10 Tips For Impressive Presentations To Senior Leadership And Executives

I was recently working with a group of  executives at a well-known life sciences company   and what i uncovered while working with them  is every single one of them was extremely   nervous about presenting to leadership.  So I have 10 tips to share with you today   anytime you have to present to leadership or any  high stake situation. Stay tuned on Moxie Talk!   Hey everyone I'm Fia Fasbinder, welcome to  Moxie Talk where we help you find your voice,   share your message, and lead with confidence.  Today we're talking about how to present to the   leadership team or any high-stakes situation. Now  I've come up with a methodology that worked for   the executives I was coaching andI I think it will  work for you too and this is a 10 step program   that you can use to make sure you are prepared  and you are going to present at your best.   The first tip is to prepare I know it  sounds like a no-brainer but how many   people do you know that just show up  and throw up for their presentation?   It's so important with leadership teams that  are extremely busy are going to see a ton   of presentations and you're just one in that  lineup to prepare your content ahead of time.   So you're probably asking me now how do I prepare  I'm going to tell you the first step to preparing   your content and this is something that if you do  this I swear that leadership team will thank you.   The first tip is to begin with the end in mind.  You have to think about what are the goals for   this presentation what do you want this audience  to feel when they're done? What do you want them   to know when you're done? And what do you want  them to do when you're done? This requires you to   synthesize the information that you're presenting  to them so they understand the why. I'll give you   an example, I recently worked with an executive  who was going to give a quarterly review right   and his job in finance was just to give the  numbers or so he thought. His presentations   leading up to working with me were dry boring  just numbers but really he was missing the point   he wasn't just supposed to give the numbers he was  supposed to tell us why those numbers matter. What   are we supposed to think about those numbers are  we making money? Are we losing money are there   ways we can be more productive? Are there ways we  can be more effective? You must begin with the end   in mind with your content so that's tip number  two. The third tip is to be clear and concise   don't ramble leadership teams are busy and if you  ramble they will cut you off so of course how do   you avoid rambling how do you avoid going off  on a tangent? You prepare. Prepare by rehearsing   your content ahead of time read it ahead of time  say it aloud ahead of time. Make sure it's clear   concise logical you're saying your message and  at the least amount of time possible so that   you don't get cut off in the middle of your  presentation. Nothing worse than that right?   Number four is to tell stories and  give examples bring the data to life.   I love the quote by Brene Brown which is stories  are just data with a soul. So I know a lot of us   have data heavy presentations. Bring them to life  by telling stories. I'll give you another example   I worked with a financial accountant who worked  at a large finance company and he was giving a   presentation at their annual conference before  this he just started with the how to's the how   to save money for your ira after working with him  i uncovered that he actually had a single mom who   worked four jobs to support the family and didn't  know how to save money and is now living with this   financial advisor because she didn't know how  to save money and his single goal in life was   to teach people how to save money so that they  can retire and there can be a point where they   don't have to work so hard when he told this story  there was not a dry eye in the house everybody was   crying people remembered his presentation years  later they came up to him after the presentation   and what he was doing was personalizing it  and connecting to the audience with a story the fifth tip has to do with your slides  keep them minimal make sure that you are not   talking through a slide by reading us all of the  bullets instead talk to the slide minimize the   death by powerpoint by taking the bullets off  your slide and expanding on each of the points   now you're probably wondering well what do i  do with the bullets if i take them off my slide   you put them in the notes section of your  powerpoint or if you're not using a powerpoint   with the with the notes you prepare by rehearsing  and you run it enough times that you know the   content i have died a thousand deaths when i have  to sit through a presentation where a speaker just   reads the bullets to me and the worst please  do not do this is when they go back a slide no   make sure your slides are minimal they're  concise and that you speak to the slides   instead of reading to them our mantra  at moxie is your powerpoint is not   your teleprompter if you can remember this  you'll give such an engaging presentation   the sixth is to channel your nervous energy  into usable energy how do you do this   the best way to do this is by practicing  nothing builds confidence like knowing   your presentation look things can happen during  the presentation that are out of your control   you might get cut off somebody might have to  leave the room your monitor breaks we can't   control those things but if you know your  content if you've rehearsed your content   those kind of things won't derail you the  best way to feel confident is to practice   make sure you know your content well enough that  if you weren't using your powerpoint you could   still talk to those executives and the general  rule of thumb to make sure you know your content   is five to seven full rehearsals i know it  sounds like a lot but if this is a high stake   stakes presentation you owe it to yourself  to make sure you go out there with confidence   the seventh tip is to do a pre-presentation  warm-up speaking of confidence you know most   of us are most nervous for the first five minutes  before a presentation and the first five minutes   of our presentation that's like the witching hour  when our heart rates are racing and are we're   sweating and we can feel our cheeks getting hot  right the best way to ensure that you don't look   nervous to that executive team because they don't  know