Gerry Sandusky's Blog, page 10

How to Handle a Presentation Panic Attack

You can’t usually control when you get a panic attack, but you can control how to handle a presentation panic attack.

We all get them. Those sudden surges of panic. The feeling of fear. The fear of failure.

Unfortunately, sometimes we get them just as we begin a presentation, or sometimes in the middle of a presentation when something suddenly goes wrong.

Panic attack

Your heart rate soars.

Your confidence sinks.

You can feel the presentation and the opportunity slipping away.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution 

Fear isn’t usually caused by rational concerns. It’s triggered by a flood of hormones with adrenaline leading the charge. When it strikes you can feel naked and exposed in front of the audience.

You don’t have to.

As long as you’re wearing shoes, you have a place to hide and recover.

I’ll show you how in this video

Leave me a comment below and share your favorite technique for dealing with a surge of fear or panic before or during a presentation.

The Hay Is In The Barn!

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Putting Better Direction Into Your Next Presentation

If you got in your car and drove for an hour with no destination in mind you could wind up just about anywhere. North, south, east, west, urban, suburban, rural, near water, far from water.

Where you wound up would be random because you didn’t have a destination in mind. You were just trying to kill an hour.

That’s the same mistake a lot of people make with their presentations: They don’t know where they’re trying to go so they just try to get through it. And when time is up, well, they figure they must be done.

There’s a better way.

Before you even begin to think about your PowerPoint slides or even the words you will use in your presentations, give yourself a target destination to aim for.

Your target destination is easily built around two things:

What’s the perception you want your audience to have of you, your content, your brand when you finish the presentation
What action do you want your audience to take after your presentation?

Here are some examples of target perceptions:

Fun, insightful, leading edge, unique, industry-leader, profitable, powerful, passionate, brilliant, helpful, empathic, empowering, engaging, decisive, action-oriented, results-oriented, focused.

Here are some examples of target audience actions:

Sign up for your program
Refer two prospects to you
Buy what you’re selling
Give your company their business for the next 12 months
Set up a meeting with a decision maker
Join your e-mail mailing list
Test your new program and provide testimonials
Invest one-million dollars in your venture
Start riding pink bikes to work
Sign up for your coaching services every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon for $350 per hour

Be specific

Did you notice as you got farther down that list and came across more and more specific examples how easy it was to “see” those actions? The more specific you are with your target audience actions, the easier it is to tell if you are on course or off course with your presentation.

Here is a five-step process to building a GPS into your presentation: 

Choose up to four target perceptions. I call this the Core-4 and I offer an entire consulting program around it. If you would like to learn more, send me an e-mail at gerry@sanduskygroup.com
Choose one or two very specific target audience actions
Build everything in your presentation around supporting your target perceptions. If you want to come across as fun, engaging, unique, and energetic then loose the boring PowerPoint template and don’t dress like everyone else in the room.
Figure out what steps your audience will need to take the desired action you want them to take
Work backward from the call-to-action to build your presentation based on the information, insights, and action steps your audience needs to lead them to your desired action at the end of the presentation.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

People see your message long before they hear it.
Everything from your appearance to your PowerPoint to your body language either supports your target perception or dilutes it.
Give your audience the shortest path possible from what they need to know to what you want them to do.

Three benefits to using a GPS for your presentation:

 You know if you are on course or off course while you are preparing!
During the presentation, you can make adjustments if you sense you are veering off course.
After the presentation, you will know with complete certainty if you reached your destination or not.

Your turn

Before your next presentation follow this 5-step approach. Use a GPS for your presentation. It will keep you from driving aimlessly from point to point in front of the audience who, in turn, will be grateful that you had real purpose and direction and didn’t kill an hour of their time.

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Where Should You Put the Q & A in Your Presentation?

Question: Where should you put the question and answer portion of your presentation?

A. The beginning

B. The middle

C. Any place you sense it works for the audience

D. All of the above

I grade on an easy curve. No matter which answer you chose, you’re right.

Q & A does a lot of for you

The Q & A is a great tool to better understand  your audience, learn what audience members know, and understand your audience’s point of view.

It gives the audience a break, allows you to debrief and find out how much of the material the audience absorbed and understood.

It’s also a great tool for getting your audience involved and engaged in your presentation.

Where you shouldn’t put the Q & A

There is only one place you shouldn’t put your Q & A: the very end of your presentation.

I was reminded of this last week during a trip to Amsterdam. My wife and I visited the Anne Frank house. Powerful, moving story of a young girl who hid for two years with her family from the Nazi’s in a small living space behind a warehouse.

The presenter was outstanding.

