Your appearance
What this means is that your appearance matters a lot. Dress appropriately (however the audience defines that). Wear a friendly expression. There is no such thing as a neutral expression. Your "blank" face will be interpreted as "arrogant," "confident," "business-like," "nervous," or "cocky." So take away that ambiguity from your audience and consciously project confidence with undertones of muted cheerfulness.
Your stance
Once you get up, be mindful of your stance. Stand with your back straight and shoulder back, but not too stiffly. Distribute your weight equally on both feet. Don't lean forward while bending your knee, because you seem like you are crouching. It is an aggressive position. Don't slouch or fidget either.
Keep eye contact with various members of the audience. Do not look at just one person or two, but spread your attention to the room. Take care to jump to all quadrants of the room, and not just to one side.
Your movements
As for your arms, you don't need to pin them on the side, but don't gesticulate wildly either. If you keep them at a neutral stance, somewhat close to the side of your body, any movement you make will seem large. The arc of moving the hands from the side to the front of you will be wider, thus conveysing a lot more drama into whatever you are saying. Your gestures are tools for emphasis, so don't let them fly willy nilly, distracting your audience.
Walking on the stage communicates powerful messages, so don't do it idly or as a means to expend excess energy. Use it sparingly and intentionally. You can use it to emphasize a point or to introduce a transition in thought, for examples.
Your delivery
Your audience take their cue from your energy. If you are excited about your subject, they can't help but be thrilled either. But make sure that your energy matches the subject and the audience. Acting like you just drank 10 cups of coffee when talking about umbrella insurance is incongruent to your topic.
Pauses are OK. Don't be afraid of them. It's a way for giving your audience a chance to intellectually breathe—to process what your are telling them and store them in their brains. If you don't pause, it would seem like you are in a rush or even nervous; also, you leave your audience exhausted as you run a three-legged course for an hour (or however long your session is).
Your rapport
Engage the audience. It's now passe to act like the grand poobah and holder of all knowledge who lectures to weak-minded minions. Instead, treat the presentation like a conversation, where it just happens to be that you are the only one talking.
Ask questions, interact with them, and engage their minds.
Your presentation tools
Your computer, slides, and other tools are meant to aid your presentation. They are not your crutches that you need to lean on to move forward.
To pull this off, you should know your content well. Very well. Know every slide down to its font and pixels, well, okay, maybe not to that obsessive level, but well enough that you never have to look back or at the computer to need to know what's next. And the only way to get there is by hours of practice.
If you need to look at your computer to move forward, you are tethered. Even when you don't pause as you look down, you break the eye contact with your audience (which you should sustain, but not with the same person or small number of persons, because that would be creepy). This have the following consequences: your energy level (perceived) drops and so does your credibility ("What gives?! Why doesn't she know her stuff?!")
It's OK to look from time to time, by know your material enough that you don't have to do this frequently.
When you are moving from slide to slide, do not look back. If you need to look back, do not talk and turn at the same time. You want to create a solid break between "communication" and transitional actions. The best way to handle this is to end at a natural break point, click, look, turn back, then talk again. You do these series of actions sequentially, not simultaneously. And when you turn, don't even move your pivot foot. It should be an uncomfortable (though, not awkward) position for you that would make you want to pivot back.
Your mistakes
If you had practiced like you should, you would not be flustered when your tools fail you. They're just your aid. You (your body language and facial expressions) and what you have to say should be the main points that will carry the presentation forward.
When you fumble, move on. Don't dwell on it. Olympic athletes fall, too, and all the audience pull for them to get back and run or perform like nothing happened. You could crack a joke or not, but move on. Don't be flustered and move on. For the record, I tripped in a job interview once. I got hired anyway. The content of my message was compelling, and no one remembered my lack of grace. Plus, I now have one more funny stories to add to my arsenal of anecdotes.
No comments:
Post a Comment