Speak Schmeak

Fun Friday: The soul cleanser

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 25 May 2012 10:39:02 PDT

I loved this beautiful performance on So You Think You Can Dance last night. We speakers are so in love with words; we don't always express ourselves physically as well as we could. Hampton Williams tells an eloquent, emotional story with his face and body; no words are needed.

Here's the direct link if you have trouble viewing.

Are you stealing your audience's time?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:59:53 PDT

We are all familiar with the concept of wasting time. We consider our time wasted when time has passed and we haven't made progress or achieved what we hoped because something distracted us or caused a delay that was out of our control. Some people, like Jason Womack, author of Your Best Just Got Better, probably never experience wasted time, because they are so incredibly productive!

I find it especially disappointing when my time has been wasted by a speaker, because during that hour and in that room, I could have been learning something, expanding my horizons, or even just being entertained. Outside of that room, of course, had I not attended the speaking engagement, I could have been creating products, marketing my services, networking, and building my business.

Yes, we're all far too familiar with the concept of wasting time. But how about the concept of stealing time? This expression was introduced to me by my friend Drew, a guy who gets things done. His time, like all of ours, is valuable, and when he finds himself listening to a speaker who hasn't prepared, or who's winging his presentation, or who's reading from his slides, or -- especially -- doesn't seem to care much one way or the other, Drew considers his time to have been stolen.

Time passes, and no, we can never get it back, so it's gone anyway. We can give our time away willingly to good causes, good friends, family and pursuits we enjoy. We can spend our time doing things that engage, enrich, and enlighten us, propelling us forward, or we can spend time doing things that hinder and stifle us. Or we can spend our time just not doing, period. But those choices still belong to us (as much as we'd like to blame others when we don't get the results we want).

When someone steals my time, though, it feels like it's against my will. But is it? How many times have you walked out on a speaker? Never? Me neither. It sounds harsh, but if someone's stealing my time, maybe I should take a stand and salvage what time I still have remaining!

I would much rather give or spend my time than have it stolen from me, wouldn't you?

Transform your fear

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:27:19 PDT

Listening to Marcia Meiers' keynote at UCSB's Professional Woman's Association conference last week, this slide show quote struck me:

"We cannot escape fear. We can only transform it into a companion that accompanies us on all our exciting adventures... Take a risk a day -- one small or bold stroke that will make you feel great once you have done it." ~ Susan Jeffers

If only I were so eloquent when explaining to my clients how fear works and why it's futile to try to completely eradicate it. The adrenaline rush that makes your stomach flutter, your face turn red and your hands clammy is not typically a welcome companion, but one that's ridiculously hard to shun.

Her understanding, first, that fear is a part of our lives, just like sadness, anger, joy and love, is profound. No matter how much we would like never to be afraid again, we know it's impossible. The fear of fear, and the fear of a negative reaction to fear is what makes people like me suffer from anxiety and the occasional panic attack. Wouldn't it be great if we could accept the inevitability of fear?

In terms of speaking, I do talk about the exciting adventure of it. I like to compare speaking to a roller coaster ride or some other risk-taking adventure that one enjoys (climbing, skiing, racing, tight-rope walking, diving -- whatever gets your blood pumping). You can find it scary and fun all at the same time -- at least I do. And I do get those butterflies and sweaty palms, but it doesn't mean that I can't still get on the stage and enjoy myself. That fluttery, jittery physical sensation is what I channel, direct and focus into a powerful energy that I give my audience and they, in return, give back.

As for taking a risk a day, well, this is what my 12 Speaking Challenges for 2012 program is all about! How can we grow and learn if we never experience risk? If we stay comfortable and safe all the time, if we don't try new things and challenge ourselves, we stagnate. How timely was her quote? I came home from the conference and shot a video, because I don't like making videos and hence, knew I had to do one, and knew I had to model my own challenges for the members of my 12for12 program. And you know what? I did feel great once I had done it, just like Susan Jeffers said I would!

Thank you to Marcia Meier, for not only sharing this quote in her presentation, but for pulling the page out of her printed PowerPoint so I could bring it home! She has an amazing life story, full of pain and struggle, incredible challenges and triumphs. How could I not be inspired to come home and push myself just a little further?

What risks are you afraid to take? What challenges are you avoiding? Join my 12 Speaking Challenges program and make it a group effort!

Getting out of MY comfort zone

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:49:05 PDT

My program, 12 Speaking Challenges for 2012, is all about challenging yourself to get out of your comfort zone so that you build confidence muscles for those times when you're actually in front of an audience. The challenges can be done any time and most don't require an audience.

I can't very well tell my clients to challenge themselves if I'm not doing it myself, right? So here's a video for you, unscripted and unrehearsed, that I forced myself to make in response to my own challenges!

I am so resistant to video; I hate to put on the makeup and change clothes; I stress about the lighting and positioning, and I can never think of a good location to shoot from. Well, screw you, video! I'm taking you on! Watch below as I talk about getting out of my own comfort zone.

Click here to view on YouTube

Watch Ruth Sherman's videos on YouTube if, like me, you are resistant to shooting video, but know you have to do more. She's got tons of advice, most notably: "Just do it!" Her videos are short, sweet and approachable, and you'll start wanting to make video everywhere you go after watching! I particularly like this one she shot while on vacation in Florida:

Do you have an uninterested face?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:53:53 PDT

I attended a networking event last week that introduced me to a couple of new "networking no-nos."

Most people are courteous, friendly, and truly interested in what others have to say at a networking event. After all, they want to 1) meet new people and 2) make a good impression on those new people, all in the name of gaining new clients and customers.

But some networkers are missing this critical piece of the puzzle. And I don't think they realize what they're doing (or not doing). These people don't know how to make an interested face.

What's an interested face? Think about the last time you talked to someone who made you feel like they were hanging on every word, really hearing you and being present for you.

They nodded. They smiled. They raised their eyebrows. They made various facial expressions that told you they were paying attention. Maybe they were faking their interest, but if they were good at it, you'd never know.

The person who doesn't know how to do an interested face just stares blankly when you talk. They give no indication that they even hear what you're saying, beyond making eye contact. They don't respond to humor, they don't respond to variations in tone of voice or volume. They don't respond to excitement or drama. They don't nod or smile. They don't say "uh-huh."

They have no expression, no response, and it's unnerving.

I met two people at last week's event who did this. One did it while she and I were talking. The other did it while I was introducing her to someone else and telling her all kinds of fascinating and funny things about the other woman.

Really? No expression? Yep. I'm not sure they know they're doing it, and that's why I'm telling you this right now: Cultivate an interested face!

Nonverbal communication is just as important as verbal communication. You are communicating something with your face, like it or not, all the time. So be aware of what your face is doing when you are listening to another person. This is also relevant when you're in front of an audience. When a participant asks a question, your face should be open and interested. You may not like the question, but you still have to give the audience permission to ask, and you do that through your facial expression.

The second thing that I want to talk about is something that hasn't happened to me, but was shared by a friend. He told me how much he hates it when people text or do other things with their phone while talking to him during networking events. I was actually shocked to hear this, that a stranger would text during an introductory conversation, but I don't know why I'm shocked. After all, not everyone has stellar social skills, and texting while talking is just another way of avoiding connecting with another person.

My rule about using my phone while talking to other people: Use my phone if it's relevant to the conversation, or if I need to look at the time. For example, if I want to write down something they're telling me, or look up a link for them online, I will tell them "I'm going to look that up for you right now," so they know why I'm getting out my phone. If I need to look at the time, I tell them that. And last, if I'm expecting an important message, I will tell them up front that if my phone buzzes, I need to take it. Then, if I get the message, I excuse myself from the conversation.

Otherwise, the phone stays in my purse while I'm talking to another person. Talk about making someone feel unimportant!

What other networking no-nos have you experienced? Share in the comments!

Read this post for more on what not to do while neworking. For more on what TO do, read:

My three rules of networking

Five favorite networking tips

Networking: Break into a conversation

Networking: Exit a conversation

The one thing an entrepreneur can't hand off to someone else

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Thu, 10 May 2012 08:36:41 PDT

If you're an entrepreneur, you wear many hats. You are responsible for all the aspects of your business, whether you like it or not. You started your business because you saw a need or felt a passion for something, and you wanted to serve others with your product or services.

Then you find yourself doing the marketing, PR, bookkeeping, web design, ordering, research, social media, writing, data entry, and actual making or delivery of your product or service. And, let's be honest, it can be pretty overwhelming.

But you don't have to do it all, right? Eventually you start handing off these duties to experts, employees, contractors and in-person or virtual assistants who can do them better, faster and more efficiently. Now you can focus on the part of the work you love, and you can focus on making money!

But hang on a minute...

There's one thing that only works if you do it yourself. It's the one marketing activity that you can't hand off to someone else: Speaking about what you do.

Who's going to speak for you when you're an entrepreneur? An assistant? Sure, sometimes you can send a staff person in your place, but it's just not as effective. People want to know YOU, because YOU are your business.

So let me ask you these questions (and please, ask them of yourself):

1. Why do you go to such lengths to avoid public speaking?

2. Why do you spend so little time creating your presentations?

3. Why do you make public speaking the last priority on your list when it's FREE and you are almost guaranteed to find new customers and clients?

You are an expert in your field, so why not get out in the community and use public speaking strategically to promote your business?

When you're in business, public speaking isn't a one-time thing you do at a conference or a networking event, and then it's over. It's a critical ongoing aspect of your business, and a valuable tool for meeting people, putting your ideas out into the world, and becoming known as an authority. You do it again and again, you get good at it, and you build a reputation.

When you're in business, cultivating your speaking skills and becoming visible as a speaker and expert is one of the absolute most effective ways to grow.

Everything about starting and running a successful business is part of a vast learning curve. Speaking is no different.

So why not make the investment to develop your expertise, take the time, learn to do it right, and use speaking to build your business?

Contact me now for your free consultation. Let's DO this!

You only need one successful presentation

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 08 May 2012 09:20:00 PDT

Many of my clients come to me with doubts about their speaking abilities and lack of confidence in their possibilities for improvement. They see themselves where they are, with little experience and little practice, and can't imagine themselves on the other side of the rainbow, standing on stage in front of 500 people, receiving a standing ovation.

They're envisioning this long, painful journey from point A to point Z, and all the hard work in between. And yes, becoming an established speaker with a reputation for excellence does take time and work, I'm not going to lie.

However, you only have to have one successful presentation to put you on the path to greatness. What do I mean by "successful?" I mean this: After your presentation, you find yourself having these three revelations:

1. "I did it."

2. "I enjoyed doing it."

3. "I want to do it again."

This is success! And this is a huge turning point for my clients. You don't have to have 100% perfect presentations, you don't have to have standing ovations (believe me, it's not that common among us regular folks), but if you can accomplish these three things, you are going somewhere. You are now at point B, and that's the best place to be if you want to grow as a speaker.

What's point Z, anyway? There's no such thing. No speaker ever reaches perfection, nor does she want to. But each step along the way, we learn, we grow, we improve. Then we learn more and grow more and improve more.

Start with getting from point A to point B. Start with finding your own enjoyment of reaching out and connecting to your audience. And you'll be on your way!

May 12for12 Challenge: Be Prepared

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:28:07 PDT

Have you joined my 12 Speaking Challenges for 2012 program yet? Build your "confidence muscles" with monthly challenges designed to help you get out of your comfort zone and build confidence in a variety of settings that will prepare you for your upcoming speaking engagements!

Each month, there will be several levels to the challenge, so you can tailor the challenge to your own level of comfort. But remember, this is all about getting out of your comfort zone. So if the Level 1 challenge seems difficult, but you accomplish it, then move onto the next level. You have a whole month to practice! More info on how to join is at the bottom of the post.

Now, for our fifth challenge: Be Prepared.

I don't think I have to tell you what happens we when don't prepare properly for presentations. And yet, preparation is the hardest thing for (non-professional) speakers to make into a regular habit. There are several reasons that speakers don't prepare well enough:

1. They don't consider their presentation to be important.
2. They don't choose to make the presentation a priority over other work or tasks.
3. They don't think it's necessary to practice a presentation they've already done.
4. They actively avoid thinking about the presentation until the last minute (maybe hoping it will go away?).
5. They don't know what thorough preparation entails.

Which one are you?

Notice I didn't include "they don't have time to prepare." This is not a real issue for most of us. The real issue is that we don't make the time because we don't think the presentation is important. Let me just say this: Any time people are giving you their time (and possibly money), your presentation is important. Respect the audience by taking your time to prepare something of value. Give them the same consideration you appreciate as an audience member.

I've written almost 200 blog posts just about preparation, so you can tell that I'm a big fan of of the subject!

I'll give you the nutshell version in 11 steps:

1. Preparation isn't just sitting down to write your presentation. Before putting a single word into an outline, you must understand who your audience is going to be, determine your own objective and purpose for giving the presentation, and know what results you want to achieve.

2. Then, you have to think about what your main message is going to be. Once you know your main message or theme, then you can start putting down ideas. But don't open PowerPoint yet!

3. Now, what three main ideas do you want to convey? How can you structure them so the flow makes sense? Past, present, future? Global to local? Big to small? A list of trends? What makes the most sense for how you want to convey the message?

4. Then, once you get your three points down, think about how you'll support those points. What additional detail do you need to give? Statistics, stories, examples and analogies fill in here.

5. Now, even more detail. What exercises, activities, handouts, videos and discussions will help your audience understand your concepts? Have you included humor and an emotional appeal? Add those in and gather your props, visuals, handouts and anything else you'll need. This is also where you make sure you're giving the audience valuable and practical tools they can use.