She used a high-touch, low-tech approach, pulling photos off a large magnet board behind her to move the audience through the timeline of Anne Frank’s life. At the end of a spellbinding half an hour, the presenter looked out at the audience and said, “That concludes our presentation. Are there any questions?”

No one raised a hand or said a word.

The presenter waited. And waited.

The silence got awkward.

The problem with a Q & A close

That’s the danger of closing a presentation with a question and answer session. If there aren’t any questions, or if the Q & A session is a dud then even the best presentation ends on a flat note, feeling off-key.

If the presenter had put the Q & A just before her close, when she saw no hands raised, she could have moved smoothly into her close, the story of how Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, chose to leave the Anne Frank house empty of furniture to remind everyone of all the Nazi’s took away and of how many people, like his daughters and his wife, never returned to their homes.

Always have a strong close prepared for your presentation.

Be flexible; be prepared

If the Q & A session ahead of it sizzles, you can adjust on the fly and let that stand as the close. But if you don’t have a close prepared and you rely on the Q & A as your close, you run the risk of even a sensational presentation feeling off-mark at the end.

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The Three Types of Presenters

There are thousands of types of presentations that presenters can deliver. Short ones, long ones, informational, sales, casual, formal, one-on-one, one-to-many, group presentations, and so on.

But no matter how many types of presentations you can count there are really only three types of presenters.

Experience matters for presenters, but only so much

Those styles actually have less to do with experience than you might think and more to do with courage and commitment.

In this video, I explore the three types. You’ll know right away which one describes you. You’ll also know what it takes to become the type you really want to be.

What’s your type?

Check out the video and find out what type of presenter you are. Then decide what kind you want to become.

 

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The One Thing You Must Control in a Presentation

As a presenter,  you have control of your content in a presentation but you often face a lot of things you can’t control: the space you present in, who attends, how much time you have to present.

That goes with the territory. A good presenter learns to adjust to space, technology, and time.

A high maintenance presenter becomes demanding about his or her space, technology, and time.

There’s a time and place for the flexible presenter and the high-demand presenter. Those can change from situation to situation.

What you must control

But there is one thing you absolutely must control in every presentation. If you don’t you run the risk of losing the audience every time–no matter how good your presentation is, no matter how good you are as a presenter.

The price of losing control

Fail to control this one thing and your audience checks out.

In this video, I’ll share with you the one thing you must control in a presentation with some easy-to-follow tips on how to do it.

 

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The Rules of Engagement

In every seminar I conduct, I always ask attendees the number one thing they want to accomplish. Hundreds of answers have emerged, but among the list, a few familiar themes have repeated over and over. Here’s one of them: How do I make my presentations, meetings, and communication more engaging?

The Rules

To help you do that I have started to compile a list of ways. I call the list The Rules of Engagement. The list is always growing, but I’ll start with these seven:

#1 Engagement = Frequency

Communicate more often but in smaller amounts. No one ever finished attending a presentation or a meeting or reading an e-mail and said, “I wish that had gone on longer.”

#2 Don’t waste time

Recognize that everyone you deal with is the busiest person in the world. Some successful, hard working people have money to waste. None have time to waste.

#3 Communicate without words

Do as much as possible with appearance, body language, tone. They all speak for you before your words arrive to your audience. White space helps too. Use it. It lets your audience breathe.

#4 Ask questions

Most of us spend too much time telling others information. Ask first. Get your audience involved. You’ll be amazed how much time they save you so you can do the same for them.

#5 Listen without thinking of the next thing to say

Most of us–and I am as guilty as anyone–ask a question and while the other person is answering, we’re busy formulating our next comment. I have found this to be far more powerful: Just listen. Put your full energy and attention on what the other person is saying. The outcome will surprise you.

The other person will feel your focus and attention–and appreciate it. And when they stop talking, you’ll think of something to say if you even need to say something.

Just listen.

When it’s your turn to talk the words will come to you. And you won’t need as many words because your attention will have already communicated for you.

 

#6 Tell stories

Stories have more power than just raw data and information. Stories put data and information into context.

Stories help us connect with other people because all good stories revolve around some form of struggle.

When you share a story your audience members–whether an audience of one or 1,000– are far more likely to follow the story and understand your point then they are likely to just absorb all the facts that your throw out at them.

#7 Dare to be vulnerable

I learned this several years ago during a keynote I was giving. I shared the tremendous pain involved watching my father, a mountain of a man, succumb to Alzheimer’s disease.

While telling the story (see Rule #5) a wave of emotion hit me and I got choked up.

I had to stop and gather myself. At first, I was embarrassed. Then I sensed something amazing.

The audience supported me.

They connected with the authenticity of my pain.

