Presentations in Action - Jerry Weissman [45]
To stabilize yourself before your presentation, try this ritual. As you head up to the front of the room, have the first few phrases of your presentation set in your mind—phrases that you have practiced enough to be familiar with them. When you get to the front, the jolt of adrenaline will force your eyes to sweep the room in search of flight paths.
You cannot stop this involuntary reaction, so let the sweep happen. But let your eyes move around the room with an appropriate action: your welcoming remarks. “Good morning. Thank you all for your time. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you.” By combining your sweep with your welcome, your movement will appear natural instead of furtive.
Then, having swept the room, stop. Turn to the other side of the room and find a person in the audience a considerable distance away from the last person at the end of your sweep. This wide swing is helpful for two very good reasons. One is to give you a fuller pause to think—thinking is always a good idea—and the other is to give you a moment to settle in, just as the basketball player settles in at the foul line.
And just as the basketball player focuses on the basket, focus on that new person. Take a breath. Then deliver the first well-practiced phrase of your presentation to that person. Then turn to another person and deliver your well-practiced second phrase to that person. Continue around the room to deliver additional phrases to other people.
These simple steps will nullify the negative effects of your adrenaline rush and make your first impression positive.
Nothing but net.
60. 10 Tips for 30 Seconds: Help for Job Seekers
In response to the difficulties caused by the economic downturn, CNN provided an excellent public service to help unemployed people find work. The cable news channel gave job seekers 30 seconds on air to make a pitch to prospective employers in the viewing audience. Below you’ll see ten helpful pointers for the specialized circumstances of a television appearance, but you’ll also see that many of them are applicable to an in-person, face-to-face interview, and even to a presentation.
Prepare thoroughly. Plan your content carefully. Rehearse repeatedly. Time yourself. Rehearse aloud. You will recognize this method as Verbalization. Rehearse until you are very familiar with your content, but not to the point of memorization.
Get plenty of sleep the night before the television studio session. It makes a big difference.
Sip warm water just before you start. Avoid coffee, milk, and carbonated beverages.
Sit forward, with your feet planted squarely on the ground; this will make you appear alert and poised.
Sit on the coattail of your jacket; this will keep your collar from pulling away from your neck.
Make eye contact with the camera lens, but don’t stare. Allow yourself to blink.
Smile. No explanation needed.
Say your name.
Say “you,” referring to your prospective employer.
Offer benefits to your prospective employer. Say what your skills can provide to a company that hires you. In other words, give them WIIFYs (What’s In It For You).
61. You Are What You Eat: Ten Tips about Food and Drink in Presentations
“You are what you eat,” a phrase that has become common in today’s lexicon, actually came into being in the nineteenth century. In 1825, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French lawyer, magistrate, and politician, published The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy, in which he wrote, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”F61.1
Over time, Monsieur Brillat-Savarin’s treatise on cooking and eating has become a bible for foodies, and his phrase, in its shorter form, has become a slogan for dieticians.
Brillat-Savarin’s modern counterpart, food guru Michael Pollan, the author of the bestselling Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Rules and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, has created a slogan with similar advice: “Eat food.