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	PRESENTERS: HOW TO STAND AND SIT
	PRESENTERS: CONTENT CHECKLIST
	DESIGNERS: CHANGE THE PACE
	REFLECTIONS FROM PRESENTERS

HOW TO STAND AND SIT

I just spent two weeks in Buenos Aires dancing Tango. In the middle of the trip, I had a massage from a woman who also gave me advice on how to stand and sit to improve my posture. Her help totally changed my dancing and the way I sit and walk. She made me feel at ease in my body and understand how to use my legs. Here is a bit of what she said.

Standing and walking: Try this: Stand up and notice where you weight is in your foot. Notice how your chest feels. Now push your heels into the floor while keeping some weight on the front of your foot. When I do push my heels into the floor, I engage the back of my legs, my pelvis comes underneath me, my shoulders straighten and my stomach muscles engage. This is amazingly simple. She also said, “When you do this, it is hard to feel nervous or anxious. Your body is up. Your chest is up.” This is certainly what presenters need!

Do the same thing when walking: use your heels. Feel the back of your legs.

Sitting: Sit the way you usually do and notice that you have to work to keep your chest up and your shoulders back. Now sit on your legs and not your buttocks. You will sit back in your chair and feel your buttocks against the back of the chair and your weight on your legs. At the same time, feel your feet on the floor and your heels pushing, or at least feeling the floor. Notice how your posture straightens up automatically. This is the way to sit when talking in a meeting or on the phone—you’ll look and feel better.

My coach’s name is Isobel Martin. Her web site, www.nucleoculturalsur.com, is in Spanish only.

CONTENT CHECKLIST

More and more I realize that people are getting carried away with content. They can’t resist the temptation of making slide after slide. Here are some recent comments from my clients:

“It was a 40-slide presentation. At slide 35 we were told the reason for the talk and the decision we were supposed to be considering based on the information presented. By then the audience had gone to sleep.”

“The scientist went on and on. No one understood the jargon terms. I’m sure we did not raise very much money that night.”

Ask yourself these questions before you start creating your slides:

Content Checklist

1. What information does my audience need to know?
2. What should I tell them first so they know what to listen for during my talk?
   
3. What do I want to tell them that they really do not need to know? Once you identify the information, leave it out.
   
4. What jargon words should I leave out?
   
5. Who will review my talk?
6. Can I trust that person to be totally honest about content and organization?

CHANGE THE PACE

Don’t make all your slides look the same. Vary their look for emphasis and understanding. Here are four slides from the New CD Presentations in a Hurry: 26 Formats That Persuade by Jennifer Rotondo and Claudyne Wilder This product will be out next month. We are very excited about it. Stay tuned for more information.

The text slide. Very simple and clear.

Highlighting the key problems and issues. Easy to see the important problems.

A different look.

A way to highlight the key responsibilities and have the group discuss them during the talk.

Here are some comments from Allison Cohen, Manager of the North American Account Development Group at Ascential Software, who took the two-day Winning Presentations Seminar. Her comments on videotaping are especially important. Until a presenter sees the video, she never really believes what people say about her style.

I know I have good ideas, and now I have the confidence to talk about them because I have seen myself on videotape. The videotaping showed me that I am better than I imagined I was. Positive feedback helped be improve, but I needed to see the videotape so I could see that improvement for myself.

I’ve spent a lot of time putting together presentations, and it’s extra time I don’t have. Using your presentation formats will cut down my prep time by at least half. My boss will be happy—he wants me to put together a great presentation without taking time away from the business.

I suspect I’ll be better at persuading people when I use the formats. I’ll also be better organized and leave out unnecessary details.