you're nervous unless you look nervous or you   tell them you're nervous the best way to ensure  that you go out there with confidence is to warm   up right before you go into the presentation look  any athlete that has a high stakes game warms up   before the game they would never think of just  going into the game without a warm-up do you   think that a super bowl athlete doesn't warm up  before a game of course they do but for something   for some reason as speakers we think we can just  waltz right in there and start and we're not going   to get nervous we need a warm up too and i have  four major components to any good speaker warm-up   the first is mindset so give yourself a mantra  you know say something aloud that makes you feel   great and you must say it aloud if you say it  allowed you're going to believe it a lot more   the the second part to this warm-up is breath work  take deep relaxing breaths from your diaphragm and   if you're not sure how to do this i have a whole  video on diaphragmatic breathing but my mantra is   breathe low and slow this will literally bring  your heart rate down and tell your body that it   can get out of fight or flight and into rest and  digest third is do a little warm up with your body   you know a lot of us when we're speaking we get  stiff right all that adrenaline hits our body and   we get stiff or we shake the best way to ensure  that you don't look nervous is to do a physical   warm-up shake out all those nerves do jumping  jacks do push-ups run in place do something   to get all of that adrenaline out of your body  and the last thing this might sound ridiculous   but it is to warm up your mouth the best way to  make sure that you don't fumble over your words   is to do a warm-up and my favorite easy warm-up  is to pretend you're chewing a ton of bubble gum   like this right and then it looks ridiculous  but you're really warming up your speaker muscle   so that you can speak clearly so really easy  do this warm up ahead of time obviously don't   do it in front of the leadership team if you can  find a quiet place to do it that would be great   and the eighth tip is to have what i call vocal  executive presence look a lot of us when we get   nervous it shows in our voice right we can hear  it in our voice either our voice goes high in   register or it's quivery or it's too soft the  best way to ensure that you have vocal executive   presence which means that your voice is amplifying  your message of authority instead of undermining   it is to do a quick vocal warm-up and the easiest  way to warm up your voice you do not have to be   a singer to do this is to do some simple hums  humming is a great way to warm up our vocal cords   do your breathing and if you want to learn how  to stop your quivering i also have a video on   this if your voice quivers women pay attention  to your voice going into what we call your head   register a lot of us myself included when i get  nervous my voice goes into this high register   which really undermines our authority and the  first step is awareness if you can be aware of   going into that head register you can  absolutely bring it down and ground that   voice right imagine your voice coming from your  belly instead of your head practice this way so   you feel and hear the difference in your voice  so that vocal executive presence is so powerful   now along with vocals executive presence  is commanding the space with our body   now this is what we call presentation power posing  and if anyone's watched amy cuddy's ted talk   on power posing it's incredible but what this  really means is maximizing the space our body   takes up in a room when we get nervous a huge  cue that we're nervous is our bodies get small   right we cross our hands we do what i call  the fig leaf our shoulders are slumped we   look down we make our bodies small and  this is actually an unconscious ancient   signal that we are literally trying to hide so  that we are not being attacked but we are not   going to be attacked this is a presentation it's  probably a pretty friendly audience and the best   way to ensure that you show vocal executive  presence with your body and command the space   is to maximize the space your body takes up in a  room this is simple just open your chest cavity   by imagining that if i were to cut you in half  from top to bottom your shoulders would be on   the back half of your body right it's not some  staunch military pose it's just slightly opening   your chest cavity and now strain out the s curve  in your spine by imagining imagining an invisible   string it starts in the middle of your head and  the other half is attached to the ceiling and   it's just gently pulling you up right this is what  our parents taught us in elementary school stand   straight and smile but it's great advice it's a  great way to make sure you're commanding the space   last but not least we are to the 10th tip  is to make sure after all this practice   that your authentic speaker persona shines  through some of us are natural comedians   some of us are more solemn some of us are  just a little bit more serious some of us   love to move around a room some of us love to stay  still whatever it is if it's done with confidence   this is showing authenticity and audiences love  authentic authenticity we have something called   mirror neurons which means we  mirror behavior from people we see   if you go in there with passion and excitement  and confidence your audience will mirror that   and that can come in so many different ways so  work on developing your authentic speaker persona   so there you go guys 10 tips to make sure  that you present to leadership with confidence   and you ensure success if you like this video make  sure to share it subscribe to our channel like   our videos maybe watch some more videos on our  channel and we'll see you next time on moxie talk

Channel: Moxie Institute

Views: 18,286

Rating: 4.9555554 out of 5

Keywords: public speaking tips, public speaking skills, speaking skills, public speaking, public speaker, Storytelling, fear of public speaking, speech anxiety, public speaking anxiety, Glossophobia, communication skills, business communication, presentation skills, presentation skills training, presentation tips, presentation company, speech coach, speaker coaching, public speaker classes, public speaking classes, public speaking course, public speaking training, media training

Id: soZBrFglqtc

Length: 14min 37sec (877 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 28 2021