You always want to sound eloquent and professional when you communicate.  But umms and uhhs keep on sneaking into your speech!  Nothing can kill your perceived confidence and credibility like non-words.  Non-words such as ah, like, you know, so, and umm make you sound unprepared and unprofessional.  To eliminate the use of non-words, take the following steps.

1. Pause and breathe.  Whenever you tend to use a non-word, pause and breathe instead.  This will calm you down and give you time to consider what you will say next instead of the non-word.
2. Make eye contact.  After you’ve paused, look at someone and direct your next statement to them.  Focusing your attention on one person will help your speech be focused too. 
3. Practice with a friend or colleague.  If you are still having trouble eliminating non-words, try having a friend or colleague clap each time you say a non-word.  This will make you aware of how often you use non-words, and will help you realize when you need to take more pauses.

To make sure non-words will no longer undermine your credibility, you need to pause, breathe, and make eye-contact.  These steps will help you eliminate those non-words!

Make Every Presentation Great,

Sheri Jeavons
Virtual Communications Coach

When you have to give an important talk, you are relieved to learn you’ll be speaking from a lectern.  Not so fast!  Lecterns are good for holding your notes, but you need to make sure that you don’t get trapped behind the podium.  Here are some important things to remember about speaking from behind a lectern:

1. Get out from behind the lectern whenever you can!  Wear a remote lavaliere microphone if possible so you can walk around the stage.  If you just stay behind the lectern, you will trap your energy and enthusiasm.
2. Use slides instead of a written speech.  This way, you will be forced to look up and move away from the lectern more often.  If you have to use notes or a speech, mark places indicating to look up and push the papers up to the top edge of the lectern so it will be easier to make eye contact with the audience.
3. Don’t grip the lectern.  If you take a step back from the lectern and don’t grip it, you will be able to gesture naturally and release your energy.  This will make you look and sound more dynamic.

Using a lectern can be tough. If you get caught behind it, it can decrease your enthusiasm and energy.  Use the above tips to help you lose the lectern and stay engaging!

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons
Virtual Communications Coach

Video can be a great way to connect with your virtual audiences during webinars.  By periodically and briefly using a webcam during online presentations, you can capture your audience’s attention and add a personal touch that helps them identify your voice with your picture.  Use the following tips to help your use of video be appropriate and captivating rather than just plain distracting:

1. Make limited use video.  Don’t leave it on for your entire presentation.  This creates a diverse visual experience without distracting your attendees. 

2. Look directly into the webcam when speaking.  This replaces face-to-face eye contact.  If you look down at your computer instead of into the webcam, you will look nervous, distracted, and dull. 

3. Tell the attendees what you are doing.  Tell them when you are turning the camera on and off, so they don’t get confused and so they can alert you if they are having technical difficulties. 

These simple steps will help you use video sparingly but effectively to create excitement for your virtual audience. 

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

Your goal while presenting is to be engaging, personable, and informative.  One of the easiest ways to increase your enthusiasm and connect with your audience while presenting is to tell a story.  But there are some guidelines you should follow to make sure your story doesn’t take you off topic.

1. Relevant.  If your story doesn’t relate to your topic or help highlight a point you are trying to make, don’t tell it!
2. Own.  Tell your own story, not someone else’s.  If you can re-live your own experiences, your personality, energy, and enthusiasm will shine through more than if you tell a story that didn’t happen to you.
3. Short.  Keep the story under two minutes.  If the story is much longer, it will distract from instead of enhance your presentation.
4. Enthusiasm.  The best stories are lively and fun, creating natural enthusiasm. 

Telling stories helps personalize the information you are presenting.  Use the above guidelines to tell an engaging story that will help your audience identify with your information.  

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

Whenever you give a presentation, you need to keep your audience’s attention so they leave informed and excited, not confused and bored.  Try implementing the following suggestions to keep your audience captivated throughout:

1. Personal Story/Anecdote:  Tell a brief (under two minutes) and relevant personal story to increase your own enthusiasm and connect with your audience.  Make sure to tie it in to the point you are trying to make.
2. Startling Statement or Statistic: Say something that might surprise the audience or cite an unexpected but relevant statistic.  This will both inform and excite them.
3. Use humor: If you share something funny that is related to what you are presenting, you can keep your audience engaged.  Don’t use offensive humor.
4. Quotation or Familiar Saying: Use a universal saying or quote a recognizable figure to help your audience identify with your information.
5. Question: ask an open-ended question.  Even if you don’t have anyone answer, your audience will at least be thinking. 

Using these tools throughout your speech helps keep your audience interested, excited, and on-track. 

