Executive Speech Coach NJ - Sims Wyeth » public speaking tips

Overcoming stage fright is a presentation skill

admin — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:29:19 +0000

A study in the Journal of Sports Sciences established that pro-basketball players who had a rigid pre-shot routine were 17% more accurate foul shooters than those who did not.

The rigid pre-shot routine is believed to help transfer control of the activity away from the cerebral cortex (good for learning new things) to the cerebellum (good for performing complicated tasks under pressure.)

This shift is also documented in an article in Scientific American. However, there are two complicating factors: 1.) The cerebellum is not accessible through conscious thought, and 2.) If we over-monitor our own performance in real time, we run the risk of choking.

So how do you get to the zone of peak performance and overcome your stage fright? Research suggests that giving yourself one-word instruction (e.g., “smooth,” or, “calm.”) is a good way to go.

“If you use one word, it prevents you from regressing into conscious control, but it’s still strong enough to activate the schematic cue to get that motor program running,” says researcher Daniel Gucciardi.

A good presenter has a routine for preparing early, rehearsing often, and giving herself effective instruction in order to transfer content from her cerebral cortex to her cerebellum.

My advice: Get a routine.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

Make your PowerPoint headlines sentences

admin — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:01:22 +0000

Michael Alley has investigated an alternative to the default PowerPoint slide layout, which he terms the “assertion-evidence design.”

This approach employs succinct sentence headlines (sentences that make an assertion) at the top of the slide. Under it, in the main section of the slide, there would appear a visual representation of evidence, such as a picture or a graph.

In multiple experiments, Alley has found that students viewing presentations following this design were better able to recall the main assertion of slides than were those students viewing presentations employing phrase headlines and bulleted text.

An example of a phrase headline would be, “Product safety,” a phrase that contains no information of value and no point of view.

If the author of such a slide were to use Alley’s “assertion-evidence design,” the headline might read, “Product safety is competitive.” That is, the sentence would make an assertion, or a point, and then the viewer would be able to glance down to review the evidence on display that supports the assertion.

McKinsey and Co., a leading consulting firm, has used this methodology for years, if not decades, as have other reputable institutions, including the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

Any presenter whose job is to create clarity out of complexity will benefit from using Alley’s “assertion-evidence design.”

Energetic Lips

admin — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:25:27 +0000

Once again, I am the speech coach who has run into a very accomplished person who mumbles. He’s on the fast track at a major American corporation, and his boss has gotten word that senior people can’t understand him when he presents.

Receptive to help and concerned about the consequences of this life-long habit, he is struggling to be mindful of his speech. Since the physical process of speaking is something we all do without conscious thought, the effort to be aware of the placement of his tongue and lips is a challenge.

He’s getting there. He’s louder than he was, which is great, and he’s keeping his voice up all the way to the ends of his sentences, but he still needs to slow down and land on every vowel and consonant. He tends to zip through syllables. For instance, for constitutional he says cons-too-tional, leaving out that middle ti syllable.

When these mistakes pile up during a high stakes presentation, it makes him appear nervous, and makes him harder to understand.

Smart guy. He shouldn’t be held back by something mechanical like not knowing where to place his tongue and lips when speaking plain old English. Of course it’s nothing that voice and speech training can’t fix.

Kick Butt Presenting

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:50:00 +0000

I just read some Mind Mints at www.garyforman.com. The guy can write.

Who is Gary Forman? He’s a speech writer, a good one. I know he’s good because last year I partnered with him on a speech for Endo Pharmaceuticals, and he kicked butt.

What are Mind Mints? They are nuggets of observed experience that Gary bakes into rich morsels of insight. They are short, conversational, intelligent, positive, and practical. They make you think about speaking in new ways.

Gary surrendered himself to me one day last year to try out a speech he wrote about kicking butt. Kicking butt is important to Gary because he dislikes mealy-mouthed speeches. He is adamant about the value of edginess, verve, and the unexpected. His speech and his delivery were very, very good. He kicked butt.

If you want to read some good, short presentation tips about speaking, presenting, and speech making, subscribe to Mind Mints at www.GaryForman.com.

And no, he did not ask me to write this, and I have no financial interest in his business.

Public Speaking Tips: Familiarity breeds affection

simswnj — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:29:06 +0000

Robert Zajonc (pronounced ZYE-unts) was an American social scientist who explored the interplay between feeling and thought—between emotion and cognition.

He was interested in determining which influenced the other more strongly. On balance, he came down on the side of emotion.

He was best known for establishing what he called “the mere exposure” effect. In this experiment, he showed subjects a series of random shapes in rapid succession—so rapid that they could not possibly tell if any were repeated.

When subjects were later asked which shapes they found most pleasing, they reliably chose the ones to which they had been exposed the most often, though they had no conscious awareness of the fact.

Familiarity, in other words, breeds a kind of affection, an established truth that has, ever since, encouraged advertisers to repeat themselves.

