed with myself and my inactivity. I felt ashamed. And, honestly, I was afraid. I was afraid of feeling like a failure if I tried and realized how far I had fallen from where I was.

I finally was able to start the difficult workout all over again a few days ago because I gave myself one rule: NO JUDGMENT. All of my fears, insecurities, and worries stemmed from the judgments I was placing on myself. I deemed myself to be out of shape, weak, and a gooey mushy blob (at least in my head). But once I released myself from the grips of my own judgment, I allowed myself to just do the process.

It was still tempting to let my judgments creep in my mind. In my “workout room” (aka the living room), there is a mirror in which that I would occasionally catch my reflection. Every time I caught a glimpse of the imperfections I told myself, “No judgment. Keep going.”

This is the exact same process you need to take if any fears, worries, or concerns are holding you back from improving your public speaking skills. If you allow your preemptive judgments of yourself to stand in your way of taking chances, presenting at your next business meeting or taking the platform at your trade association, you will never give yourself the freedom to grow and improve.

Make a rule for yourself: NO JUDGMENT.

If you stutter, forget your place, wander too much on the platform, get your papers shuffled up, or even accidentally trip – no judgment. There will be time later to debrief yourself on what went well and what could have been improved, but don’t stop yourself before you start.

Stay in the moment. Focus on the process, not on the potential future outcomes. Once you give a speech or step out of your comfort zone in any way, give yourself a big pat on the back! (I used to reward myself with ice-cream, but I guess I need to find a new reward as I continue the workout…dang!) Each time you give a speech, run a meeting, host a webinar, or lead a training session, put a gold star in your calendar because that’s an accomplishment. Just doing it is an accomplishment in and of itself. I don’t care if you have the worst presentation of your life! You did it! And you learned from it. Next time you’ll do better.

While I work on developing my fitness by working the process and doing the workouts, I want you to develop your public speaking skills by focusing on doing more presentations and stepping out of your comfort zone. Focus and just do the process.

In fact, if you give a presentation, speak in front of any group, or reach outside your comfort zone, I want you to leave a comment here. Share your accomplishments with our community! I look forward to hearing about your process with no judgments!

After posting through the restrictive medium, I have found communication through Twitter [...]]]>

When Twitter first came on the scene, I must admit I thought it was ridiculous. 140 characters to say something. What in the world could you have to say that’s worth saying in 140 characters? Well,  I’ve been converted to the Twitter world.

After posting through the restrictive medium, I have found communication through Twitter to be fascinating. Especially when you compare how much CAN be said in 140 characters vs. how very little is said in meetings that last over 2 hours. I believe Twitter has taught us to be more specific, succinct, and powerful in our communications.

In my business presentation training, I teach there is power in brevity.

“I have a dream.” | “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” | and more recently “Yes we can.” … All in less than 140 characters! These guys were way ahead of their time, in more ways than one!

William Henry Harrison

And just to prove the point, on a rainy day in 1841 President William Henry Harrison delivered the longest inaugural speech in American history (8,444 words) and 31 days later died of pneumonia – thus serving the shortest presidency in history.

So, not only is there power in brevity, but it can save your life!

Another source people use to determine if the audience enjoyed the speech or not is evaluation sheets (or as Alan Weiss calls them “smile sheets”).

While I [...]]]>

In Part One of this series, I discussed how to gauge if your audience thought you did a good job when you spoke, or if they are simply being polite.

Another source people use to determine if the audience enjoyed the speech or not is evaluation sheets (or as Alan Weiss calls them “smile sheets”).

While I understand the urge for businesses to use a quantifiable measurement to judge the success or failure of a speech, the evaluation sheet process has become arbitrary. They ask the audience to rate the skills of the presenter on a scale of 1-5, one being the lowest and five being the highest. What does a 1 rating mean? It was the worst presentation you’ve ever seen in your life? What does a 5 rating mean? The speaker should be earning 6-figures just to come in today because they are so fabulous? And – my biggest problem with evaluation sheets – what’s the difference between a 4 and a 5?

The 1-5 scale means something different for every person in the room. Therefore, you don’t know if the audience member gave a 4 because they never give 5’s, because 5’s to them signify perfect performance. Who knows? And then there could be the jerk in the audience who marked a 1 on the sheet even though it had nothing to do with the speech, he just didn’t want to be at the stupid conference that day. Who knows?

Which is why I suggest creating an evaluation sheet with open-ended questions and a few yes/no questions. For example, you will learn much more if you ask “What are the 3 main take-aways you learned from this program?” or “How could today’s presentation been improved?” Force your audience to explain their impressions of the presentation.

You can also ask yes/no questions. For example, “Would you recommend this program to your colleagues? Why or why not?”

Think of how much more valuable feedback you’ll receive from evaluations with these types of questions as opposed to the 1-5 scale which leaves you wondering.

People talking to you at the end of a presentation. Usually, right after a presentation, you will have a few people come up to you, shake your [...]]]>

Too often presenters are trying to get feedback on their presentations from either unreliable or pointless sources. Here are a few pros and cons to the usual feedback sources.

People talking to you at the end of a presentation. Usually, right after a presentation, you will have a few people come up to you, shake your hand, and say ‘good job’. What many speakers seemingly forget is…sometimes people are just polite. Who wants to be the guy that walks up to a speaker and say ‘wow, that was a waste of my time.”? Nobody! So, if you won’t do it, why do you think your audience will say it to you when you bomb?

I’m in no way implying that all of your audience members are being disingenuous. I’m simply wanting to open your eyes to the fact that not all of them are being honest. This isn’t to say that you can’t trust the compliments from your audience. However, I propose that you think beyond a few nice comments.

When you do a debrief on the success of a presentation, instead of only thinking about the complimentary comments after the speech, I recommend that you also consider:

• How many people inquired about your services
• How many people recommended you comment another group to speak to
• How many people said they would mention your name to another individual or group
• How many people asked for you to follow up with them, and gave you their business card

These types of discussions after a presentation signify true success. Audience members are wanting to take action with you. They are wanting to do business with you. They are wanting to be your advocates and refer business to you. This goes beyond end-of-the-presentation pleasantries.

Now, let’s say you’re speaking in front of a group that can’t necessarily do future business with you. They’re not your buyers. And let’s say they don’t run in the same circles as your buyers. How can you tell if they’re being genuine in their end-of-the-presentation comments?

I would pay attention to if they mention anything specific about the program that they can use and put into immediate use. It’s also great when they mention a specific part of your program they enjoyed the most. For example, it’s quite different when someone approaches you and says, “Great job. I really enjoyed your speech.” versus “Great job. I never really thought about X that way before. You really helped me understand that.” Or, “Thanks for coming. Great program.” versus “Thanks so much. I’m going to use your ideas and steps on X. I can use this right away!” One comment implies the audience member is being nice, the other comment implies they received value from your presentation and are grateful/impressed/happy/pleased/inspired – fill in whatever adjective you like.