6. Don't forget to build in an opening that intrigues the audience and makes them want to keep listening. And you'll also need a closing that's memorable and helps them remember your key ideas after they walk out the door (and no, this isn't where you do Q&A).

7. Once you have all of that spelled out, now you may start building your PowerPoint if you need one.

8. And now you start practicing, out loud. But first, make sure you've talked to your organizer about the venue and the audience so you're aware of any special considerations.

9. When you start practicing out loud, you will also need to time yourself. If you are finishing your presentation in the exact amount of time you've been allotted, it's too long. You must build in a cushion for starting late, audience interaction, and unknown interruptions. Brutally cut anything that's not critical to making your points.

10. Visit the venue where you're going to speak and make sure that your equipment works in the space. How's the lighting? The temperature? The sightlines? The sound?

11. Put all the pieces together and deliver a smash hit presentation!

Again, this is just my "nutshell" version of the basics of preparation. I didn't even touch on the mental and physical preparation involved in getting ready for a presentation! Some of these handouts might help. (Members of the Full program will have links to additional resources, posts and handouts related to this list above.)

Now, let's get down to the nitty gritty. What is your challenge this month?

Be Prepared Challenge

Level 1: Prepare to speak in a meeting

This will be an extension of the Speak Up challenge, and also incorporate a bit of Be Present, as you need to pay attention to your audience's needs in order to serve them best.

As you're preparing to give a report for your next staff, department, board, committee, or team meeting, think about the following:

Why is this presentation important? To whom is it important? (If it's not important, then don't waste people's time with it.)
What does the audience (the rest of the meeting attendees) need, want and care about?
What do you want to achieve through your presentation?
How can you best convey your most critical and important points in a concise and engaging way?
How can you persuade, motivate, entertain and/or inform your audience?
How can you give a presentation that has value and relevance to your audience?

Level 2: Prepare a short or informal stand-alone presentation

This is a presentation where you are the sole speaker, but it it still informal and under 30 minutes. This might be anything from your 30-second introduction or 10-minute presentation at your networking group to a short speech to introduce another speaker at an event. It will take more preparation than giving a report in a staff meeting, but less preparation than a formal presentation.

Ask yourself the same questions as in Level 1 and make sure to practice your timing. One thing that is a little more difficult in short presentations is editing your content. It's easy to want to say everything, but you just don't have the time; in a ten-minute presentation, you have less than two minutes per point if you also include a brief opening and closing and take questions.

Level 3: Prepare a formal stand-alone presentation

This is a presentation where you are the sole speaker, for a formal presentation of 30 minutes or more, in a professional setting like a conference, event, training or all-company meeting.

You will need to incorporate all the steps mentioned above, which means you need to start preparing several weeks in advance, preferably a month. If you don't prioritize this presentation and get started on it as soon as possible, you will be doing your audience (and yourself) a disservice by not giving the presentation the significance it deserves.

In these formal settings, people have often chosen to listen to you speak, and have sometimes paid money. Respect your audience's time and money by giving them a truly memorable and valuable experience.

If you've already started preparing a presentation to be delivered this month or next, ask yourself the questions above. Go through the steps and determine whether you have fully thought out all the aspects of your preparation. If not, go back and make changes!

I'm looking forward to hearing how your better preparation improves your presentations over in the 12for12 Facebook group!

Click here for the previous challenges (in reverse order from the top of the blog), and then join the discussion on my Facebook group (you have make a request to join, but it's an open group and everyone is welcome).

If you want to participate in my monthly discussion calls and receive additional resources, handouts and support e-mails, consider joining the Full program.

See the rest of the challenges here:

January
February
March
April

If you don't want the relationship, don't ask for the favor

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:18:35 PDT

In this blog post, John Greathouse describes a phone call from someone seeking referrals to contacts in John's field. The caller basically does everything wrong, starting with forgetting a key factor in relationship-building: research.

I often talk about researching your audience on Speak Schmeak; without knowing your audience, you are in danger of delivering a presentation that has no relevance to the people in the room. When your presentation is irrelevant, confusing, insulting or dull, you lose (or never gain) the interest of your audience, and you will likely go no further with them in building business or retaining another speaking engagement.

But I've covered that many times. What I really want to talk about today is the human beings behind the word "audience."

When I say "relationship-building," whether with a group or an individual, I'm not just throwing around buzzwords. People want to feel GOOD when they meet you and talk to you. They want to feel excited, optimistic, and motivated. They want you to appreciate and respect them. They want to feel needed and important. These are things that happen when you focus on building a relationship with someone. They feel special.

So what happens when you jump the gun and start asking for favors or advice without making the effort on your end to make the person feel good (I mean for real, not fake flattery or butt-kissing BS), and without considering any reciprocal actions if they do decide to help you? Instead of all those warm, fuzzy feelings, you create annoyance, resentment, frustration, and maybe even animosity. Some people might even feel hurt and sad that you didn't take the time to get to know them. Each person reacts differently to being discounted and exploited, but let's just say that these feelings you arouse will not be good feelings.

We are all human. We all have feelings. For good or bad, those feelings have a lot to do with how successfully we interact with others. Forget that people have feelings, forget that people want to be appreciated and valued, and you will suffer the consequences.

After this caller received the flat "No" from John, how many other people do you think he called and got the same response? Now imagine this caller having done his homework, reading John's bio, maybe commenting on his blog, connecting with him on Twitter and responding to John's posts on Facebook. Maybe the caller thinks of a couple of ways he can offer something to John in exchange for John's referrals. Imagine this caller having made the effort to start a relationship with John. Would the outcome have been different? From John's post, I would guess yes.

Furthermore, that relationship becomes a living thing, and continues on whether or not John is able to make the referral this time. There's always a next time and a next time, because the relationship remains after the pitch is over.

Next time you want to "pick someone's brain," or ask for a referral or recommendation, ask yourself if you've done anything to build this relationship, or -- the next best thing -- if you're willing to pursue a relationship and offer reciprocal action if the person is open to your inquiry. If the answer is "No," that's likely the response you'll get on the other end.

Don't revere your audience

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:26:53 PDT

I recently worked with a client who speaks on a very sensitive topic. It's the kind of topic that's painful for a lot of people and you've probably never heard a joke about it.

So when I suggested that she lighten up her presentation a bit with some humor, she balked. She said she felt she should be more reverent. The opposite of which is -- of course -- irreverent.

You don't need to revere your audience.

When people are dealing with heavy issues, the last thing they need is a speaker who brings them down even more, or walks on eggshells around them.

Yes, using humor when your topic is delicate takes a light hand. But I guarantee you this: Every single person who has ever survived a tough challenge has found humor in the situation. Because that's how you get through it.

Revering the topic so much that your presentation is 110% earnest and serious will just bum out your audience.

So find the humor in their situation.

If it's a situation you've experienced, even better, because you're all in it together.

If you haven't experienced their situation, there's still humor to be found.

There are two ways to use humor with difficult topics:

1) Find humor in the issue

This works better if you're "one of them." I know of several speakers who talk about things like cancer, depression and epilepsy, and they weave the humor of their own situations into the presentations. Make sure the humor is universal enough that the audience can relate to you. I particularly like Courtney A. Walsh's motto: "All Aboard the LoonyBus — You don’t have to be crazy — but it helps!"

Here's a great article about coping with infertility through humor. In the article, the author mentions the New Yorker's cartoon bank. Topics include anger, depression, psychiatry and stress. Here's a site for cancer humor. Personally, when I was experiencing debilitating panic attacks and anxiety, I probably laughed as much as I cried. Making fun of my situation was sometimes the only way I could talk about it.

2) Find humor in other areas of your presentation

In the instance where you are not someone who has experienced what your audience is going through, don't insult them by pretending to be "in" on the joke. Find other aspects of your presentation where you can add humor.

When I was speaking on domestic violence, I would ask the students how many of them had a sister. Then I would ask how many of them had an aunt. Then I would ask how many of them had a mom. They would laugh because they were caught off guard by the absurdity of the question. The humor wasn't about domestic violence; it was humor I used to warm up the room so I could talk about the tougher stuff.

I'm sure you can think of plenty of instances of using humor when discussing a difficult topic, so I would love to read your examples in the comments.

Bottom line: Your audience doesn't want to be revered. They want you to help them, not tiptoe around them. They want to be informed, educated and entertained. And you can do all three, even when your topic is sensitive.

See this blog post with additional examples of using humor with difficult topics from some of my clients' presentations.

A visual that fits in your pocket

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:34:42 PDT

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may have seen a post I wrote in 2008 about Wayne Pacelle, the President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. He visited The Ellen Show to talk about Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act.

One thing I like about Wayne Pacelle is his ability to concisely state his issues. Here's a quote from the recent show:

"We need to be good to these other creatures because they're vulnerable. We have all the power in the relationship with animals, and how we handle ourselves is a test of our humanity. We can be cruel or we can be kind. And I say we need to be kind."

I also like the way he uses examples to help make issues concrete, for an audience who has never seen animal cruelty up close. In his initial visit in 2008, he used an example where he had the audience imagine a piece of 8 1/2" x 11" paper folded into thirds to explain how tiny and cramped the living space is for a laying hen in a factory farm.

In his visit this week, there was a breaking story about an undercover investigation at a factory farm, and this time he had the piece of paper in his pocket! Watch the video:

How can you make your examples simple, concrete and small enough to carry around in your pocket?

Make the product unique, not the packaging

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:37:28 PDT

My hubby, a marketing manager and buyer for a specialty foods store, was visited by a vendor with a new product, a product that is similar to other products in its category, except for one thing: the size of the packaging, which is a good 1-2 inches taller than the other packaging in the category.

Hubby: "Your bottle is too tall for the shelf."

Vendor: "Why don't you put it on the top shelf?"

Hubby: "There are already products on that shelf that we've put there for a reason."

Vendor: "Can't you just adjust the shelf so my products fit?"

Hubby: "The shelves are full, and by adjusting the shelves we would throw off the whole set. Can you change the size of the bottle?"

Vendor: "No, that's what makes us unique."

End of conversation.

Later, hubby gets a call from the vendor's superior.

Superior: "We'll just buy you a refrigerated case that you can put our bottles in. We'll pay for it and you can put it on the floor."

Hubby: "We don't have floor space for another separate case."

Superior: "But we'll pay for it!"

End of conversation.

Later, hubby gets another call from the superior.

Superior: "How about a countertop case?" (According to hubby, every vendor wants their own case or cooler, so they don't have to share shelf space with other products. Of course, stores don't have room for individual cases for every vendor.)

As of this posting, the issue is still unresolved. Here's my husband's take on the issue:

"Make the product unique, not the packaging."

Sure, we all want to stand out. But we always have to take into account what our customer/audience needs, wants and cares about.

If your unique qualities are merely on the surface, but you don't have a unique and deeper message to go along with those qualities, you are basically just a pretty bottle. Customers will pass you by for the bottles with the quality product on the inside.

Think about what you're doing to stand out. Are you quirky, wacky, intense, colorful, silly, bombastic, fiery, outrageous, controversial or comedic at the expense of your message?

More posts inspired by retail:

6 customer service tips for speakers

Your audience has simple requests: can you fulfill them?

9 things you can learn from a home shopping show

Some tips from a tip jar

5 public speaking lessons from a Vitamix demo

How is a speaker like a cinnamon roll cake?

Tea-ed off: Knowing when to leaf well enough alone

5 ways to spiff up your act, BBC America-style

Clearing up throat-clearing: Guest post by Joanna Cazden

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:00:00 PDT

While I'm on vacation in Sonoma, stuffing myself with cheese and wine, I've got a couple of guest posts lined up for you! The last is from voice therapist and author Joanna Cazden, on how to avoid unnecessary throat-clearing. Enjoy!

"Don't clear your throat—it's bad for your voice." Every serious speaker hears this advice. But what can you do, when your throat tickles or drips or you're nervous about a presentation? How can you resist?

The urge to clear your throat can arise for several reasons, most of them false alarms. Here are some tips about how to avoid unnecessary throat-clearing, and how this will, in fact, help your voice.

First, some background. The voice box—in medical lingo, the larynx (LAA-rinks)—has a bigger job to do than just making sound. Its fundamental role is as a valve that protects the airway. Your vocal cords are constantly on-guard, ready to open or close the top of your windpipe.

Too much smoke, dust, or fumes in the air? The larynx coughs or holds your breath, keeping the bad stuff out of your lungs. Too much phlegm inside the bronchial tubes, collecting debris from an infection? You expell it by slamming the vocal cords hard and then pushing air—and crud—out of the valve.

Throat-clearing is a smaller version of a cough: your vocal cords lightly clap or rub together. This is normally triggered when we swallow the wrong way, or have true post-nasal drip, but it's more vigorous than what's needed for vocal vibration. When there really isn't anything to clear out, it becomes a useless habit, or worse.

Repeatedly slamming your vocal cords together can irritate them, leading to callouses (vocal nodules) or swelling (vocal edema). More often, repeated throat-clearing just makes you slightly hoarse or uncomfortable. And that leads to—you guessed it—more urge to clear.

Now, if you clear your larynx heavily and repeatedly, it will create phlegm and "prove" you were justified! But if the clearing was not productive (wet) the very first time, you didn't really need to clear at all.

Because your body is so motivated to keep the airway clear, your vocal cords can get over-sensitive. Dry weather or air conditioning, slight irritation from acid reflux or allergies, or just using your voice without good technique (like the low-pitch, glottal-fry style that's been in the news lately), can all make the vocal cords unhappy. Like a baby, they fuss but don't tell you why. Your throat gets itchy and scratchy and you don't know what else to do.

How to break the vicious cycle? Get savvier about how you respond to false alarms, when clearing will just make things worse. And take better care of your voice pro-actively, so the urge-to-clear doesn’t arise in the first place.