Speakers can do the same. Find a phrase, an image, or a single word to weave throughout your talk.

“I have a dream,” is such a phrase. “Of the people, by the people, for the people,” is another. And the current American President, Mr. Obama, has been repeating the word, “Responsibility,” perhaps to defuse the charge that he’s bailing out reckless banks and irresponsible people.

“Every word uttered strikes a note on the key board of the imagination,” said Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Choose the words or phrases to repeat so that your audience will remember your message with affection.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Overcoming Speaking Anxiety: Step into your stage fright

simswnj — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:16:13 +0000

The sensation of stage fright is bad enough, but what’s worse is the damage it can do to your career and your self-esteem.

If you let it stop you, your sense of self gets smaller and your stage fright gets bigger and more powerful.

However, when you step into your stage fright, you learn quickly that it’s a phantom–a fog—like most of our fears. When you step into that fog, you soon realize that it is a figment of your imagination—and that your effort to cut through it can easily succeed.

Here is a pep talk, courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt, who knew something about courage and determination.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

Your biggest presentation skill: Boosting your signal to noise ratio

simswnj — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:15:57 +0000

If you read this blog about presentation skills and your signal to noise ratio, you can make more money, save money and time, reduce your uncertainty and anxiety, and look good in the eyes of others.

When I was in college, I drove a truck full of modern art from a New York gallery to a museum in Tennessee. It was October. The World Series was on the radio. My team, the Mets, were playing, and the signal was irregular and full of static.

It was raining. It was dark. I was on a two-lane mountain road. I had to deliver the paintings by morning. The windshield washers could not keep up with the downpour. The road was twisting and I was fiddling with the radio dial desperately trying to tune in through the static to hear how my Mets were doing.

I was an audience of one in the cab of that rented Hertz truck, fighting to hear the signal through the noise. And I don’t think I’m reaching too far for a simile to say that our audiences are in a similar position when they listen to our presentations.

Our audiences are on a mission to achieve their business objectives. The market is dark and unpredictable. The staff cannot keep up with the constant demands. Our listeners worry about hitting their numbers, managing the budget, and positioning themselves for a promotion. Plus, their tummies might be rumbling with hunger, or their kids are home alone and they’re worried.

They try to tune in to what we’re saying, but it’s hard. We may take too long getting to the point. They get bored or frustrated.

We may start talking about ourselves, or our product, or our company, and fail to relate the information to what they care about.

They will have to fight through the noise of our talk to hear the information that they care about. And they only care about information because they have an emotional interest in what it could mean to them.

Does the information you offer make them more successful at their job? Is it simple and clear? Does it solve a problem? Does it save them time, or help them make more money? Does it make them feel more secure, or less uncertain? And could it make them look good in the eyes of others?

These are the signals that most of us want to hear. Your job as a presenter is to boost your signal to noise ratio.

Do so, and you will make more money, be more successful, reduce your anxiety, and look good in the eyes of the world.

Presentation Skills: Use emotional arguments

simswnj — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:25:09 +0000

Reason makes us think, but emotion makes us act. So how can we build emotional arguments into our presentations?

When we consult Maslow’s Theory, we learn that people have a hierarchy of needs. At the bottom of the pyramid are physiological needs—the need for air, water, food and excretion. Most business arguments cannot invoke these as rewards for compliance, or as punishments to be feared if the listener fails to do what the speaker suggests.

Next up on the list are the emotional needs for safety. These include the needs for security of body, employment, and property. Politicians often claim that certain ideas, programs or “isms” threaten our security. Healthcare companies appeal to our deep need for well-being. And business arguments can invoke the loss (and the possible increase) of employment security as emotional reasons to endorse a particular initiative.

The need for love in the business world is the need for social connections and a sense of belonging. Since we spend more hours with our colleagues at work than we do with our families, this need provides a strong lever for a business speaker seeking to sway an audience.

The workplace is even more significant for us as a forum in which we can earn distinction and status. Our need for esteem is profound, both self-esteem and the need to be respected and acknowledged by our peers. It is often said that pay is not the greatest motivator. The greatest motivator is recognition and acknowledgement.

If we are lucky enough to satisfy all the needs mentioned above, then we will work for self-actualization. This will include our desire to make a difference, to develop our deepest human abilities for feeling, imagination, caring, and spontaneity. It seems that Apple Computer and Google have marketed themselves as employers where self-actualization is possible—where creativity and “changing the world” are part of the business culture.

All persuasive arguments have an emotional component. But it requires a deft touch. If you overplay your point, you lose credibility. Subtlety and indirectness are essential.

For instance, you cannot say, “You are a small and vulnerable outsider dealing with a vast, deceptive insurance industry. Work with us. We’re friendly.”

Much better to hire a little talking gecko with an Australian accent and get him to personify your company. He’ll reduce your audience’s anxiety, and build customer loyalty, even while he’s making a simple rational argument that he can save you money.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.