Are you sabotaging yourself as a speaker?

Discover 3 ways you might be sabotaging yourself as a public speaker, and what you can do to improve your presentation skills.

There are a number of ways that people sabotage themselves when they are speaking in public. If you want to make more of an impact, evaluate yourself in relation to the following 3 presentation problems.

1-Bad Body Language

Body language has a tremendous impact on presentations. Studies have found that one of the main reasons for the success of TED Talks isn’t the big ideas they share, but the delivery of the presenters. In other words, it’s the speaker’s charisma, gestures, and rapport with the audience that makes all the difference and keeps the audience hanging on every word.

A few of the biggest body language and delivery problems include:

-Lack of movement. You’re just standing still
-Um’s and Uh’s that distract from what you’re saying
-Freezing behind the podium and not moving out from behind it in a natural way
-Distracting habits such as licking lips, shifting weight from leg to leg, or fidgeting
-Signs of nervousness like shaking, sweating, or shallow breathing

The first step in improving your body language is to record yourself practicing your presentation. You’ll notice a great deal that can be improved. Or, do it in front of a mirror. Practice stillness with natural gestures on occasion. Don’t flail around like a windmill.

2-Unprepared for Objections

When you make a presentation, your audience is likely to want clarifications or have objections. Everyone you try to ‘sell’ to will have these issues when they’re considering paying attention to you, or making a purchase. It’s like a voice in the back of their head giving reasons not to take action and listen, buy, and so on. They want to know what is in it for them, and why they should bother paying attention to or doing business with YOU as opposed to others in your niche or industry.

In your presentation, you can anticipate these objections and try to dispel any concerns before your audience ever even think of them. In this way, you won’t get off track with your presentation, and might even be able to win them around or make a sale more easily than you thought possible. If you’re not prepared to answer their questions or fumble over your words, this will kill the sale completely.

The better you know your audience, the better you can prepare for their issues. Try to consider every possible question and prepare an answer. The answer should reassure the prospect and ease their doubts. If you are going to give the presentation more than once, make notes once you have finished about what you were asked and see if any of those questions are worth incorporating into the presentation next time.

3-Putting Your Audience to Sleep

Finally, you won’t leave a good impression of any kind if you put the audience to sleep. Each presentation needs to be engaging from beginning to end. Add stories to your presentation to make it more intriguing. Use images and videos to liven it up. Give your audience plenty of opportunities to participate. Most of all, be excited about the topic or product yourself. Your excitement will be contagious and your passion will show through.


To learn more, visit: How to Present with Confidence Multimedia eCourse

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Are you sabotaging yourself as a speaker?
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Are you sabotaging yourself as a speaker?
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Discover 3 ways you might be sabotaging yourself as a public speaker, and what you can do to improve your presentation skills.
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