Afterward, several people approached me and thanked me for sharing my story, and my pain because until then they felt like they were the only person out there who felt it. They were going through it too! There’s a lot of pain in the world. Dare to share yours, not in a whiny, poor pitiful me way, but in an authentic, this is life, vulnerable way. The results are truly engaging.

Your Turn

Don’t let the name fools you. These aren’t really “rules.” They’re guidelines, suggestions, ways to engage more with your audience. Pick one that resonates with you and try it. Get comfortable with it.

When you get the results you want, try another. Then another.

Think of these rules as tools. The more you can use, the more you can use and the better you can use them, the more you can make your communication engaging–in presentations, in meetings, even in e-mails.

What are you waiting for? Get started. Time is wasting. And that violates rule two.

 

 

 

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Beware of Jargon in Your Presentation

If you had a talk-back interview set up with CNN, a producer or cameraperson would give you an IFB, an interruptible feedback, to use during the interview.

Are you good with that?

Probably not. Because you likely don’t speak TV.

And like any language, if you don’t speak that language it’s just noise, not communication, to you.

Use layperson’s language

The producer or cameraperson would give you one of those squiggly earpieces, the kind you see Secret Service Agents wearing.

That’s how you would hear the interviewer during the interview.

In a talk-back interview, the interviewer is in a different location than you. That’s why you need an earpiece to hear what the interviewer is saying.

Jargon isn’t B.S.

Jargon is technical language unique to your profession, your organization, or your position. Everyone who works in TV knows what an IFB is.

So if I am talking to a group of TV professionals it is perfectly fine to use TV jargon. They all speak that language.

But as soon as I broaden my audience–as I did in this blog–beyond TV professionals, I have to stop speaking in jargon and use what I call layperson’s language, the langue people use in everyday life.

You aren’t dumbing it down

Layperson language isn’t about dumbing down the subject. You are an intelligent, educated person. So am I, but we aren’t educated in the same fields.

Layperson language is language we can both understand.

The price we pay for using jargon

Once you expand your audience outside of your profession, organization, or position, you need to use layperson’s language or you run the risk of losing the audience.

Go back to the first sentence of this blog where I use the phrase “interruptible feedback.” How did you feel when you came across that phrase?

When our brains encounter something we don’t understand we have to choose. Plow forward and exert energy to figure this out or look for something we do understand somewhere else.

That’s the real cost. You lose the audience.

Most people are too busy to plow through your jargon and invest the time into figuring out what you are talking about.

The sure signs of jargon

The dead give away for jargon is the dreaded acronym. Sure you know what CIA and FBI mean. But do you know what PRSA stands for? How about CFDA? AFTRA-SAG? GAAP?

If you don’t work in public relations, then Public Relations Society of America, PRSA wouldn’t resonate with you. If you don’t work in business or finance GAAP or generally accepted accounting practices, wouldn’t ring a bell.

Only use acronyms with people who speak that language.

If you use jargon with an audience that doesn’t speak that language you won’t impress them. You’ll lose them.

Don’t try to impress with jargon

You wouldn’t call your doctor and say, “Doc, I think I’m having a myocardial infarction.” You would say, “Doc, help. I think I’m having a heart attack.”

Acronyms and jargon have value when we use them as shorthand, a time-saving tool for people who understand the language. I have never once met an audience member who left a jargon-filled presentation and said, “Wow, that presenter is a genius.” Typically what audience members say is more along the lines of “What the hell was that guy talking about?”

I have never once met an audience member who left a jargon-filled presentation and said, “Wow, that presenter is a genius.” Typically what audience members say is more along the lines of “What the hell was that guy talking about?”

Typically what audience members say is more along the lines of “What the hell was that guy talking about?”

How to stay on target

If you are presenting to an audience that is broader than the relatively tight circle of people who speak your jargon, create a target person you want to communicate with. I always choose my sister Ruth. She’s intelligent, accomplished, professional, a leader, and fast learner. She doesn’t speak TV, she doesn’t know the nuances of Cover 3 defense disguised as Cover 1, and she wouldn’t know an IFB if she sat on one. By focusing on her as my target, I am forced to find the layperson’s language that an intelligent, accomplished, professional, a leader, and fast learner will understand.

A five-step plan for preparing without using jargon

Pick one person who you respect–outside of your jargon circle.
Create your presentation so they will understand everything in it
Run it by them if you can
Ask for feedback on anything they didn’t understand easily and quickly
Make changes to those parts of your presentation

Give it a try. You’ll find your communication has more power of connection. In time you may notice that you use less jargon when communicating with people in your industry or organization. They’ll appreciate it too because as it turns out a lot of them don’t know what all the jargon means either.