Keep water near you at all times, and whenever you feel the tickly desire to clear, take a sip of water instead. This sensory interruption decreases irritation over time, turning the vicious cycle into a positive one. Cold or ice-water is especially good at "distracting" your throat. (No, it doesn’t hurt your voice at all.)
Develop more consciousness of when and why you clear your throat. If your voice sounds low-pitched or weak just before you clear, practice using a more energetic speech style to stay out of the "danger zone." This will take more energy commitment from your whole body, but your larynx will be happier, and throat-clearing will decrease.
If you tend to clear a lot at the end of the day, take more voice-rest breaks, and see a coach about your technique and pacing. Also get some help if you clear a lot on the phone. (Most people are too loud on cellphones, but too soft on land-lines.)
A vague feeling of phlegm or "something's in my throat" can be a leading symptom of acid reflux irritation, long before you experience regular heartburn. Cut back on coffee, alcohol, and heavy meals before bedtime; try a quick-acting antacid before long meetings; and arrange for a throat exam with an ear-nose-throat specialist (laryngologist).
Invest in a few sessions with a voice coach or therapist, to tune-up your technique.

Above all, treat throat-clearing as a signal, not as a mysterious bad habit. Listen more carefully to your throat symptoms, and you'll soon sound—and feel—much better.

============
Joanna Cazden is a voice therapist in Burbank CA, and the author of Everyday Voice Care: The Lifestyle Guide for Singers and Talkers. Contact and free info: www.voiceofyourlife.com.

Acting techniques for everyday life: Guest post by Jane Marla Robbins

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 08:00:01 PDT

While I'm on vacation in Sonoma, stuffing myself with cheese and wine, I've got a couple of guest posts lined up for you! The second is from actress and author Jane Marla Robbins, on how to use acting techniques to improve your presentations. Enjoy!

I was an actress for thirty-five years; I share acting techniques with my clients. The art of acting is, after all, the art of self-transformation. I figure that's why people come to me -- so they can transform themselves into strong, self-confident, attractive people, instead of shy, awkward, tongue-tied wall flowers.

A lot of people come to me because, in the middle of speaking, or in the middle of an important speech, they will suddenly not be able to find the word they knew yesterday. They grope for it. Where has it gone? With my clients, the usual cause isn’t Alzheimer's or early dementia, it's STAGE FRIGHT IN LIFE.

Here are some of the antidotes I share to combat the fright, so that people who first come to me as victims of their anxiety and fear can leave, having transformed their stage fright into joy and relaxation. Plus a working memory.

My clients have most often just forgotten to breathe. When we're afraid, if we see a lion coming towards us, up go our shoulders, and we stop breathing, usually not so much that we drop dead, but enough so that the oxygen that normally goes up to our brains, to help us remember stuff, is barely going there.

It was my brilliant drama coach, Sandra Seacat, who first urged me to pay attention to whether or not I was breathing on stage, so my oxygen wouldn't be strangled by my neck and shoulders, but that instead, the oxygen would have a clear passage from my lungs up through my neck to get to my brain. (For one thing, it's hard just to remember your lines if your brain isn't working.)

I learned to follow Sandra's advice when I was on a stage, and occasionally, silently ask myself questions like: "Am I breathing? Are my shoulders up around my ears? Is my stomach relaxed? My foot? My hip?" Because relaxation, with its openness and absence of fear, is a key to inspiration. Deep breathing is a direct route to relaxation. Which explains the latin root of the word "inspiration:" to breathe in.

So if our brains aren't working brilliantly, maybe we're not giving them enough oxygen. Too simple to be true? I love hearing that elderly patients, diagnosed with senility or dementia, who are barely making sense, can go to a hospital, get some extra oxygen, and suddenly be speaking in sensible sentences and make perfect sense.

There are other acting techniques to combat fear. The two I mention below have even been tested by modern science, proving they do in fact change brain chemistry, and therefore our feelings and behavior. They're inner monologue and sense memory. The first is basically silent self-talk, a phrase or a sentence people may need to repeat in their heads if they feel tense. And sense memory involves our remembering the right sensory images to make us happy -- for example, ocean waves -- remembering their smells, sights, textures, etc. (The medical establishment calls this "Guided Sensory Imagery.")

Here's an example of me using these two techniques. I was about to perform one of my one-women plays for the first time, at Lincoln Center in New York -- in front of twenty-four hundred people. I was terrified. I prepared all day, trying to discover which techniques might get me through what seemed like an insurmountable challenge.

I finally did a meditation, begging my unconscious to help. Suddenly I imagined myself on a magic carpet, which took me back to my home in California, in front of a wise old oak tree, from which I believed I'd gotten verbal answers before. (I know this sounds very woohoo/LA, but who cares where we think we get our wisdom?!)

The words I got were clear: "It's safe to shine." For too many reasons to list here, when I think I am going to be pre-eminently visible, I have been known to panic, my old wiring even tricking me into believing my life is in danger -- just by being seen.

When I got on stage at Lincoln Center, I imagined that big old oak in the back of the theater, and I heard the words, "It's safe to shine."
Actually, every time I felt myself tense up during my performance, I went back to the tree, and each time I did, my acting was riveting.

Yes, I took a pause to focus on the tree and hear the words. And that's the last acting technique I'll mention here: taking a pause. Many of us fear, if we pause for a moment, that people will think we are stupid. No! They could be thinking that we are thinking -- which does tend to impress people. Plus, it could be just the perfect time to take a breath.

Find out more about Jane Marla Robbins and check out her book Acting Techniques for Everyday Life at JaneMarlaRobbins.com.

"Memorable" doesn't necessarily mean "good"

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:57:06 PDT

One of my clients, a medical doctor, sent me this amusing (and slightly disturbing) story of a memorable presentation at a urology conference, which took demonstration to a whole new level.

If you question whether this really happened, there are references at the bottom of the blog post.

Read it here: How To Give An Unforgettable Talk

12for12 April Challenge: Review Your Image

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:27:41 PDT

Have you joined my 12 Speaking Challenges for 2012 program yet? Build your "confidence muscles" with monthly challenges designed to help you get out of your comfort zone and build confidence in a variety of settings that will prepare you for your upcoming speaking engagements!

Each month, there will be several levels to the challenge, so you can tailor the challenge to your own level of comfort. But remember, this is all about getting out of your comfort zone. So if the Level 1 challenge seems difficult, but you accomplish it, then move onto the next level. You have a whole month to practice! More info on how to join is at the bottom of the post.

Now, for our fourth challenge: Review Your Image.

I'm going to start this post with the shocking lack of attention I see every day to professional image: clothes that don't fit; an e-mail full of typos; disheveled hair; a website that looks like it was built by a 5-year-old; a voice mail message spoken so fast, I can't understand the phone number; a week or more response time to a phone message.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, and I'm not going to say I'm not guilty of one or two of these things from time to time. We all are. The question is this: What image are you consistently portraying to your customers, clients, audiences and prospects?

It's not just how you dress, or how you carry yourself. It's a fine web of interconnected bits and pieces that make up the brand of "you." When's the last time you really took a look at how "you" are coming across in the world, and if it's working for you?

There won't be levels in this challenge, because everything on the list below is something a speaker (or any professional) should be on top of. The challenge isn't difficult; it only requires your willingness to take a hard look and be honest with yourself about the "you" you're presenting to the world.

If you do have speaking engagements on the calendar, I highly recommend videotaping yourself so you can get a straightforward look at how you present yourself in front of an audience. Would people tell you if you sucked? If so, I also suggest talking to a couple of close friends and your spouse or partner to get feedback on the items below.

And if you're able, and especially if you find it hard to get honest feedback from the people in your life, schedule some consultations with professionals to find out how you might upgrade.

Review Your Image Challenge

1. Appearance

Are you presenting a professional appearance at work and at other places where you're representing your company or yourself? When you have client meetings or speaking engagements, are you dressing appropriately (business attire, business casual, casual, etc.) for those audiences? Not all audiences are the same, and you need to take this into account when preparing for each event.

Do your clothes fit properly? Sometimes we gain or lose weight and don't bother to replace clothes that don't fit; I have been guilty of this. But pants with a saggy rear or a top with buttons that strain across your belly will be distracting to your audience and probably uncomfortable for you. And when the audience thinks you don't care about your appearance, they wonder what else you don't care about.

Are you well-groomed? I know this sounds a little creepy to talk about, but I'm sorry, we need to discuss it. Is your hair tidy? Are your nails clean and not ragged? Do you have stray hairs in places they shouldn't be? Shoes clean and not scuffed? Eyeglasses clean and clear? If you perspire a lot, is your body odor under control? Do you know how to dress to hide damp underarms? (Lots of great comments on this blog post about grooming.)

Are you aware of the colors and styles that are flattering and unflattering on you? If you've been wearing pleated pants forever, you may not realize they make you look pudgy. Try flat-front pants for a change and see if there's an improvement in the lines of your body.

Maybe you like tan, but tan doesn't like you (I used to love the color rust -- until I saw pictures of myself wearing it and realized it made me look like I had a fever). Try cream. Try ivory. How about your eyeglasses? Has anyone ever helped you pick frames that flatter your face?

There are some great image consultants out there, and I've seen them do wonders with a client: making them look more fit, more youthful, more distinguished, more current and generally more appealing (according to their personal goals). All with a shift in the color and shape of their clothing, makeup and hair.

2. Web presence

My website isn't perfect, and I do it all myself, so I'm sometimes a little self-conscious that it doesn't look like some of the other speaker sites out there. However, I've had dozens of unsolicited compliments over the years from people who felt they knew me from visiting my website. They sensed my personality and were inspired to contact me over other coaches because of the feeling they got from my website. This kind of compliment is extremely gratifying, because it means that my website is doing what I want it to do: representing me as I really am.

Does your site or blog represent who you really are? Or are you using a generic template with generic colors and stock photos? Can people feel you when they visit your website?

Are your fonts and colors consistent across your pages? Are your blog and website (if you have both) compatible? Do your sites have typos, errors in grammar, misaligned text boxes, distorted images or other visual distractions that you haven't bothered to fix? If you don't fix these kinds of mistakes, you come across as a person to whom details don't matter. And if details like typos don't matter, how can your client expect you to attend to the details of your work with them?

Is your contact information up to date and easy to find (I'm surprised at how many times I can't find someone's contact information or location on their site)? Is your photo reasonably current? (My home page photo is on the verge of being outdated, but I love it so much...)

I will extend this subject to include your social media presence as well. If a potential client views your Twitter profile, your Facebook Page, your LinkedIn profile or your Pinterest boards, do you seem schizophrenic, or are you the same person in every place? Are you presenting a unified professional presence, or at least a pleasant one? If not, consider separating out your personal and business profiles, so that you can give business contacts your business links and leave the personal ones (with the pictures of you mooning cows) to friends and family.

3. Print materials

This is a pet peeve of mine, but I don't believe a professional should use a business card with free advertising on the back. It makes you look like a hobbyist or amateur. How can you brand yourself when your business cards carry someone else's brand?

Here are some similar questions to the web questions above: Are your cards, brochures and handouts free of typos, grammatical errors and design flaws? If you don't know how to design a business card or brochure, hire someone. There are reasonably priced designers all over the web who will give your materials a polished look.

Are you allowing yourself to be creative and express your personality through your materials or again, are you using generic templates and colors because it's easier or cheaper? First impressions are important; sometimes your business card -- lying on a table amongst other cards and brochures -- is the first and only impression a prospect gets.

Quick story: A woman who had just moved to town called me. She had picked up my card from a nonprofit that provides self-employment training for women (I'm a graduate and a volunteer). She liked my card so much that she decided to call me and introduce herself. We met for tea on February 14.

I had a presentation scheduled for the 24th, at one of my networking groups, and because I knew she didn't know anyone in town and needed a job, I invited her to attend. She came to the event, networked her booty off, and five days later had a job, after meeting a recruiter at the event who referred her to the company who hired her. No, I didn't get business out of this transaction, but the whole reason my new friend ended up getting a job within 24 days of moving to a new town was that my card spoke to her and she decided to call.

4. Verbal and nonverbal behavior, social skills and general demeanor

This is a bit of a catch-all section -- otherwise, I could go on for days on this topic.

People form opinions of you based on things that you might have little or no control over, such as your ethnicity, your age, your weight, your accent, your height, your gender, or your background. On the other hand, sometimes people's opinions are formed based on things that are not set in stone, such as attitude, posture, facial expressions, tone of voice, temperament, sense of humor or punctuality. You need to be aware of how people may be perceiving you vs. how you would like to be perceived, and determine if it's worth it to change.

A few things about me that I don't want to change: I have gray hair and I don't color it. I have a lisp -- oh well. I have a visible tattoo on my wrist that is usually not covered by clothing. Someone who meets me might not appreciate these aspects of me, but what's more important is that it's not worth it to me to change these things: I'm comfortable with who I am.

That being said, it's important to me to present myself a certain way as a public speaking coach and trainer. It's important that I'm articulate, that I use proper grammar, and that people can understand me when I speak. So I make sure to pay attention to these aspects of my personal and professional presence. Likewise, I need to be approachable and friendly, an attitude I actively cultivate, because who would want to work with (or refer to a friend to) a coach who's gruff, grouchy or harsh?

Ask yourself these questions: How are you interacting and communicating with people? Is it consistent with the image you hope you're projecting? How much do you care about what others think of you? If there are aspects of your personal style, communication or presentation that aren't working in your favor, are you willing to work on them? And if you decide to make changes in order to appear more credible or professional, can you still be authentically yourself?

And lastly: Are you so invested in your image that you're unwilling to question it?