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

When you deliver an online presentation, you want your slides to be captivating.  To achieve this, don’t simply take your existing slides from live presentations and put them into your webinar—it won’t work!  On a webinar, your audience is more easily distracted, has a shorter attention span, and can’t see you giving the information.  So to keep your slides interesting for the virtual format, make the following adjustments:

1. Use more slides.  Take the information that may have been on one slide for a live presentation, and spread it out over two or four slides for your webinar.  That way, you will be changing slides more frequently, capturing your audience’s attention.

2. Put less on each slide.  Make sure you only have 1-2 key points per slide.  This will help your audience focus and recognize the important information more easily. 

3. Use bullet points and a minimum font size of 24.  This will help your slides look clean, simple, and easy to read, and it will highlight your key points.

4. 4×6 Rule.  On each slide, try to use only four bullet points with six words per bullet point, or six bullet points with four words per bullet point.  This way, your slides won’t look busy or confusing. 

These guidelines will help your slides become attractive and concise, so that you can keep your audience’s attention. 

Make Every Presentation Great,

Sheri Jeavons

When you conduct webinars and web meetings, you want to engage your listeners by periodically reaching out to them and answering their questions.  If you are conducting a small session (with five or fewer participants) you can handle questions by keeping the phone lines open and having a conversation with your attendees.  But if you are hosting a session with more than five attendees, you need to establish some ground rules for submitting and answering questions to make sure things don’t get out of hand:

1. Let participants know they are muted and should type any questions in the chat panel
2. Have someone on the call with you whose designated role is to answer chat panel questions
3. Check your chat panel every couple of slides to make sure no questions have gone un-answered
4. Prepare a few questions in advance or have a “plant” in the audience to ask questions if the attendees are slow or reluctant to submit questions

Following these steps will help you handle questions promptly and professionally while engaging your virtual listeners. 

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

You want to be confident and relaxed so you can deliver presentations that make people listen and take action.  But even the most experienced presenter can get nervous before an important presentation.  One tool you can use to help reduce nervousness is to visualize your success.  If you imagine yourself succeeding, you will be more likely to do so in reality. Implement the following techniques prior to your next presentation to get on track for success:

1. Close your eyes and picture giving your presentation.  Imagine yourself gesturing.  Imagine the audience response: picture them smiling and nodding at what you have to say.  Even picture the room and the clothes that you will present in, so that you can see yourself realistically succeeding. 
2. Write out positive statements affirming your skills and the desired audience response.  Phrase the statements realistically and as if you have already given the presentation.  For example, write, “I calmly answered tough questions,” or “My boss said I sounded knowledgeable and convincing.”  Focus on these statements for a few minutes. 
3. Take deep breaths.  Slow, deep breathing releases tension in your body and slows down your heart rate.  Breathing puts you in a relaxed state that will help you keep an open mind about your presentation.

Visualizing is a simple way to relax and build confidence, which will help you give better presentations.  Visualizing your success helps make that success a reality!

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

When conducting webinars and web meetings your goal is to be a dynamic presenter and to engage your virtual audience.  Since your audience can’t see you while you present, you need to keep them interested and on-track using just your voice.  While you may be a dynamic speaker in person, you’ve probably noticed that you fall flat during web sessions.  So how do you adjust your voice to the virtual medium? The following steps will get you on track:

1. Push your enthusiasm. One of the easiest ways to become more dynamic online is to push your enthusiasm.  Your voice can lose a lot of energy and enthusiasm when you speak on conference calls or webinars, because you are usually just speaking to your computer screen instead of to an audience.  So to re-energize your voice, ask a colleague to sit in your office with you during the webinar.  That way, you will have a live (if small) audience that you can feed off of.  Presenting to even one live audience member will automatically increase your speaking volume and enthusiasm. 
2. Stand while you talk.  This will help energize your body and voice. If you are standing, you will be more likely to gesture, which will help you to be more relaxed.
3. No reading. Make sure you only use bullet points, not sentences.  If you have sentences on your slides or if you use a script you will read and sound very monotone.

Also consider telling a story, calling out someone’s name on the call or refer to an experience or conversation you had with one of the attendees. If you follow these simple steps, you’ll be on your way to increasing your vocal enthusiasm and being an engaging online presenter!

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

To sound as dynamic and engaging as possible while conducting Webinars and Web Meetings, consider using a headset.  It is tempting to just use a speakerphone or a cell phone when calling into a Web session, but speakerphones and cell phones can make you sound distant or unclear, and they can inhibit your natural vocal energy. 

Using a headset, on the other hand, reduces background noise and helps your voice sound clearer and louder to your colleagues on the call.  And unlike a phone, a headset leaves your hands free to gesture, generating energy and enthusiasm that comes across in your voice.  Headsets have better sound quality than speakerphones, don’t have issues with bad reception (like cell phones), and allow you to gesture to unleash your vocal and physical energy.  So to help your voice sound clear and compelling on conference calls and Webinars, stop using that speakerphone and invest in a headset!

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons