Persuasion Skills Principle

Here's a valuable Persuasion Skills Principle: Do someone a favor before you ask for a favor. The Law of Reciprocation states that people are likely to return favors, so first do something for your prospect before you ask him/her to do something for you.

• Give something away for free to your clients. They'll remember you for it. They'll like you. They'll do more business with you. They'll refer more clients to you.

How to Improve Your Public Speaking Skills

Video Tape & Review Your Presentations!

Do you video tape your presentations? No? 
Why not?
If other people have to sit there and listen to you, why should you be spared?
Reviewing your performance is a great way to improve your public speaking. It's painful to watch yourself. Very painful. But it's a great way to gain some feedback.
Critique yourself. But be nice to yourself.
Write down at least one point of improvement.
Make a commitment improve on your next performance.
Repeat, repeat, repeat. 


FREE Communication Skills Tips, Tricks and Techniques: http://bit.ly/ipNMxm

Worst Public Speaking Mistakes - And How You Can Avoid Them

Presentations can be boring!

You have sat through your fair share of boring

presentations. You've probably even sat through

presentations where you thought the presenter

was wasting your time. You've probably thought,

"Why am I here? I could just read through the

Powerpoint on my own!"

If you want to avoid being that presenter, then

avoid this public speaking mistake that most

other presenters make:

• Public Speaking Sin: Reading The List

Take a quick look at Professor Wrong's slide.

During the lecture, after she'd asked her question,

you would have heard Professor Wrong say something along

the lines of:

"There are three types of knowledge structures. The first

one is Correlated Association. This means...

The second one is Hierarchical structure. This means...

The third one is Goal derived categories. This means...

Now you see how severe [and boring] the 'Read the List'

syndrome is? Unfortunately, most presenters who use

Powerpoint presentations suffer from this sickness.

They love to ask their own questions and then listing

out their solutions. Thankfully, since you've read this

blogpost, you won't be one of them.

While the 'Read the List' syndrome still allows for

information imparting, it's not a very effective way

of educating your audience. You'll most likely bore your

audience and put them to sleep. And the few who do remain?

After several slides, they'll forget most of what you've said.

And no one will walk away feeling inspired and feeling as

though they've learned something.

Imagine being victim to the 'Read the List' syndrome

for the above slide. Now imagine 30 such slides over

the course of one and a half-hours. And yes, that's

a real slide from Professor Wrong's lecture.

So, what's the cure to the 'Read the List' Syndrome?

For one thing, allow learners to discover the answers by

asking them questions. Give them hints and get

them moving in the right directions, but don't

immediately read the whole list of solutions.

• Public Speaking Tip: PARTS Formula for Powerful Presentations

Next, instead of simply reading through the list and defining the

terms, make the talk interesting by adding your own stories,

anecdotes and opinions. [Read more about the power of stories

here] Add value to the Powerpoint by providing interesting,

memorable anecdotes.

The best structure to do this - to avoid Reading The List Syndrome -

use the PARTS Formula for Powerful Presentation [Read it here]

P.S. Want to received $499 worth of the "Most Important Public

Speaking Tips You'll Ever Need" for FREE? It's Quick and Easy...

If you're serious about becoming a skilful communicator, then

just type in your email address at the top of the page.

The Biggest Mistake in Presentations and How You Can Avoid Them

After 90 minutes of listening to her lecture,

I walked out of her Marketing class feeling  
no smarter than when I first walked in.

Have you ever had such a Professor? 
One who made an interesting subject so boring
that she made you feel like she'd torn a hole through
the space-time continuum and stopped time?

For me, it's my Marketing professor, Professor Wrong.
And in case you missed the highly popular first article
about Professor Wrong, check it out here. It contains
the Public Speaking Sins that you should avoid

if you want to avoid being as hated as Professor

Wrong.

Today, while half-dozing through Professor

Wrong's lecture, I realized that many other

innocent people were suffering from the

same teaching mistakes that Professor Wrong

was committing. To avoid boring your audiences,

be sure to avoid this one Presentation Skills Mistake

that most other presenters make:

The Biggest Mistake in Presentations?

• No Audience Involvement

Professor Wrong suffers a severe sickness called

'Answering Your Own Questions'. And today, the

sickness was at it's most severe stage. To get an

idea of how brutal this sickness is, imagine that

you were sitting in Professor Wrong's 10.30 a.m.

Marketing class. About 10 minutes into the class,

you would have heard her ask the following question:

"What are the different types of knowledge structures?"

You would have then seen her click to the next slide

on her Powerpoint presentation which magically

revealed the three different types of knowledge

structures. Take a quick look at the magical slide

(below) and decide for yourself how interested you'd

be in this lecture after 30 such slides:

After Professor Wrong asked the question, you

would have then heard Professor Wrong proceed

to answer her own question. Ten minutes later,

you'd hear her ask another question about the

factors affecting knowledge structure, immediately

after which she'd proceed to give you the three

different factors. And you'd just sit there, wondering

whether listening to a Professor's Q&A monologue

was what education was all about.