I better quit here. This is quite a broad topic, meaning that your challenge will be first determining which aspects of your image can use some freshening up -- and they might not even be on this list -- and then doing it! Let me know how it goes!

Click here for the previous challenges (in reverse order from the top of the blog), and then join the discussion on my Facebook group (you have make a request to join, but it's an open group and everyone is welcome).

If you want to participate in my monthly discussion calls and receive additional resources, handouts and support e-mails, consider joining the Full program.

See the rest of the challenges here:

January
February
March
May

"We don't deal with emotion"

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:27:46 PDT

"For Browning Allen, City Hall's head honcho when it comes to transportation planning, maybe it qualified as a nice-try-but-no-cigar moment.

In an effort to bring down the heat at a standing-room-only public hearing last Thursday, Allen cautioned the crowd crammed into City Hall's Public Works building to debate the traffic dangers looming on Milpas Street, 'We deal with scientific engineering analysis. We don't deal with emotion.'

I guess someone forgot to tell that to all the people there wearing white T-shirts bearing the photographic likeness of Sergio Romero, the 15-year-old kid killed last October while trying to cross Milpas Street." Santa Barbara Independent, 3/29/12

Don't think that, just because you're not speaking to a group as heated as this one, you're off the hook regarding emotion in your presentation. You may be a scientist, engineer, doctor, accountant, or lawyer (people who traditionally tell me it's unnecessary or undesirable to bring emotion into their presentations), but you are also a human being and so is your audience. Human beings have messy things called "feelings," and they do influence our behaviors, despite your desire for an alternative reality.

Always understand that your audience, while listening to your facts and figures, are experiencing feelings about your topic. Those feelings are powerful motivators; they make us take action in a way data and charts never will.

Also understand that you have feelings about your topic, and your feelings can be brought forth to influence the feelings of the audience.

Whoever your audience and whatever the topic, never forget the emotional appeal which allows them to connect with you.

Avoiding emotion in your presentation makes you look like you're out of touch, rigid, mechanical and, depending on the situation, lacking compassion and empathy.

Don't be afraid to be human. Bring the mess, bring the feelings, and you'll bring your audience along with you as well.

More posts about emotion and connecting:

Complete your presentation with gratitude

It's just emotion

If it matters to you, it can matter to your audience

There is no such thing as a dry topic

Only connect! 9 ways to do it

How to make your panel more fun

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:20:41 PDT

Image courtesy of Sarah Dawn Nichols

Last time I attended a panel discussion at a conference, I had a revelation: Panels lack humor.

Sure, a couple of people on the panel made jokes here and there, and the audience laughed from time to time. But overall, panels tend to be less cohesive and less relaxed than typical presentations, and the first thing to go is the humor. Here are a couple of reasons why:

The presenters haven't met before.
The presenters haven't practiced.
The presenters haven't practiced together.
The moderator is winging it.
The moderator doesn't know how to moderate.

These are the main reasons that panels often come across as stiff and awkward rather than relaxed and fun. When people sit on a panel who don't know each other, have never spoken, and are being guided by someone who also didn't prepare well, it's hard to have a good time.

Speakers are stressed about competing for minutes, about interruptions, about making all their points, about anticipating the moderator's questions. A panel requires a prepared yet more flexible and spontaneous approach than most presentations, and this can throw off a speaker.

There are a lot of great articles about what to do once you're on the stage, which I'll reference at the end, but I'd like to talk about what you can do in advance to create a panel environment that's more relaxed and more conducive to fun and humor:

1. Learn about the other panelists in advance.

Connect with them on social media, read their blogs, and look at speaker videos if you can find some. Find out what you can about their ideas, their personalities and their positions on the topics you'll be discussing on the panel.

2. Have a conversation with the moderator.

If the moderator doesn't reach out to you first, reach out to her. Ask her what kinds of questions she might ask, what kinds of topics she'd like to cover, how she expects to structure the conversation, and any other questions you might have. If your moderator isn't that prepared, well, you might help spur that process along by asking the questions.

If your moderator is your only contact with the event, then also make sure to ask questions about who's expected to attend, so you can learn a thing or two about the prospective audience. If you have a contact besides the moderator, ask that person.

3. Meet your co-panelists in person.

This is not always possible, but if you can get together for a quick drink the night before your panel, or take a few minutes for a brief gathering during lunch at the conference, you will feel infinitely more relaxed. I spoke on a panel once where we actually had a rehearsal session, just to meet each other, go over the moderator's points and get a general feel for how the event was going to go. As I said, this is not always possible, but do your best to meet each speaker and the moderator in advance, even if you have to meet them separately.

4. Ask the audience questions

If you're unable to get advance information about your audience -- and even if you are -- don't be afraid to ask your audience a question or two when it's your turn to speak. Asking for audience participation is always good practice in a presentation, and it's good practice on a panel as well.

Panels seem to shun audience participation, perhaps because speakers fear losing any of their precious minutes to audience interaction. But don't forget -- it's not about you. It's always about the audience and what they need, want and care about. Pay attention to this and you can't go wrong.

I'm going to stop here, because as I said above, there are plenty of articles about what to do once you're on the stage. By taking the time to get to know your fellow panelists and moderator, you reduce the anxiety of the unknown.

When you have a sense of camaraderie with your fellow speakers, you'll find it much easier for natural and organic humor and fun to emerge, just like in any other presentation.

Here's more info about speaking on panels:

Kathy Reiffenstein: Ten tips for speaking on a panel

Ian Griffin: Ten tips for speaking on a panel

Mark Suster: Making the most out of sitting on panels

Guy Kawasaki: How to kick butt on a panel

And for moderators:

Guy Kawasaki: How to be a great moderator

Rebecca Morgan: What's the value of a master moderator?

Rebecca Morgan: How to effectively moderate a panel

You deserve to shine

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:47:21 PDT

I want you to think for a moment about all the things you haven't done or tried because of fear of failing, fear of embarrassment, or fear of looking foolish.

Was there a job you should have applied for? A guy you wanted to date? An adventure you turned down? A book proposal you never submitted? A food you never tried? An inspirational person you never met? A conference you didn't speak at? A game you refused to play?

Now think about how your life might have been enriched if you had just taken the risk. Did you miss out on the opportunity to create, build, struggle, innovate, travel, love, defy, grow, feel, and survive?

Are you afraid to strive? Are you afraid of new ideas? Are you afraid of criticism or suggestions or difficult conversations?

Do you spend your days avoiding perceived danger, not listening, avoiding all risk, covering your you-know-what, and staying safe in your unchanging, ungrowing world?

How does that feel? I'm guessing frustrating, suffocating, boring, lonely, bland, sad or tedious.

Now, think for a moment about a time that you took a risk.

You asked out the girl, you shared your idea with your boss, you took that trip by yourself. It wasn't easy, and it might have been really stressful. And maybe the girl said no, or your boss had already had the idea. Didn't it feel a little bit good to push yourself anyway, to try something out of your comfort zone? And if you succeeded, wasn't that even more awesome?

I'm just asking you to take a baby step. Here's one of mine, and here's another one. Pick one thing that you really want to do. One thing that you fear, but that you know could be really rewarding if you accomplish it (maybe it's getting a speaking engagement on your calendar...). Just start now taking baby steps to achieve that goal.

It's not as easy as you think to avoid taking risks. Staying "safe" will chip away at the you you could be. It will beat you down. If you don't take the risk, you don't grow. You don't thrive. You don't shine. And you deserve to shine!

Please share a scary growth experience in the comments!

Michael Erard: In praise of verbal stumbles

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:50:22 PDT

I enjoyed this essay on Slate.com by Michael Erard, author of Um... Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean. You have to imagine that I'm going to like an article that backs up my view of "ums" and "uhs" NOT being the downfall of civilization as we know it.

Here's an excerpt:

"People have been pausing and filling their pauses with a neutral vowel (or sometimes with an actual word) for as long as we've had language, which is about 100,000 years. If listeners are so naturally repelled by 'uhs' and 'ums,' you'd think those sounds would have been eliminated long before now. The opposite is true: Filled pauses appear in all of the world's languages, and the anti-ummers have no way to explain, if they're so ugly, what 'euh' in French, or 'äh' and 'ähm' in German, or 'eto' and 'ano' in Japanese are doing in human language at all.

In the history of oratory and public speaking, the notion that good speaking requires umlessness is actually a fairly recent, and very American, invention. It didn't emerge as a cultural standard until the early 20th century, when the phonograph and radio suddenly held up to speakers' ears all the quirks and warbles that, before then, had flitted by. Another development was the codification of public speaking as an academic subject. Counting 'ums' and noting perfect fluency gave teachers something to score."

Enjoy the article, and if you want to know what I think about "ums," here's a blog post or two.

Are you inviting dialog or shutting it down?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:30:24 PDT

This post, about shutting down your audience, was inspired by interactions I've experienced on Facebook, where someone demonstrates that it's more important to be right and to denigrate other people's ideas than to have a two-way conversation. I wonder... if people are having these kinds of interactions on Facebook, is this the way they're talking to their audiences, too?

I understand that Facebook is faceless, and even if you know the person whose post you're commenting on, you are not speaking into someone's face. You are not looking into their eyes, and you're not in their physical presence in order to read their body language and understand their reaction to your words.

However, I'm guessing that people who are aggressive communicators on Facebook are probably aggressive in person as well. So let's talk about the many ways you can stifle conversation instead of cultivate it, using examples from Facebook comments and comments I've read in online news articles.

1. Ask a question that you don't want answered. Read my post about rhetorical questions here.

"What ever happened to journalistic integrity - the who, what, when, where, and why of the facts and theories without conjecture and assertions?"

2. Attack with language

This includes name-calling, labeling, attacking the person instead of disagreeing with their ideas, saying things like, "Why don't you...?" "You should just..."

"Actually NO that's not true at all and merely the idiocy of your bigoted addled brain."

3. Show impatience with your audience when they take [what you perceive to be] too long to work out solutions or respond to your examples and questions.

"Come on, people! Nobody can tell me the answer to this question?"

4. Patronize or condescend to them

Use words like "honey," and "sweetheart" or give the impression that you think the person is beneath you, even if said in a "friendly" way.

5. Use sarcasm carelessly or direct it at individuals

(Imagine the eye roll...)"You mean Eurosocialism leads to brain-dead people with no initiative, no ideas of their own, no responsibility, or ability to manage their finances? You mean it isn't the job of government to wipe everyone's bottom, cradle to grave?"

6. Judge others based on perceived negative assumptions

"And the inner totalitarian of the modern 'liberal' slips out."

"I bet you're right wing -- let's go see."

7. Insist on being right or refuse to acknowledge the validity of another person's point of view

Refuse to concede an argument or even agree to disagree. Every disagreement is a win/lose proposition.

"WRONG!"

8. Judge people for not being like you.

"Comments like yours are exactly what is wrong with this country and where did you get your statistics from, Wikipedia?"

It's unlikely that a speaker will yell or get visibly angry with an audience member, but these other communication issues listed are clues to aggression -- and they're just the verbal examples. I didn't even go into nonverbal aggressive communication, so feel free to share your examples in the comments!

Bottom line: Your audience members may feel angry, embarrassed, humiliated, hurt, or frustrated, but whatever they feel, they will not feel engaged with you.

Be honest: Are you communicating in any of the ways listed here? Read your Facebook status updates and comments, your tweets, your e-mails and listen to your own utterances. And ask yourself: Am I intimidating people into silence? Am I acting like a bully? Do I always have to be right?

Am I inviting conversation or shutting it down?

Want to get your message across, but in a respectful, thoughtful way that encourages dialog? Read this post on 8 tips for assertive communication.

New training and coaching opportunities for you!

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:00:02 PDT

Happy Monday! I want to update you on some of the new opportunities I'm offering for coaching and training. Travel to Las Vegas, visit a Facebook group, or just send me an e-mail... there are several options for improving your public speaking between now and the end of the year. What are you waiting for?

On May 15 and 16 I'll be in Las Vegas, offering my Dynamic Presentations workshop. This will be two days of solid public speaking training, with a good chunk of our time devoted to creating and delivering better PowerPoint presentations. If you've been looking for a comprehensive training that covers both principles of effective speaking and also PowerPoint design, this is the training for you! See you in Las Vegas!

I've added a super-efficient new program to my coaching repertoire: E-coaching! If you don't have time for hour-long coaching sessions by phone or in person, or if you want to run your ideas by me and get quick feedback, or if you know what you're doing and just want to work on refinements, e-coaching is for you! Simply send me one question a day by noon PT (excluding weekends, holidays or days I'm traveling or training), and I will respond the same day. Learn more and sign up here!

Have you checked out my 12 Speaking Challenges for 2012 program yet? Even though it started in January, you can jump in at any time. Do all the challenges, or just focus on the ones that are most meaningful for you. Let me ask you this: Wouldn't you love to radiate confidence as a speaker? These challenges, one per month, will help you build your confidence muscles, and you don't have to have an audience to participate! Join my Facebook group only, or go more in depth with a private 12for12 site with additional resources, a monthly call and supportive e-mails. Read about it here.

And the oldies but goodies: individual coaching in person or by phone or Skype, group coaching in Santa Barbara, PowerPoint design, and speaking/training for organizations are all going strong. If you have questions about any of my offerings, please get in touch.

And if you're tired of the dread you feel every time you put a speaking engagement on your calendar, knowing you could be better prepared, more confident and more memorable, e-mail me to find out what I can do for you!

Trying something new before your presentation? Big mistake!

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:22:37 PDT

I happened to be at an event recently where one of my former clients was introducing the speaker. I've seen her speak before, and she's usually very confident, with good eye contact and a strong physical presence onstage.

However, at this event, she read the introduction, with low energy, from a piece of paper, and almost never looked up at the audience. I wondered if she had just been handed the introduction, because she didn't look comfortable or prepared.

Yesterday I ran into her and asked if she wanted feedback on the presentation I had seen. First she said, "NO. I know I was off. It wasn't a good day. And I think that people who haven't seen me speak before probably didn't notice." I agreed with that, for sure.

Then a few minutes later, she said, "Okay, what's your feedback?"

I told her what I had observed, and she completely agreed that her performance was sub-par. She went on to explain that she had been given some Chinese herbs by her acupuncturist that she hadn't tried before. The herbs made her feel "amped," and for this particular speaker, amped is the opposite of how she likes to prepare herself.

She likes to be grounded and calm; in fact, she's the client I wrote this blog post for, about getting grounded. She's found that, when she's grounded, she feels extremely powerful and confident onstage.

However, having taken these herbs, she found herself out of her groove, kind of like Lauren Graham on the Ellen Show, after having been on a juice fast for five days.

As I mentioned in that previous post, don't try anything new right before a presentation (or before a TV appearance!). If you can hold off on that new supplement, those new shoes, that new energy drink, that new software, until you've tried them out NOT in front of an audience, then please do so.

Most of us have rituals that help us prepare for presentations, conscious or not. We have certain clothes we wear, certain foods and beverages we do or don't consume, certain tools we bring along. Try out the new things well before your next presentation, so you don't get caught by surprise and end up with an "off" presentation for no good reason.

Is your presentation like a flea market?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:45:43 PDT

Image by Pedro Moura Pinheiro

Presentations can go wrong in a lot of different ways. Here's one way that you may have perpetrated, or perhaps experienced as an audience member.

First, let's talk to the perpetrator: Have you ever had to create a new presentation for a meeting or conference and decided that you had all the information you needed in several previous PowerPoint slideshows? So you sat down, opened them all up, and started cutting and pasting slides from the previous presentations into a new one?

Now, let's talk to the audience member: Have you ever watched a presentation that had no structure, no flow, no transitions, and the slides looked like they were a mishmash of several different presentations based on the format, color or size of the text and images? Did you feel confused, lost or frustrated?

Previous presentations may very well have all the information you need to create your new presentation. But that doesn't mean you can just toss a bunch of old slides into a new slideshow and have a well-organized presentation that makes sense to anyone but you. You can't just take three slideshows and meld them together without creating a new structure that meets the needs of the new presentation.

Before you open those old presentations, before you look at any slides, sit down and structure your presentation the old-fashioned way.

1. What's your objective?
2. Who's your audience?
3. What do they need, want and care about?
4. What do you want them to do as a result of your presentation?
5. What's your main message and what are the three key points you want to make in order to get that message across?

Old-school. Start from scratch. Create the skeleton first.

Once you have a basic outline of your presentation, then yes, you can feel free to insert slides from previous presentations that might fit. In fact, my presentations (image-based, as you know), are basically modular. If I decide I'm going to talk about fear and anxiety in a presentation, I can pull that whole module of, say, 9 slides, from another presentation. But only if it fits, only if it makes sense.

And I will still need to tweak some things. For example, if I'm talking to entrepreneurs rather than nonprofit employees, I will change slides that refer to building relationships with "donors and volunteers" to "customers and vendors." I will want to make sure color schemes and fonts are cohesive across all slides. I will sub new activities, exercises and discussions for any that worked for the previous audience but won't work now.

Here's an example. In my presentations on promoting your business without sounding like a commercial, I talk about engaging the audience through stories, quotes, quizzes and questions. The first slide, below, is from a presentation to a nonprofit organization:

The second slide, below, is from a presentation to an event planning association:

I'm talking about the same thing in each presentation: using an effective quote or statistic to engage your audience. But by tailoring the quote or statistic to the organization I'm speaking to, which takes very little extra time, I show the audience that I created this presentation with them in mind, and that this is not a canned or thrown-together presentation.

I wish I could show you the slideshows my clients have sent me that mushed together several previous presentations. These don't work. They're like the junk store or flea market of presentations, except that your audience doesn't want to have to dig through the mess to find the treasure.

It's not because the content isn't good or the message isn't good. It's because the content and the message are put together haphazardly, rather than clearly outlined and structured to make sense to that particular audience on that particular day.

Having previous slideshows can be a great shortcut to a new presentation, and after all that work you've put in, you deserve to be able to use work you've already done and not reinvent the wheel.

But you do need to create a new outline each time. Period. If you don't, and you decide that it's just easier and faster to carelessly throw together disparate slides from disparate presentations, your presentation will suffer. You may think you're saving time by skipping this first crucial step. But really, you end up wasting your own time and your audience's time with a crappy and confusing presentation.

The inner workings of a mediocre presentation

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:57:16 PST

Happy Friday! Here's an entertaining take on the most common flaws of ineffective presentations (and, for that matter, inconsiderate audience members). I feel sorry for speakers like this one, because I truly believe that they do what they do not because they don't care (okay, maybe some don't care), but because they don't know what else to do.

If you've been having lackluster speaking engagements like the poor fella in the video, call me. K?

Wear a looser dress

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:22:50 PST

Photo courtesy of fixedgear

On last week's American Idol, the top 12 women performed. One singer, Baylie Brown, wore a lovely and flattering dress, but after her performance, confessed that it was too tight. She said that she had had trouble breathing and that she could feel her heartbeat.

Host Ryan Seacrest spoke to judge Jennifer Lopez after the performance and asked what could be done in this situation. Jennifer's "duh" response: "Wear a looser dress."

It's tempting, when preparing for that next performance or speaking engagement, to put too much emphasis on our appearance, at the risk of sacrificing comfort and ease . After all, we're told that it takes somewhere between three and 30 seconds to make a first impression (where exactly is the science on that?), and we don't want to blow it.

I wrote a post a couple of years ago inspired by Tim Gunn's quote, "Physical comfort is overrated." And I agree that he has a point... to a point. If discomfort gets in the way of your presentation, you will not be able to focus on your audience and getting your message across. In the case of Baylie Brown, her too-tight dress not only distracted her, but literally impeded her breathing. If you're a singer or a speaker, you better be able to take a breath.

I recently read a blog post with some great public speaking tips to make you stand out at work. Most I agreed with. We got some style tips, too, which included dressing up (okay), wearing a supportive bra (hell yes), wearing false eyelashes (wha...?) and "High heels are a must." And I had to wonder... for whom?

My job as a speaker entails being able to stand in front of an audience for anywhere from ten minutes to six hours. I'm really supposed to wear high heels because "it’s not how you feel, it’s how you tower?" My personality is towering enough, thank you very much.

Take the time to look your best, in whatever way works for you and is appropriate for your audience. But don't let vanity get in the way of your performance. Remember: It's not about you, it's about the audience.

There is no benefit to the audience (besides amusement) if you look great, but hobble around on painful stilts with spiky lashes poking you in the eye and your dress so tight you pass out from lack of oxygen.

Speaking up about silencing women

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 09:53:32 PST

Don't miss these excellent posts by fellow coaches Denise Graveline and Marion Chapsal about the long and insidious history of attempting to silence women who speak out (or just speak) by calling them whores and sluts.

Denise's post "How Rush Limbaugh is helping me celebrate Women's History Month" delivers a thorough overview of this tradition, and Marion's post, A Public Man? A Powerful Guy! A Public Woman? A Prostitute! briefly touches on the recent instances of whore-labeling of Sandra Fluke and Elizabeth Warren because of their activism.

A snippet from Denise's post:

"In our world and heritage, it's assumed that women can be silenced, because that has been more the norm than the exception in our history. Sometimes, I think that even women forget that the women who led the effort to secure votes for women in the United States did so after they were forbidden to speak at an international anti-slavery conference to which they were delegates. To them, it was the right to speak that was worth fighting for; the vote was a way to ensure it. To women around the world in oppressive regimes, the idea of public speaking may not even be a dream, let alone a reality, and yet it's a power any woman has in her own throat."

This topic ties in nicely and in an unfortunate way with my 12for12 challenge this month: Speak Up. There are a lot of reasons we don't speak up when we should. Luckily, most of us will not be called a slut or a whore by our coworkers for speaking our opinion in a meeting. But for a lot of women (and men) there is still a fear of getting shut down, having your ideas stolen, or not being taken seriously. Join my 12 Speaking Challenges for 2012 program and build your confidence muscles by taking on monthly challenges like Speak Up.

Final excerpt from Denise: "Every time you hear someone say that women speak more than men do, you are hearing a well-worn echo of the 'too much' that led to persecuting women for speaking in days of yore. It's a tamer, toned-down way to shame you into being silent. Remind yourself that you're entitled to speaking your own views, thoughts, opinions and dreams. Keep on speaking, and reinforce other women who speak, or want to do so. Perhaps then the most consistent part of the history of women and public speaking won't be the use of the word 'whore.'"

12for12 March Challenge: Speak up

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:27:17 PDT

You're in love with your data, but the audience isn't

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:42:13 PST

I get why you love your stats, your graphs, your charts so much. You put your blood, sweat and tears into the research. Or at least into finding other people's charts to paste into your slides. Your data is brilliant. It makes your case. It explains everything you want to say. It might even be kind of pretty. Look at how those data points curve so dramatically upward and then zigzag back down! Fascinating! You have so much information, and it's so interesting, and you want to share it all!

But guess what: Your audience doesn't love your stats, graphs and charts. Or your spreadsheets, because as Dave Paradi points out in this article, "...a spreadsheet is an analytical tool, not a communication tool."

They just want to know how you can help them.

Your chart doesn't tell your story, your graph doesn't persuade your audience, and your diagram doesn't motivate them to do anything. What your data does is support your key points and give the audience the facts and figures behind the story. Your charts and graphs can help them understand how you arrived at your conclusions, so that they can 1) determine your credibility, 2) make their own analysis of whether the data backs up their already established beliefs, gut feelings, and maybe some of your new challenging ideas, and 3) respond or not respond to your call to action.

But if all you have are charts and graphs, and you have no useful tools to offer, no relevant next steps, no emotional appeal to raise your audience's adrenaline by illuminating their fear, curiosity, amusement or anger, you will get little follow-through.

They just want to know how you can help them. So make it about them, about what they need, want and care about, and not about your slides that make you look really smart but make no human connection whatsoever with the humans sitting in front of you.

I found a nice explanation here of how to use charts and graphs more effectively in presentations. Enjoy!

It's hard to describe...

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:03:23 PST

Have you ever gotten stuck while describing something and just couldn't quite put it into words? If you're sitting around with friends and you can't quite explain the amazing meal you had at the Indian restaurant, it's no big deal.

But when someone asks you about your service or product, you better be able to describe it. "I'm not doing it justice," just doesn't cut it. One woman I heard recently at a networking event started her 10-minute presentation with, "What should I say?" Not the strong opening I was hoping for.

Even something as short and sweet as your elevator speech (and it IS short and sweet, isn't it?) needs to be crafted and practiced so you don't find yourself saying, "I can't really describe what I do." And believe me, I've actually heard people say this! If you can't describe what you do to people who would hire you, how will you ever get a customer? If you're confused, they'll be confused.

At a speaking engagement, at a networking event, in any business-oriented situation, you should be prepared to talk about the following:

1. What do you do?

You need to have your elevator speech nailed. It should be short, concise and not one of those contrived "make me guess" kinds of statements.

If you are a jack-of-all-trades, pick the most relevant aspect of your work to represent when you're networking. I used to run a nonprofit, a jewelry business and my public speaking coaching business all at the same time. When someone asked me, "What do you do?" I picked the one that made the most sense in the setting I was in. If it came up in conversation, I would mention the other businesses, but otherwise, I focused on one job and made it primary.

If you can't describe or define what you do, or you overwhelm a new contact with too many options, you are diluting your focus and your message. People may determine that you do too many things to do any one of them well. Or they may perceive that you have several jobs because you aren't successful in any of them. Or they just don't know who you are and what your message is, and they can't refer you to anyone.

2. What do you speak about?

This might be hard if you have a lot of topics, but the best way to describe what you speak about is to share the general theme of your presentations. I speak about topics related to public speaking. These topics might include networking, making presentations fun, using preparation rituals, promoting your business without sounding like a commercial, using PowerPoint more effectively, understanding adult learning principles ... but they all come back to public speaking and presentation skills.

If, as I mentioned above, your speaking topics are unrelated and diverse, pick the ones that make sense with the group you're talking to, and focus on those. I would also argue that, if you have too many disparate topics, you are again diluting your focus and message, and therefore your potential client pool.

Other questions you might be asked in business networking or speaking situations:

Who is your ideal client?

What is the process like (of using your service or product)?

How or where do you make (sell, market, design, promote, advertise, etc.) your product or service?

Explaining yourself and what you do is about clarity, consistency, and credibility, and it's about concentrating your concepts and message so that there is no question who you are and what you're about.

Be prepared. Practice. Know exactly what you're going to say and how you're going to say it. Never again be the person who, when asked what you do says, "It's hard to explain."

Friday Fun: Comedians

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:06:06 PST

I am constantly fascinated by how much speakers can learn from comedians. They are masters of surprise, timing, storytelling, audience engagement, discipline, preparation, handling pressure, handling failure, taking risks, and many other techniques that speakers need to understand.

Enjoy these 25 posts that reference sitcoms, comedians, and documentaries about comedians and comedy! Some of my favorites are Jerry Seinfeld, Kathy Griffin, Eddie Izzard, Graham Norton and Ricky Gervais. (Most recent posts are at the top.)

