Professionally Speaking...

Presentation Tip: Get a Voice Coach

"A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished..."     Margaret Atwood

In our everyday lives, we take our voices for granted. We don't think about producing sound. When we open our mouths to speak, we are confident that sound will come out.

As presenters we need to consider more than just making sound. We need to consider how our sound sounds -- the quality of our audio. Yet many presenters exhibit a range of vocal problems which make them hard to listen to and diminish their impact on the audience.

Do any of these issues sound familiar? A monotone speaking voice? Squeaky, high-pitched voice? Raspy, hoarse voice which can't project? Constant throat clearing? A breathless voice that sounds like it can't get enough air? I hear these vocal annoyances all the time. The good news is these problems are treatable and fixable. Enter the Voice Coach.

"There is no index of character so sure as the voice."     Benjamin Disraeli

According to Kate Peters, voice coach, singing performing artist and author, "...there's a simple secret to maximizing your impact on others in public speaking...and that means aligning your presentation content with your intentions and both with the sound of your voice."

MONOTONE VOICE

This is one of the surest ways to dis-engage your audience. It's very difficult to listen to someone who speaks without inflection in her voice. According to Peters, "Most people with pitch-related vocal problems are not aware of the sound of their own voices. Although very few people are actually 'tone-deaf' (less than 1% of the population), there are many who lack awareness of pitch. People with pitch-related issues can benefit greatly from feedback given by a professional with good ears, as well as recorded sessions and exercises to increase sound awareness."

So if you suspect that you may have a limited range of pitch, get an assessment from a voice coach. Peters says that the best way to deal with pitch problems is to study singing with a reputable teacher.

VOCAL PROJECTION

You've all heard the presenter that starts to go hoarse or raspy because he's tried so hard to make his voice fill a large meeting room. "A voice that is too soft or lacks energy is usually a voice that lacks air or resonance," warns Peters. "A few lessons with a trainer can help you learn how to breathe and how to use that air more effectively to get more power in your sound. Again, I highly recommend singing lessons because singing is body building for the voice."

"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning."     Maya Angelou

CONSTANT THROAT CLEARING

Recurrent laryngitis, a raspy voice or chronic throat clearing are all signs of damage to the vocal folds. Peters explains, "This damage may be temporary, as in laryngitis caused by a virus or cold, or it may be more serious and permanent as in the development of vocal nodules -- callouses that develop on the vocal folds as a result of overuse or misuse. The first thing to do is give your voice a rest for a couple of days and see if it improves. During that time, avoid iced liquids and write notes instead of talking." If things don't improve after 10 days, it's time to see an otolaryngologist or Ear-Nose-Throat (ENT) doctor. A voice trainer can help you learn good habits, if there is nothing seriously wrong medically.

If you suffer from any of these vocal issues or if you just want to improve your vocal quality, Peters offers this advice: "The final area where a vocal trainer can help a speaker is the area of vocal image. Although you can do a great deal of work with recordings and personal analysis of your voice, it helps to have someone work with you who understands the areas of inflection, cadence, vocal variety, how emotions affect the sound, and, if you are lucky, someone who is aware of research in linguistic psychology, as well as the study of intention. This expert perspective can help you turn your voice into a powerhouse of support for your message."

[Many thanks to Kate Peters for her expert information and advice. Please visit her blog for fantastic tips on how to take care of your voice and maximize your vocal impact.]

Presentation Resolutions: Embrace Technology

Although we only have three hundred and forty-four days left in 2010, I, for one, don't think it's too late to create some New Year's resolutions for the year. And for those of us who want to take our presentations to a new level, let's start out the new decade* by embracing some resolutions involving technology.

[* to be absolutely correct, 2010 is actually the final year of the last decade, but it sounds like a start rather than an end to me!]

[calendar from redstamp.com used under a Creative Commons License]

Here are a few ideas that can improve your presentations if they make their way onto your list of resolutions.

UPDATE YOUR POWERPOINT SLIDES

If you have some presentations that you deliver over and over, it's time to look at your slides with a fresh eye. Make a critical assessment of each slide and ask yourself..."Does this slide further my audience's understanding of my message?" Be honest. I'm betting you'll have to answer "no" for a number of slides, particularly if they're filled with bullet points.

So you now have the opportunity to either eliminate a slide or improve it. Think about what visual representation could enhance the audience's involvement with your content. Be creative. Think of images outside your subject matter field that could produce a good analogy or metaphor. Read Presentation Zen and Slide:ology for design principles and suggestions.

Check out SlideRocket which is presentation software that includes a full set of authoring tools, collaboration features that allow you to work on a presentation with colleagues, access to your presentations from anywhere and capability to measure presentation effectiveness. There are a variety of very reasonable price points, starting at free.

BUY OR BORROW A VIDEO CAMERA

There is no better way to evaluate how you come across to an audience than seeing yourself on video. Together with live audience feedback, this allows you to determine what aspects of your delivery work well and which ones may need to be updated or changed.

It's easy to tell yourself you don't have time for this or you feel awkward watching yourself on video. Get over it. If you're truly committed to improving your presentation effectiveness, the video camera will become one of your favorite tools.

LOOK FOR RESOURCES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

You don't have to know everything about presentations nor do you have to re-invent the wheel. There are a ton of resources available, just for the asking. Use Twitter and LinkedIn to request help, suggestions or resources. There are highly competent, even famous, presentation gurus in the social media world and they are extremely generous with their knowledge.

Pay it forward by sharing on social media what you're doing in your presentations -- techniques you've tried, good sources for stock images, how you've increased audience involvement.

EXPERIMENT USING TWITTER IN A PRESENTATION

A great deal has been written on the "backchannel", the practice of audience members maintaining an online, real-time conversation during a live presentation. There are some very vocal opponents but increasingly, presenters are realizing that a very engaged, involved audience is the potential reward. 

Tap into some resources to understand how the backchannel works and how to manage it. Cliff Atkinson's new book, The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever is a great place to start. And then give it a try if you have even a partially tech savvy audience.

What other geeky resolutions have you, or would you like to, put on your list to improve your presentations in 2010?

This post is part of the Blog Carnival: Public Speaking and the New Year. Check out other bloggers' perspectives on what will improve your presentations in 2010.

Presentation Skills for Executives

Good presentation skills are good presentation skills, no matter what position or title you hold...right? Well, yes...and no.

While it's certainly true that there are many foundational best practices for effective presentations that are applicable for everyone, once you reach an executive level in your organization, there are a few necessary tweaks to adopt.

EXECUTIVE TWEAKS

1. As an executive, you need to be even more aware of how you come across and how people perceive you because you have more visibility and power both within and outside your organization. What you say and how you say it gets quoted, taken literally, interpreted and acted upon.

Assess how you show up by videotaping your presentations and analyzing tone of voice, demeanor, eye contact, body language and authenticity. Hire a communications consultant to help with this for a professional, objective viewpoint.

2. Although you may have detailed knowledge of how things work in your particular field, the executive presenter should focus more on the what versus the how. According to Scott Eblin, executive coach, speaker and author of The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success, "A common mistake new executives make is to focus too much on how they came to their conclusions. To do this is to risk getting labeled as someone who, when asked for the time, explains how to build a watch."

Your audience is looking to you to provide leadership, synthesize concepts and not get mired in the weeds of detail. Eblin says, "Focus much more on your recommendations and their implications than on the mechanics of how you arrived at them."

3. Making a vision and big picture goals meaningful to employees is a key objective of many executive presentations. Storytelling is an excellent tool for accomplishing this. Stories provide context, engage an audience, make the message memorable and give the executive a more conversational, down-to-earth tone. Here is a great example of executive effectiveness, using story, from communications consultant, Angela DeFinis.

Telling a story well is not an intuitive skill for most people. Craft your story(ies) well in advance of your presentation so you can practice your delivery, tone, pauses, inflection and facial expressions. Rehearse on videotape in front of colleagues/advisors who can give you critical, honest feedback.

4. Many executives give a substantial enough number of speeches and presentations that it may not be feasible to rehearse and internalize each of them to the point where they can be delivered with only minimum notes. Reading a speech, written by others, may be a necessity on some occasions. If so, learn how to do it properly.

Read through the script enough times to become familiar with the pacing and language. Practice grabbing a phrase or sentence in your head and then look up to deliver it to the audience. Keep eye contact front and center on your to-do list. Sound like you mean what you're saying. If some practice runs through the script don't result in a smooth delivery, find a coach to help you sound polished and authentic, even though you are reading your presentation.

And for pete's sake, if you are using a TelePrompter, PLEASE get some professional training/coaching on how to do it effectively.

While the above tweaks are certainly aspirational skills for every presenter, for an executive presenter, they are simply non-negotiable.

What other executive tweaks have you used/seen used to create a better experience for the audience?

Presentations: 5 Boring Behaviors and How to Fix Them

                                                                                                                            

I'm pretty sure that no one sets out to give a boring presentation. Yet why do so many presentations end up that way?

There are a number of classic presentation behaviors that will send you off the charts on the boring meter. Now these aren't mysterious things that we don't know are boring. They are simply behaviors we don't pay enough attention to.

So here's a tune-up for the new year, reminding us how to banish boring presentations.

[Yawning Koala Bear from the archives of the National Media Museum, used here under a Creative Commons License]

BORING BEHAVIOR: Reading Your Presentation

SOLUTION: More rehearsal to internalize your content so you don't have to rely on a script. | Add stories, metaphors, personal anecdotes and examples to make your material easier to remember, for both you and the audience. 

BORING BEHAVIOR: Slides Filled with Text

SOLUTION: More graphics, illustrations and charts that are pertinent to the message and enhance understanding for the audience [generally, though, design doesn't beget boredom, so don't go crazy jazzing up slides]. | Stories and examples that don't rely on slides. | More rehearsal so you don't have to depend on the slides for your notes.

BORING BEHAVIOR: Monotone Voice

SOLUTION: More rehearsal [are you seeing a pattern here?] where you audio record yourself so you can hear the monotone; this makes it easier to work on increasing the inflection in your voice. | Voice coach. | Try to imagine you are having a one-to-one conversation with various members of the audience -- we are less likely to speak in a monotone in an actual conversation.

BORING BEHAVIOR: Too Much Content

SOLUTION: Be ruthless in editing your material when preparing the presentation. | Do your homework to find out the audience's needs so you can tailor your message and content to what is relevant to them. | Be clear yourself on your key message. | Ensure that your material has a logical flow [ask someone else to review, if necessary].

BORING BEHAVIOR: Not Allowing or Encouraging Any Audience Interaction

SOLUTION: Recognize that all audiences need a break from listening and some time to process what they're hearing. | Build places into your presentation where you ask the audience a question, ask them to write something down or interact with the person next to them. | Never ask an audience to hold their questions until the end -- this may help you not lose your train of thought, but it certainly doesn't serve the audience's needs.

Follow these simple guidelines and not only will you improve your presentations, you won't have to wake anyone in the audience when you're finished.

What other boring behaviors have you encountered? What solutions have you employed to avoid boredom?