October 6, 2015: Our speaker on Tuesday was Jodie-Beth Galos who spoke to our club about “Putting an End to Painful Presentations”. Jodie is an attorney and human resources expert and happens to also be president of the Rotarian Wine Appreciation Fellowship (RWAF).
She opened by indicating that most speakers actually don’t open, they just start. She reiterated Jerry Seinfeld by saying that most people have a greater fear of public speaking than death.
“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that seem right? That means to the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” –Jerry Seinfeld
Public speaking however is no more than making a connection with your audience, communicating your topic and persuading your audience. “Selling isn’t telling” she continued. You are taking people on a journey so put it into that context. To go on a journey, you need to know where you begin and where you end and you need to know something about your audience and interests.
Your presentation should be somewhere between a report and a story. The best presentations create layers between content and story. You can only get your audience to remember 3-4 points, stories help audiences to engage.
The stories themselves should be relevant but brief (2-3 min). You should be mercifully brief and on point. You are telling a story, not reciting data, so put yourself in it.
Key Points in Presenting:
- No Scripts- don’t read script during presentation
- Keep calm and stand still- don’t rock, sway or shuffle feet.
- Keep feet shoulder width apart, drop your shoulders.
- If you move, move with purpose.
- Look ,not only at, but into people
- Look at people for 2-3 seconds
- If room is large, appear to be looking at people
- Have a home base for hands.
- If you are a hand talker, use your non-dominant hand as it will want to come back to “base”.
Pointers continued on the slide presentation itself:
- You may have great content but if the slides are boring, your audience will not be interested.
- Bullets and words are old fashioned. If you are competing for audience attention with the words on the screen you are losing.
- Make graphics big and meaningful
- Readability matters- no small, funky fonts.
- Limit the number of slides, you can hyperlink to additional information as needed.
- Power point is just the backdrop, you are the star.
- When asked questions, pause after each so if you are uncomfortable with any question, it isn’t noticed.
Ms. Galos concluded with the most important point…
Have a glass of wine with the Rotarian Wine Appreciation Fellowship!
—Don Baus, Keyway Committee