Here are a couple to get you started:

What I've learned from Kathy Griffin

Lessons from Seinfeld

What do do when you're bombing

"Every comedian has a f'n excuse. 'It's the candles, it's the smoke. Put these candles out -- I gotta go on.' I make no excuse. I just wasn't good."~ Jerry Seinfeld

Does your audience feel welcome?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:12:01 PST

On Friday I had an appointment with a new client. It was a long drive to get there, and a long drive to get back, especially on the Friday of a holiday weekend. I was probably in the car a total of seven hours. But I had such a great experience while I was there, I wasn't nearly as crabby as I could have been when I got home!

I walked into the lobby, approached the receptionists and told them who I was there to meet. They said, "Are you Lisa? We've been expecting you!" Instantly, the drive faded away. They were expecting me! Do you know how often this happens when I visit a client? NEVER. Maybe my name is on a security list from time to time, but nobody at the front desk is ever "expecting" me.

The women offered me coffee or water and asked me to wait for the assistant who would escort me to meet my client. The assistant appeared almost immediately, and said she was filling in for the regular assistant with whom I had arranged the appointment.

As we were walking to my client's office, another woman fell in behind. I asked if we should let her pass as the hallway was narrow, and she said she was on break and in no hurry. She mentioned she was one of several people who had been on call to come get me when I arrived.

Several people were on call to come get me when I arrived? How much more welcome could I feel?

I won't give too much detail, but this is a large international company, with 1,000 people working just at this one site. And every one of them is busy, right? Just like at your workplace and every workplace. My client, in particular, oversees several brands and thousands of employees on two continents. He's a busy guy, too.

And yet, I don't remember ever feeling so anticipated and welcomed by a corporate client, whether at a small or large company. Everyone I met was cheerful and seemed pleased to meet me, like I was someone important to them. Nor has anyone ever given me such a thorough tour of their operation, so I could learn about and understand the company culture before we started working, as my client himself did.

Did this make my day? It sure did.

How about you? When your audience members arrive, do they feel welcome?

Do you rush around, trying to get your equipment set up or practicing your speech, ignoring or avoiding the people filing into their seats? Do you show up at the last possible minute, hoping you can just pop right onstage and not have to interact with anyone?

Or do you purposely finish setting up early so you can greet people, chat with them, and make them feel excited to be there?

Do you introduce yourself to some audience members so you know a few people's names and can refer back to them during the presentation? Do you make an effort to learn something about your audience in general so you can incorporate relevant and customized information into your talk?

How do you make the audience feel special, like you're there just for them, like you're thrilled to finally meet them? Like you're the host and they are your most honored guests?

Never can say goodbye

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:46:38 PST

Do you ever go to a party or family gathering and find it hard to leave? You start saying goodbye to people, and it's inevitable that there's someone you didn't talk to enough. So now you're getting caught up, and the clock keeps ticking. You try to say goodbye to everyone you know, here you are, 30 minutes later, still trying to leave.

Presentation closings are a little bit like saying goodbye at a party. Speakers have an incredibly difficult time saying goodbye to the audience. Here are some examples of presentation closings I see all the time.

1. The Fade

The speaker gets to the end of her talk, her volume starts to drop, she mumbles a few things no one can hear and says, "That's it."

2. The Beaten Bush

The speaker gets to the end of her talk and tries to find as many ways possible to recap her points, going in circles without actually ending.

3. The "What the...?"

The speaker gets to the end of her talk, but the audience doesn't realize it. There's an awkward pause until the speaker finally walks away and the audience, confused, starts clapping.

You've probably seen these closings and more -- if you can call them closings, that is.

Here are some good reasons to put more time and thought into your closing.

1. The audience needs to know when you're done

There's nothing ambiguous here. If they don't know you're done, you're not done. It's awkward and uncomfortable, not to mention unprofessional. If nothing else, say "Thank you" so the audience knows they can clap and leave!

2. You get to leave your audience with your final thoughts and message

This is your opportunity to remind the audience of your points and your core message. You've talked about a lot of different things, and they may be focusing on any one of them. Offer Q&A, and then take your last few moments to remind them of your message.

3. You get to ask your audience to do something

This is called a "call to action," where you challenge the audience to take the next step, whatever it is. You might want them to call you or buy something from you. You might want them to donate money, call their congressional representative or hang flyers advertising a local festival. What do you want the audience to do as a result of your presentation? This is your chance to ask for what you want.

4. You have an opportunity to be memorable

This is where you say something so interesting, funny, astounding, clever, heartwarming, intriguing or instigating that they can't stop thinking about your message. You can show a great image, you can share a meaningful quote, you can finish a story you started in the beginning, you can do one of a million things. Just make sure it's something that brings your presentation full circle and ties it all together. Make sure it will connect with the audience (as much as you can be sure of anything before a presentation!).

There are lots of good reasons for using an effective, memorable closing. There are no good reasons to fade out at the end, say "That's it," and slink away. Give your audience a nicely-wrapped package all tied up with a bow. Now they can leave, and once they leave, they will remember you.

What's the relationship between confidence and nervousness?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:53:07 PST

Last week, I gave a 10-minute presentation based on some of the challenges in my 12 Speaking Challenges for 2012 program. The topic was on building your confidence muscles, and the message was that these particular challenges can be done at any time -- no audience necessary -- to help build overall confidence, which leads to confidence as a speaker.

One of my points was that you don't have to feel confident to look confident. There are both mental and physical aspects to confidence, and oftentimes if you work on the outer appearance of confidence, you will also build your inner confidence. At the end of the presentation, one of the audience members asked how I felt -- the "inner me." What do you think I said?

Here was my response (turn up the volume to hear the question that's asked) -- it's only 11 seconds:

If you look at Nicole's face at the end of the video (left of screen in purple pullover), that pretty much sums up the audience's reaction.

Why is it so surprising that a confident person (me) can also still be nervous?

For me, nervousness is a temporary condition, spurred by my desire to do well, the great unknown of how the presentation will go, and sometimes other factors -- in this case, feeling like I had too much material for a ten-minute presentation. It also usually dissipates fairly early on in a presentation, but because this was a short gig, it never fully went away. (This is a group I speak in front of regularly, and I'm frequently trying out new material on them.)

Confidence, however, is more permanent and deep-seated, once you develop it. I have complete confidence in my topic, my message and my ability to connect with the audience, and it's pretty hard to shake that. Even if I make a mistake (like a dopey blunder I made in this presentation where I referred to someone known to everyone in the group by the name of another group member), I have some momentary embarrassment, but it doesn't affect my overall confidence in the long run.

Nervousness also has something to do with realizing that we just can't control everything. Even when we think we have control, it doesn't take much to shatter the illusion. Witness technology failures, lost notes, bombed jokes, mind-blanks, and unexpected questions.

The flip side of that nervousness is the confidence in knowing that the best we can do is be prepared for mishaps by anticipating obvious things that could go wrong, and then doing our best to handle them in the moment with humor and grace!

Confidence grows with every minute of experience you gain and every accomplishment you put away in your back pocket. Once you've built confidence, it's pretty hard to destroy it.

Nervousness is common, it's fleeting when you learn how to manage it, and it coexists happily side by side with confidence.

What's your take on the relationship between nervousness and confidence?

Why your audience isn't participating

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:12:52 PST

One of the quickest ways to lose your audience is to pretend to want participation, but not really invite it. How do you do this? Ask the wrong kinds of questions.

I love asking my audience questions. I love to know how they respond to my topic and my ideas, and I'm constantly asking for their experiences and their thoughts. I attended a presentation recently where the speaker seemed to be doing this, but was actually just reinforcing her own experiences and her own thoughts, through the use of both rhetorical questions (questions asked for the purpose of making a point, not for the purpose of getting an answer) and ridiculous questions.

Here's an example of the different ways someone could ask the same question. In a recent presentation, I asked my audience if they've ever regretting not speaking up when they had something to say. Here are a couple of ways I could have said it:

1. "Don't you hate it when you wish you had said something but you didn't?"

2. "How many people in this room just love that sucky feeling in your gut when you should have said something but didn't?"

3. "Raise your hand if you've ever regretted not saying something when you should have."

The first question doesn't give the audience an opportunity to answer, beyond nodding their heads and responding internally. One problem with a question like this is that there's an assumption we will all have the same response. Maybe someone puts her foot in her mouth all the time and is trying to speak up less. This question assumes everyone in the audience has had the same experience.

The second question is sarcastic, assuming the opposite response, similar to the assumption made in the first question. Except that this question appears to ask for audience participation, but of course no one will raise her hand, because no one loves that sucky feeling.

The third question is direct, requests a response, does not assume anything about the audience, and results in a show of hands. From there, I can go on and ask for examples, or for people to talk to their neighbor or any number of follow-up activities. This question opens the door instead of creating a barrier.

In most presentations, we use a combination of questions. Sometimes we use a rhetorical question because we want to make a point. Sometimes we ask a ridiculous question in order to get a laugh. Most of our questions, however, should be of the direct and specific kind. Here's a post I wrote a couple of years ago about how to carefully direct your audience's response so you're not left hanging when you ask a question.

Back to the presentation I recently attended where the speaker used almost entirely rhetorical and ridiculous questions. Three things happened for me:

1. I got frustrated because I wanted to participate but couldn't.

2. I started to feel manipulated by her questions, which weren't really questions but roundabout ways of stating her opinions.

3. Her presentation started sounding like a rant than a serious, thoughtful conversation.

Think about the kinds of responses you want when you ask the audience questions, and make sure that your questions are not primarily about reinforcing your own points. Use rhetorical questions sparingly; they can be powerful, but they can also be annoying and manipulative.

Here's an entertaining page with literal answers to rhetorical questions.

Here's an in-depth article by Olivia Mitchell covering the 10 steps to asking questions so you get an answer every time.

Are you giving the audience tools they can use?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:28:33 PST

One of the things I find lacking in many presentations is the useful take-home tool. Sure, I hear lots of good ideas from speakers, but I don't often go home with action steps rather than concepts. I don't often go home with concrete things I can DO to improve my business, my presentations or my life.

That's why I enjoyed Jason Womack's presentation so much last week, based on his book Your Best Just Got Better: Work Smarter, Think Bigger, Make More.

First, I'll share my thoughts on why Jason's presentation was effective from a public speaking perspective.

I can be a bit jaded when I watch presenters, as sometimes I feel that I'm seeing recycled bits from other presenters, over and over and over, not even presented in a fresh way. I do a lot of internal eye-rolling, especially when speakers say things or try to get me to do things that feel contrived.

1. From the get-go, Jason's authenticity was transparent. His energy was infectious. And when it wasn't infectious (sometimes you can't help that it's 5:00 on a Friday afternoon or that a joke falls flat), he didn't let that get in his way, but used it as a moment of humor.

2. He was constantly asking the audience questions, inviting our participation. Occasionally, he had us turn to our neighbor and have a conversation. The first time, I was expecting to be asked to report back and wasn't. That was a little disappointing, and it reminded me how much audience members like to share! When given the right environment -- open, friendly, energetic -- people want to talk about their experiences and learn from each other. I was glad we got to share our conversations the second time.

3. Jason asked us for our "aha!" moments, and with the abundance of mind-twisting concepts he shared, people started having and calling out "aha!" moments. If you don't ask, how do they know what you want from them?

4. He used great examples and analogies. For example, he broke down a day into 96 15-minute segments, to demonstrate how much time we really do have to get things done that are important to us. And then suggested that, when someone is 15 minutes late to an appointment, they've just stolen 1% of my day. Quantifying our time, and dividing it up into 15-minute segments, also made sense in the larger picture that Jason was painting, that time spent waiting for the next thing, or after the meeting has been cancelled, can be used to accomplish tasks and goals. His examples were practical and relevant.

5. I also appreciated that Jason wasn't afraid to share his own process. At one point, he asked the audience a question, and commented afterward that sometimes he asks it at the beginning of the presentation and sometimes at the end, and that he hasn't yet analyzed whether the results are different.

6. A couple more things I noticed: He incorporated a lot of humor, some of it silly -- my favorite kind. He used a stool as a place to sit, to break up his movement on stage, and also as a prop to represent an office. He used pauses well, letting ideas sink in, and at one time taking a moment for a photo op. And he took a nice long time to think about questions before answering them, giving real thought to his answers. Sometimes my clients tell me that they fear looking like they don't have an answer, and so rush to say something -- anything -- without taking the time to think first. Jason's method shows that the audience is patient, and will wait for you.

Now, to some of the practical and useful ideas I brought home.

1. Make a list of four 15-minute things I could do if I had some time free up in my day. (Vacuum and sweep -- cats drag a lot of litter around; have a cup of tea; send a message to my 12for12 group members to see how they're doing; watch one or several of the short instructional videos I save but never "have time to" watch.)

2. I noticed that one of Jason's screenshots showed his use of Remember the Milk, and I had been meaning to check it out as an alternative to Evernote. Signed up and I'll see where that takes me.

3. Biggest time suck and productivity impediment: Interruptions. A USA Today study found that people (I'm assuming in a typical corporate environment) are interrupted 180 times a day. Well, I'm my own biggest interrupter. Something to remember as I flit from project to project.

4. "Three or more" -- the practice of saving up comments, e-mails, texts, conversations until there are three or more. Rather than send an individual e-mail every time I think of something to say to someone, wait until I have three things to tell them. Now if only I could get other people to adopt this practice!

5. Jason's use of a variety of domains to try out experiments was intriguing to me. He mentioned one domain that points to a blog post about a particular topic, that then leads to a PDF download. What a quick and simple way to test out an idea for a business, a product, or a service. And yes, I'm aware that others are doing this, but this is the first time it sounded like something that would work for me. As a speaker, you are frequently repeating information that is not new. It's how you deliver the information in a way that resonates with your audience that makes the difference between your audience taking action and your ideas flowing in one ear and out the other.