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What to do When Technology Fails in a Presentation

It’s a sickening feeling. The big reveal. Drum roll please. Blank. Nothing. Technology failed you. That slide you had set up with so much expectation isn’t there. You can feel the air seeping out of your lungs, right along with your confidence.

Every Presenter’s Worst Fear

Every presenter dreads it. The stomach plunging feeling of technology letting you down at the worst possible moment–which, by the way, is always the exact moment the let down happens.

A Simple Backup Plan for Technology

Sure high-tech backup plans come in handy, but you also need a low-tech backup plan for the inevitable time when technology fails you–and it will fail you.

Don’t Let the Audience See You Sweat

In this video, I’ll show you a simple backup plan that you can always fall back on so when the projector fails, the slide disappears, or the special effect isn’t so special after all, you can still make your point without your audience sensing panic or seeing your sweat.

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A Communication Secret of Effective Leaders

All leaders face pressure. It goes with the job. Effective leaders find ways to focus pressure when it serves their purpose and diffuse pressure when it doesn’t serve their purpose.

Get it wrong and a leader will compound a difficult situation.

Get it right and a leader can help his or her entire team make a difficult situation look easy.

Focus!

Focusing attention takes discipline and, well, focus.

Diffusing attention takes more subtle communication skills.

Avoiding the obvious

Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter knows his team faces pressure. Down four games in their division with 12 games left to play, every game becomes must win. He knows that. His players know that. At one point in his press conference Showalter even said, “They (the players) know what’s at stake. It doesn’t do me any good to dwell on the obvious and insult their intelligence.”

Diffuse, don’t diminish

Since he’s comfortable as a leader that his players are dialed in, drawing more attention to the pressure won’t serve a positive purpose. So he diffuses the pressure.

Prior to the O’s must-win game against Boston on Tuesday, Showalter walked into his daily pre-game press conference to find a room slightly on edge, a room filled with reporters anticipating Showalter feeling pressure for obvious reasons.

Bright lights call for composure

As he sat down in front of the cameras and reporters, Showalter commented on the bright TV lights in the room and linked them to his days as a TV analyst on ESPN. “Have any of you ever had to wear makeup?” Showalter asked of a room filled with reporters.

Several people–including me, nodded. What can I say, occupational hazard.

“Have you ever forgotten you had it on when you went to bed?” Showalter asked. More nods, this time with a few chuckles mixed in. Keep in mind this was a room filled mostly with men–talking about makeup. Awkward. But playful.

Then Showalter said, “I did that once and when I woke up I looked at the pillow and thought I had bled to death!”

It broke the room up. Showalter had delivered a line worthy of Yogi Berra. I woke up and thought I had bled to death.

It completely disarmed the room. He diffused the pressure of the room before the press conference even began.

The secret of effective leaders

Effective leaders know this secret. Pressure isn’t a good thing or a bad thing. It’s a thing.

Knowing how to use it is what makes all the difference.

Showalter didn’t just randomly start talking about makeup. Sure, he made it seem that way. That’s what effective leaders do. I’ve watched Buck work a room over the years. He knows how to gauge the pressure and either increase it or diffuse it–without making either look obvious.

Leaders impact culture first

Now you can make a case that Showalter’s approach didn’t work. After all, the Orioles lost the series to the Red Sox with a chance of being swept tonight. But I’ll counter that a leader impacts a culture directly, outcomes indirectly. Showalter doesn’t pitch and hit and field any more than you or the leaders of your organization do all of the front line work either. A leader influences culture first. A strong, healthy culture has a far better chance of producing winning outcomes. But in any business from baseball to construction outcomes are always easier to consider after the fact.

Art, not science

Some times leaders have to use pressure to focus attention. Some times they have to diffuse pressure by diverting attention. Knowing when to do it and how to do it are more art than science, but the art comes down to this: You focus attention directly; you diffuse attention indirectly. And when you do both seamlessly you can use almost anything to help you achieve your aim–even makeup.

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Gold Medal Focus Precedes Gold Medal Results

I had the unique opportunity recently while visiting with Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh before a game to meet Olympic gold medal winner Helen Maroulis–the first US woman to win gold in wrestling.

The conversation between the coach and Helen turned to the power of focus in the minutes leading up to competition.

Focus Impacts Performance

As I listened to the conversation I thought about how Maroulis’s focus applies perfectly to everyone who has to step into the spotlight, walk to the front of the room, and bring a presentation to life.

Control Your Thoughts, Not the Audience

Imagine the world watching you perform.

That’s what Maroulis faced, as an underdog no less.

The way she handled the pressure and her thoughts will help you handle your pressure and your thoughts before your next presentation.

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