• Public Speaking Sin: No Audience Involvement

A question is a great way to arouse curiosity in

the listeners. In Professor Wrong's case, her

question caused me to rack my brains and try

and come up with a suitable solution.

Unfortunately, Professor Wrong wasn't

interested in listening to our answers.

Immediately after she asked her questions,

she proceeded to move on to providing the

possible answers. The questions were simply

a transition so that she could move onto the

next slide.

Here's the problem with this:

While rhetorical questions certainly have

their place in speeches, educators should try

and use questions for audience involvement.

Questions should be used to allow learners to

use their brains and discover the answers for

themselves, rather than simply listening

to the Professor hand out the solutions on

a Powerpoint presentation.

• Public Speaking Tip: If You Ask a Question, Listen to the Answers

If you're a teacher or workshop-leader whose

job is to educate, then use questions to allow

the audience to discover the answers

by themselves! In other words, if you ask a question,

be prepared to listen to the answers. Not doing so can

cause you to be seen as rude and obnoxious. The purpose

of education is to allow learners to expand their critical

thinking skills and discover the answers themselves.

Questions are a great way to do just that.

After this article was written, I came across the following
research study that emphasises the effect of audience
involvement in learning.


Pascarella and Terenzini (1991, p98) report that student involvement
or engagement (active learning) be used since a substantial body of
evidence suggests that the greater the learner's involvement in the 
learning process, then the greater the level of content acquisition. 
Also note that this involvement can be as simple as note taking,
discussions, or answering questions.

P.P. S. Enjoyed this? Learned something? Then

help Share by clicking the Like button because it's

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Foolproof Formula for Powerful Presentations

Here's a powerful public speaking 'formula' that I picked up from Craig Valentine's book, World Class Speaking. If need to deliver an important presentation, and one which 'sticks' in your listeners minds long after you've finished speaking, then use the PARTS formula - Point, Anchor, Reflection, Technique, Sale. Let's have a look at each of the elements in turn...

Point:

Give the main point/message of the speech/presentation. Boil your entire speech down to just one main point by asking yourself the following question, "If my audience was to remember only one thing I'd said today, then what would I want them to remember?" Find your most important point and state it explicitly.

Anchor:

After giving your main point, you need to "tie it down" with an anchor? "What's an anchor?" I can hear you asking. An anchor is basically a tool which will hook the Point into the listener's memory. There are four anchors that you can use. You don't need to use all of these, but make sure that you use at least one:

• Anecdote - Tell a story that illustrates your main point. A well-told story acts like a memorable testimonial. Checkout more about the power of stories in this post (click here)

• Activity - If you can create some sort of quick game/role-playing activity that will solidify your point, then be sure to include it. Just make sure that the purpose of the activity is clear to everyone.

• Acronym - Acronyms are a useful memory tool. For example, the acronym PARTS will you help you remember the public speaking formula you're learning here (Point, Anchor, Reflection, Technique, Sale)

• Analogy - Here's an example of an analogy from the book The Mars and Venus Diet and Exercise Solution by John Gray

Think of your body as an old-fashioned steam engine. You need to feed the fire with coal. When there is no coal available, the stoker slows down so that all the available fuel is not consumed. Likewise, your metabolism slows down for the rest of the day when you don’t eat breakfast.”

Reflection

After anchoring your point, you want to get the audience to reflect on the point you just made by asking them a question. Here's an example from Craig Valentine.


In one of his speeches, he talks about the power of visualization. Specifically, he talks about how he mentally stepped on the stage at least a 1000 times before he ever became a champion. To get the audience to reflect on his point, he asked the question,

"What stage are you stepping on mentally at least 1000 times?". After asking the question, allow for enough silence for them to be able to answer the question in their own minds.

Technique

If you can, then give the audience a technique that they can use to apply your main point. For example, if you're giving a speech about the importance of time-management, then you would want to make sure that you're audience can apply your point by giving them this technique: "Before you go to bed each night, take a pen and a piece of paper and write down all the things you need to accomplish the next day. List all the tasks according to importance, and when you wake up in the morning, start with the most important one first"

Sale

Finally, you've made your Point, you've Anchored it down, you've got them to Reflect, you've given them a Technique, and now you need to Sell the benefits. Remind the audience in just a few sentences the benefits they will receive from applying the technique you've just given them. Carrying on from the time-management principle above, you can say something along the lines of: "If you manage your time well by applying these techniques, then you will be more productive, experience less stress, and lead a happier life overall".

P.S. It's my birthday today! Go ahead and Share this post because it'll make me happy ;)
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