The presentation was a lot of fun for me, as speaker and as an audience member. If I can take something home, in addition to material for this blog, I'm especially happy. How can you provide more useful, relevant and practical tools for your audiences?

Don't say "you" when you mean "I"

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:00:00 PST

In this interview with Ellen Degeneres, Seal talks about his separation from his wife, Heidi Klum. Notice his use of second person ("you") narrative in telling his story in this clip, rather than the more appropriate first person ("I").

Here are a couple of quotes:

"You go into these things with the greatest intentions."

"When you say 'I do,' when you say, 'Till death do us part,' those vows hold value, they're not just words."

"You just grow apart after awhile. I mean, you try and you work through it, and the thing that you quickly realize when you're married and you become a parent, is that you do the best that you can. And it makes you actually appreciate your parents a lot more."

Seal is telling his own story, yet is de-personalizing it by using the second person. Have you ever noticed yourself doing this?

First person is typically the method we use when telling a story about ourselves ("I"). If we're telling a story about someone else, we use third person ("he" or "she" or "they.") Second person is less common when telling a story, but is used more when addressing the reader "... a very common technique of several popular and non- or quasi-fictional written genres such as guide books, self-help books, do-it-yourself manuals, interactive fiction, role-playing games, gamebooks ... musical lyrics, advertisements and also blogs." (From Wikipedia)

Perhaps Seal is uncomfortable talking about his situation and therefore finds it easier to distance himself from the pain by saying, "you." Perhaps he's trying to maintain a professional demeanor and uses "you" to keep the conversation more formal and general (another way of doing this would be to use "one," as in "One goes into these things with the greatest intentions." Even more de-personalizing!). Whatever the reason, it doesn't work here, and it doesn't work in a presentation.

Why not?

1. Audiences relate to you as a person when you talk about your own experiences in the first person. You are speaking from your heart and the audience can connect to that. "I" clearly defines the subject of the story.

2. However, when a speaker tells a story using the second person "you," it sounds like he's making an assumption that the audience has had the same experience, that this is everyone's story. This isn't the same as relating to or connecting to a person. I find myself thinking, "No, I've been married for 22 years and we haven't grown apart. That's you, not me."

Is there a time when "you" is appropriate? Yes, but not in the context above.

1. Use "you" when asking questions of the audience or giving instructions to the audience. "Have you experienced this?" "What happened when you tried this?" "How many of you feel this way?" This is an effective way of using "you" to find out how the audience is relating to your topic and to let them talk about themselves without misplaced assumptions getting in the way.

2. Use "you" when giving instructions or talking directly to or about your audience or reader (as I'm doing in this blog post). "Before you start writing your presentation, find out what the audience needs, wants and cares about." "When you design your slides, make sure the font is big enough for people in the back row to read." In this case, you are offering the audience solutions and speaking directly to them, and you want to make it all about them and what's important to them.

When you're talking about yourself, use "I."

When you're talking about your audience, use "you."

Don't use "you" to talk about yourself; it just creates distance and a lack of connection.

12for12 February Challenge: Be present

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:26:58 PDT

Too hot, too cold, or just right?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:35:47 PST

I recently attended a conference with my husband, and in comparing notes afterward about the sessions we had attended, I realized we had a case of the Goldilocks. (If you don't know the story, here's a brief version similar to the one I grew up with.)

One session featured a speaker who was bold and colorful. She swore, she used provocative images, she told stories and she challenged us to think differently. I would have enjoyed this presentation had she not been trying SO hard to engage us emotionally. She was trying so hard to be a rebel, to be cool and hip and shocking, that it actually inhibited my ability to connect with her emotionally. It felt like a big manipulative show, a big, dramatic performance. Too hot.

Another session featured a speaker who covered all the bases, had lots of facts and information and charts and diagrams. He had so much information, in fact, that he forgot to bring his personality. Good content, but dull and dreary. Too cold.

Then there was the third session. This speaker had interesting content that challenged conventional thinking, good visuals, stories and audience engagement. He was energetic and enthusiastic, but authentically so. It was obvious that this speaker is emotionally invested and is a passionate advocate for his topic. The level of excitement was high, but real. The material was varied, so there was no time for boredom; he had the audience's complete attention. Just right.

The key element of all three presentations was emotional authenticity. Without it, a speaker runs the risk of looking like an actor rather than a presenter, or in the case of the "too cold" speaker, looking like a cipher, an invisible forgettable person.

Have you seen these presenters before? Which one are you?

How is a speaker like a cinnamon roll cake?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:11:38 PST

Kathy Shields' cinnamon roll cake at Savoy Cafe

Yesterday I met a friend for an afternoon treat at one of my favorite Santa Barbara eateries: Savoy Cafe and Deli. Hubby and I have known the owners, Paul and Kathy Shields, for many years, and we love to support our friends and local businesses. (Stay tuned, by the way, for an episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, where you'll see me and my husband eating a meal at Savoy on camera!)

As I stepped up to the counter, Kathy saw me and invited me into the kitchen to show me her fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon roll cake. We chatted for a bit as she cut a slice and put it on a plate for Paul. She told me that she always cuts out a piece from a fresh cake before she puts it into the case, so the customers can see what's inside. It seems that customers are more likely to purchase a piece from an already-cut cake rather than a whole one. The interesting things one learns from trial and error in business!

It made me think (of course) of what we do as speakers. Audiences (our customers) also seem to prefer a speaker with a piece cut out in order to get a glimpse of our "insides."

When a speaker is too perfect, it's more difficult for the audience to relate to them and their message. But when a speaker shows some vulnerability, some imperfection, the audience realizes we're human, too. And if we can do it (whatever "it" may be), they can do it, too.

Are you a speaker who obsesses about being perfect, or are you a speaker who values connection over perfection?

And the cinnamon roll cake? It was as good as it looked!

Can the audience read your scribble?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:48:54 PST

Here's another topic speakers don't talk about enough: Your handwriting.

You may have great content, smooth delivery, great audience connection, a sharp outfit, well-groomed eyebrows and a well-rounded sense of humor, but if you're going to write on a flip chart, white board or overhead, your handwriting better damn well be legible.

I heard about a seminar recently where the speaker was all of the above. Then he started writing on a flip chart and his content went out the window. Interestingly, during that workshop, a video was shown of the speaker giving an earlier presentation, and his writing was equally illegible. So it wasn't just a one-time, guy-in-a-hurry type thing. His handwriting was always bad, and he just didn't care.

If you're going to use a flip chart (and flip charts are great for recording audience interaction and saving notes to refer back to during the presentation), then print large, clear letters, and write slowly. If you know you have sloppy handwriting, make a conscious effort to write more neatly. If you think your handwriting is neat and tidy, STILL make an effort to write more neatly.

If it's easier for you to write neatly when you write small, consider using overheads or a tool like Papershow, that allows you to write on paper but show it on the same screen where you're showing your PowerPoint.

It's a tiny detail, but it makes all the difference in whether the audience is able to follow your ideas.

Here's a nice short video with a great tip for making your writing more legible. And below, a video with additional flip chart tips. Enjoy!

It's the little (hairy) things....

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:15:12 PST

On The Ellen Show last week, Kenneth Branagh was a guest, talking about his movie "My Week With Marilyn." Ellen asked him what he does to prepare for awards shows like The Golden Globes, which was forthcoming.

I've heard a lot of celebrities' and speakers' preparation routines and rituals, but this is one I've never heard mentioned on national television: trimming eyebrows and nose and ear hair.

Branagh commented that, as he's gotten older, he has developed more unruly hairs and he doesn't want that to be what people see when he's on the red carpet. It's a practical consideration as well for anyone who's going to be presenting or giving an acceptance speech onstage, with cameras enlarging your face on the TV screen for all to see.

Personal grooming habits are not often spoken about, so let's do it. Personally, I wish I took better care of my fingernails. I'm a nail biter, and while I've gone years at a time keeping them manicured and neat, I've also gone years with bitten uneven nail nubs. I'm also a big fan of eyebrow tweezing, as are a lot of women (and these days, men as well). Like Branagh, I've noticed the unruliness of eyebrows that comes with age, and I also like the way keeping my eyebrows clean opens up my face and eyes, making me look more alert and awake!

Question to my readers: In addition to those hairy body parts that Branagh mentions, what other aspects of personal grooming do you think are important for a speaker to look polished and professional?

Surviving the mini-presentation: Your self-introduction

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:29:29 PST

Last night, hubby and I attended a dinner hosted by one of the distributors he works with in his job at a specialty foods store. We've been at a trade show for the past few days, and this is a typical evening: cocktail party hosted by one vendor, dinner hosted by another. It's always fun to meet new people and have time for relaxing and socializing, as walking the show (more standing than walking) for seven hours each day is a lot of work and pretty exhausting.

At dinner, one of our hosts stood up and suggested that we all go around and introduce ourselves, including sharing something that no one at the table would know about us. Of course, I was thrilled! I love this stuff, right? But I imagine that at least half the people at the table went into an instant panic. Including my husband. He later described his reaction to me.

First, his stomach did a flip-flop. Then he started thinking about what he wanted to say. While thinking about his own introduction, he was trying to hear what others in the room were saying, but was distracted by his own thoughts. He tried to plan his intro only during the applause breaks, but he still missed some of the others' introductions. As it got closer and closer to his turn, he got more and more anxious. When it was time for him to introduce himself, he stood up, spoke (and gave a very funny intro, I might add), and didn't hear a word that came out of his mouth. He didn't start to comprehend what he had said until I started speaking next.

Does this sound familiar to any of you?

The self-introduction is the mini version of any other presentation you might give. If you plan it well, it can have an opening, a closing and a body, just like any other speech. It can have humor, it can be memorable, and it can influence your audience. It can also be poorly prepared, uninteresting, and forgettable. And it can make you really nervous, distracting you from listening to the other people in the room, which is the purpose of the intros in the first place.

I suggest always being prepared to give a basic self-introduction. When the time comes, even if someone tacks on an extra activity like stating something no one knows about you, you'll already have the basics in place. There are different situations where you might give a self-intro, but let's just talk about our typical business meeting or event. You know you're going to share your name and your occupation, but what else might people want to know and how can you make it interesting and relevant for them?

Say you've been at your company for ten years and you want to share that. But instead of saying, "I've been with ACME Magnets for ten years," you could say "I've been with ACME Magnets since 2002, the first year the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl." If you're not a football fan, maybe you'll say, "I started at ACME Magnets in 2002, the year Shrek won the first Best Animated Feature Award at the Oscars." How can you say the same old thing in a new way? How can you always be prepared with a snappy introduction that shows your personality and helps people get to know you a bit?

In addition to having your self-introduction mostly prepared, try to give yourself a moment to gather your thoughts when it's finally your turn. Don't start speaking until you're fully standing. Take a moment to look around the room and smile. Breathe. Feel your feet on the floor. Make eye contact with one or two people. Then start speaking. (Read my post on grounding for more on this.) Project your voice so everyone can hear you. Take your time. Enjoy your moment in the spotlight. Finish speaking before you sit down.

I'm not suggesting that your self-intro has to be the most fascinating speech ever. For most of us, it will be under 30 seconds and does not have to be elaborate. But having some basic ideas in place about what you want to say will reduce your nervousness when the time comes, and will also allow you to listen to what your colleagues are saying so you can learn something about them, just as you hope they'll learn something about you.

Speaking on Skype: They can still see you.

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:00:05 PST

More and more of us are using Skype and other video chat platforms to hold meetings and coaching sessions. It's convenient, we don't have to leave the home or office, and it allows us to converse with people in different cities, states and countries.

Video chat comes with its own set of rules and etiquette that parallel public speaking rules in some ways, and are completely unique in other ways. Here are a couple of tips to help you make the most of your next video chat.

1. Look at the camera, not the screen.

This one is really hard, because we want to look into the face of the person we're speaking with. But if you look at your computer screen, you're not actually looking into the person's eyes. You are looking somewhere below them (assuming your camera is placed or embedded above your monitor). Looking into the camera ensures you are making eye contact, even though it doesn't feel like it on your end!

A client's solution is to put a little sticker or a picture of a face next to the camera so she remembers to look there.

2. Dress appropriately.

We've all seen the videos online of people who were dressed appropriately from the waist up and had to suddenly get up from the call, revealing undergarments or pajamas from the waist down. This video is particularly funny, although I'm pretty sure it's a PSA and not a real event.

Comb your hair, brush your teeth, dress yourself from top to bottom, and once you sit down in front of the camera, be ready to go and assume you're being watched. If you have food in your teeth from lunch, use your toothpick before you get in front of the camera.

3. Test your equipment beforehand.

Don't make the other people in your meeting wait while you fiddle with the camera settings, adjust your microphone and test your lighting. If you're not familiar with your equipment or software like Skype, learn about it before the call.

4. Remove distractions.

Turn off the ringers on your cellphone and landline and turn off your printer (mine chooses inopportune times to loudly recalibrate itself). If you work from a home office, make sure the cat or dog is in another room, your child has someone or something to occupy her, and the TV or radio are turned off (or down if someone is using them).

It's not always possible to avoid or control distractions. In my last house, I had no options for removing our chatty cat from my workspace, and she always wanted to talk, especially when I was on the phone. I would briefly excuse myself from the call, move her to another place in the room and give her a couple of back scratches, and that was usually enough to get through the rest of the call in quiet. Do your best, and be respectful of the other people on the call.

5. Remember: People can see you.

Sometimes we feel almost invisible on a video call. Because you may be sitting alone in a room, it seems like you're really alone. But others are watching you and noticing your facial expressions, whether you're typing on your phone, whether you're slouching in your chair or if you have your feet on the desk. Behave the same way you would if you were in the same room as the others in the meeting, like a professional.

These are just a few things to apply to your next video chat. If you want to learn now to be really great on camera, check out Ruth Sherman's offerings, like her upcoming Video Charisma course.

Does your audience have a reason to listen for another minute?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:00:03 PST

I read this great quote in an article called "What Business Really Thinks of the MBA," about what students are missing in current business school education.

In the book, "Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads," an executive who was interviewed said:

"Students fail to deliver the important message up front. I'm often asked to review their five-minute pitch for a business plan, but after the first minute they still haven't given me a reason to listen for the next four."

Is this not true of every presentation? Sure, the audience is paying attention to you when you start your presentation; they've got no choice, really, unless you are so quiet and low-key that they literally do not realize you've begun. Otherwise, they're looking at you, they're listening to you, and they're anticipating what comes next.

Unless...

Unless you don't give them a reason to get excited about what comes next. Unless your opening is so dull and uninteresting that they decide checking e-mail or Facebook is a better use of their time.

What you do in the first minute of your presentation just gets people to listen for the second minute. What you do in the fifth minute keeps them paying attention until the sixth minute. And what you do in the 27th minute keeps them hanging on till the 28th minute.

Engaging the audience is an ongoing prospect. It's not something you do one time and win them over for the whole hour. People's minds drift, they get distracted, they become engaged in their own thoughts. You must continue to read the audience, bring them back to your world, stimulate their emotions through stories, analogies, visuals, humor and conviction, make them feel like rock stars, let them see the real you, connect with and relate to them, and forget about perfection.

Here are a bunch more posts about engaging the audience. Remember that the first few minutes are still a critical period in your presentation, that set the stage for the rest of your time. But every minute of your presentation is an opportunity to keep the audience engaged for the next minute and the next and the next, until you've succeeded in creating a complete experience.

Some audience members will remember discrete moments of your presentation. Others will remember particular visuals, stories or laughter. But the more of these moments you can string together, the more the audience will take with them a whole picture of rewarding time spent with you.

12 Speaking Challenges for 2012 - have you joined?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:05:17 PST

Have you joined my 12 Speaking Challenges for 2012 yet? Build your "confidence muscles" with 12 monthly challenges designed to help you get out of your comfort zone and build confidence in a variety of settings that will prepare you for your upcoming speaking engagements!

Click here for the first challenge, Make Eye Contact, and then join the discussion on my Facebook group (you have make a request to join, but it's an open group and everyone is welcome).

If you want to participate in my monthly discussion calls and receive additional resources, handouts and support e-mails, consider joining the Full program. For the month of January, the Full program is only $1!

We've just gotten started and you can join any time throughout the year, but you'll get the most out of the program if you start at the beginning! See you soon!

Stand or sit, and why does it matter?

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:48:50 PST

When we think of public speaking, the traditional image that comes to mind is a person standing in the front of a room full of people. However, there are a variety of formats for what can be considered public speaking, such as leading a meeting, making a sales call, participating in a panel or round table discussion, or speaking to individuals at a networking event.

A common denominator at most speaking engagements is that the speaker or speakers tend to stand in front of the group. But sometimes speakers are seated. How do you know if you should sit or stand? And what other considerations are there if you choose to sit?

There are occasions when people sit to give presentations. At conference tables, on panels, and in other small venues, it can be considered awkward to stand when speaking. Here are some tips to help you decide what's appropriate.

1. What is customary for the particular group?

If it's your regular staff meeting, and typically no one stands when speaking, and everyone can be seen and heard clearly around the table, then it's okay to stay seated. If you have something important to share and you want to give your announcement extra weight, then by all means stand.

If you are a guest speaker, however, and are giving a formal presentation to a group sitting at a conference table, you should stand. It gives you authority, it helps the audience pay better attention, and your eye contact and body language are more accessible to the group.

2. Are you on a raised stage, or are you at eye level with the audience?

On a panel where several people are seated in chairs, sometimes behind a table and sometimes not, it's also customary to stay seated. This is usually because panelists alternate answering questions and presenting information, and to have people stand, then sit, then stand, then sit, is awkward.

However, if the panel is not on a stage, and you're seated at eye level with the audience, and there are more than 20 or 30 people in the room, then you should stand. You won't be effective as a speaker if the audience can't see or hear you, or if they have to crane their necks to look over or around people seated in front of them. Facial expressions and body language are such an important part of communication; your audience shouldn't miss this aspect of your presentation.

3. How intimate is the group size?

Sometimes you choose to sit because it brings you physically and emotionally closer to the group. For example, on a sales call you may prefer to sit at a table and converse with your client rather than stand and put distance between you. If the group is small and the seating is in a circle or U shape, you can probably stay seated, as this arrangement is meant to put everyone at ease and on the same level. In this case, your role may be more of a facilitator than a formal presenter.

In all of these situations, if you are coming in from the outside to speak, you should always check with the organizer of the event to find out what they prefer, and discuss any changes you want to make to the seating arrangement.

Additional considerations for seated presentations

If you are going to be seated, and you are a woman who wears skirts, you must be aware of where you will sit in relation to the audience and you must pay attention to the length of your skirt. You don't want to show too much leg, or your undergarments. I have some tights with a layer of extra reinforcement from the waist to about the mid thigh. If I sit down in a too-short skirt, that darker layer peeks out from under my skirt and I have to spend all my time focusing on my skirt rather than the people I'm speaking to. (Thank goodness this has not happened in a presentation, only in a social setting.)

For men and women who wear pants to a presentation, the audience can see your socks or hosiery when you sit on a raised stage, so make sure they match and aren't ratty or inappropriate with your outfit.

Also, when we sit, sometimes our tummies bulge over our waistbands a bit. If you are uncomfortable with this, or your buttons will be strained against your belly, be conscious of wearing anything tight or clingy. See my blog post on Wanda Sykes for an example.

When you dress for your engagement, practice sitting, standing and bending in your outfit. If any of these positions are uncomfortable or precarious, change the offending piece of clothing. There are so many more important things to be thinking about during a presentation than whether your slip is showing or if everyone can tell it's laundry day because of the gym socks under your suit trousers.

A message to those who create presentations for others

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:57:47 PST

It occurs to me this morning that the reason so many presentations are bad is that the speaker is at the mercy of a supervisor or another department and has no control over the material or the agenda.

The corporate office, the marketing department, or some other entity sends the presentation, already complete with slides and materials, to the hapless speaker, and expects the speaker to deliver it effectively. Or there is some arbitrary limitation imposed on the speaker (like the speaker's boss only allows presentations with ten slides -- true story), so the speaker has to jump through ridiculous hoops to make the presentation work.

This post is for you: the boss, the marketing director, the corporate honcho. The person who creates a presentation for someone else to deliver.

You may not have to deliver the presentation, but you still have a responsibility to the audience. Just because they don't see your face on stage doesn't mean you are absolved when your crappy presentation confuses the audience or bores them to death. If your employees or co-workers don't understand the new product specs or last year's financials, you are partly (or mostly) to blame.

Your employee will do her best to present your material, but if you only give her five days to prepare an 8-hour meeting (true story), there is only so much she can do to make your content shine. If you give her slides laden with run-on bullet points and no visual stimulation or variety, there's only so much she can do to make sure the audience is engaged and interested. If you ask her to present nothing more than statistics and charts, there's only so much she can do to make them care.

I've worked with your employees, and together we've made these presentations better, more compelling and more useful and relevant to the audience. But if we had started with a diamond instead of coal it wouldn't have been so much extra work, and the presentations would have been even better.

I've already given suggestions to your employee about how to deliver someone else's slideshow or script.

Now here's my request of you: Consider crafting a presentation that you would be proud to deliver. If you were going to stand up in front of that audience and share the latest market research, and you were going to take credit for the presentation, how would you want to come across? Would you want to put the audience to sleep, or would you want them to find the information as interesting and important as you do? Would you want them to be confused and unable to focus, or would you want them to hang on every detail and start thinking about how they can implement your ideas right away?

If the presentation is a waste of time for you to deliver, it's a waste of time for someone else to deliver. Take pride in your material and your message and make it worthwhile for the audience to sit through it. Give your speaker a fighting chance to give a great presentation and impact the audience in a way that is rewarding to everyone involved.

12for12 January Challenge: Make eye contact

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:25:55 PDT

Greetings and Happy New Year!

Today is the day we kick off 12 Speaking Challenges for 2012! If you are a Lite member, you can follow along with the discussion on my 12for12 group on Facebook. If you are a Full member, you can participate in the Facebook group and will also have access to a separate membership-only site, a monthly call, supportive e-mails, downloadable handouts and more.

And for the month of January, the Full membership is only $1! Tweet the monthly challenges using hashtag #12speakingchallenges.

Now, for our first challenge: Make Eye Contact.

Each month, there will be several levels to the challenge, so you can tailor the challenge to your own level of comfort. But remember, this is all about getting out of your comfort zone. So if the Level 1 challenge seems difficult, but you accomplish it, then move onto the next level. You have a whole month to practice!

Some of you are looking at this challenge and thinking, "Seriously?" But bear with me.

I roll my eyes when I read a public speaking article that recommends looking at the back wall instead of your audience, to make it appear as though you are giving eye contact to the whole group.

Eye contact is an uncomfortable and extremely intimate aspect of speaking for many people, but it's critical to making the human connection with your audience.

If you're in a large room, you can look at sections of people, but you will eventually need to connect with individuals. The good thing about a large group is that, if you connect with one person, everyone around that person feels part of the connection. In a small room, you have no choice but to look right at people. They can tell if you're avoiding them!

I find that eye contact is more comfortable when I've made friends before the presentation has begun. That is, as people arrive, I say hello, ask a few questions, and get to know the audience members a little.

Once I start my talk, I feel like I already know a few people in the room, and those friendly faces are the ones I seek out first.

It's always easier to make eye contact with the friendly faces than the scowly ones, of course, but don't give up on those folks! They may just have a different way of learning and engaging.

Eye Contact Challenge

Level 1: Make eye contact with a stranger.

As you're walking around town this week, make an effort to look into the eyes of someone you don't know. Staring is creepy, so you only need to look at the person briefly to see that they acknowledge you, then feel free to look away. Smiling adds a friendly touch, and makes eye contact easier.

Those of you who wear sunglasses all the time, like I do, you will have to smile or no one will know you're looking at them.

Some people won't acknowledge you by returning eye contact. No worries. They are probably uncomfortable with eye contact, and also not participating in this challenge. Try the next person.

Level 2: Make eye contact with a stranger -- and make a comment.

The next step of this challenge, for those of you who find eye contact to be very easy, will be to engage with a stranger. The easiest way to engage a stranger is to compliment them on something. "I love your jacket." "Nice car!" "What a cute puppy." It's nonthreatening, and everyone walks away with a smile on their faces.

You don't have to keep up a conversation. Make your comment and smile. They will acknowledge you, and you're done.

Level 3: Make eye contact with a stranger -- and ask a question.

The third level of this challenge is for those of you who find the comment easy enough and want to stretch yourself more. You will engage a stranger by asking a question. You might ask a store clerk where to find the cat toys. You might ask the person next to you at the movies if they have the time. Maybe you extend the compliment you gave someone into a question, like "What a cute puppy. What kind of dog is she?"

To a shy person like myself (yep, I'm shy), asking a question of a stranger can be excruciating. We already know how much some people will drive around in circles for hours rather than ask for directions... Lots of us hate asking for help or trying to get someone's attention, but it's an important step in building confidence!

Asking a question comes with a risk of starting a conversation. You run the risk of getting to know a stranger a little. You might actually learn something about that cashier you see every couple of days at Trader Joe's or the person who exercises at the track at the same time as you every day (These are both experiences I've had. Here's what I wrote about the conversation with the Trader Joe's cashier).

Now, once you've completed your challenge, come over to the 12for12 Facebook group and leave your comments. And remember: You have all month to practice. So when you've completed your challenge, do it again. And again. And again. And when that level becomes comfortable for you, try the next one. And then the next one.

And what if you've done them all and you're resting on your laurels? Maybe you can think of yet another level to add! Maybe you got really brave and touched someone on the arm to get their attention, for example, and that was a stretch for you. If you do get creative, report back at the Facebook group and let us know what you did, so maybe others can try the same thing!

Ready, set, GO!

See the rest of the challenges here:

February
March
April
May

12 Speaking Challenges for 2012 launches January 2!

lisa@coachlisab.com (Lisa Braithwaite) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:05:45 PST

Wouldn't you love to radiate confidence as a speaker?

Whether you're onstage, in a staff meeting, or mingling at a networking event, confidence is often the difference between being heard and remembered, and being forgotten the minute the meeting is over.

How do you build confidence? Through baby steps. Through careful planning and preparation, embracing your uniqueness, trusting your gut, trying new things, getting out of your comfort zone, learning from missteps and acknowledging accomplishments.

All of these aspects of confidence will be addressed in my program, "12 Speaking Challenges for 2012!"

Join my Facebook community and follow the monthly challenges through my blog posts and discussions for FREE (Lite program), or go more in depth with a monthly support call, motivational e-mails and downloadable handouts in my Full program.

Whether you speak for your job, your business or your favorite nonprofit organization, building confidence is a must.

And if you're stuck in a rut, doing the same thing over and over, wanting to break out of boring old habits, but feeling anxious and afraid, this is the place for you!

Each month's challenge will tackle a different aspect of speaking, although most will not actually involve any public speaking!

I will offer several levels for each challenge, so that whether you speak regularly or infrequently, you can still participate at your own level each month.

This program is about getting you ready, so when the speaking engagement comes, you'll face it with courage and excitement!

Join my Facebook group here for both Lite and Full versions of the program. Register for the Full program here.