Paul du Toit on Presentation Skills

I have seen too many aimless presentations in my life not to be able to answer this question decisively. Lets ask the obvious question: Why are you making this particular presentation? I am often amazed at how folk tie themselves into proverbial knots trying to answer this question. So let me phrase it another way. What do you want your audience to do after you’ve spoken? Therein lies the answer to the question “where on earth do I start?”

If you’re selling, you want them to buy. If you’re philosophising, you want them to buy-in, and then do ….what? The point is that if you know where you’re going in a presentation, it’s really quite easy to plot your course because the arrival point is clear. A great too many presenters simply do not understand this principle. Granted they’ve heard it before, who hasn’t? But applied to presentations?

I start preparing my presentations by asking myself the question: “As soon as I’ve uttered my last word, exactly what do I want them to do?”  Presto - one set of goalposts frimly in the turf. Step 2 must be quite logical: “Then how should I  start?” Presto, 2nd set of goalposts in the turf and now we have a game. You will be amazed at how the content, which is the stuff you already know (since you are the subject expert), just falls in to place. But step 3 is equally important.

I so often watch presenters trying to impress by their topic mastery. As a result, the audience is overwhelmed with information that has no bearing on the decision they wish to make - it’s a kind of overdose of credibility, and it creates confusion. (Remember: “It’s OK, you had me at hello….?”)

Tell the audience what they need to know to make a decision. If appropriate, provide options. This shows your objectivity. Avoid preaching or forcing your point on your audience. But by all means persuade them to take action on your recommendations. Why else would you be bothering to present?

Presenting is, and should be fun. The reasons that it becomes nerve racking has got much more to do with past mental confusion than our ability to speak clearly and with feeling. Most of us speak extremely convincingly around a table on a night out with friends or family.  So what makes a formal audience that much different?

Paul du Toit, Certified Speaking Professional, presentation skills coach and Author of “Even YOU Can Present with Confidence” ISBN: 978-0-620-40964-3 (Congruence Publishing 2008)

During July I had the privilege of assessing the presentations of a number of young graduates newly employed in the corporate world. The delegates brought energy and commitment to their presentations, and it was great working with young people that were passionate to learn. It was clear that they’d all put a great deal of preparation into their presentations.

Once the presentations had been recorded, played back and feedback given, the majority of delegates had clearly done well enough to be assessed as competent. They had all prepared their subject matter diligently - but it was easy to tell who had rehearsed and who hadn’t. The telling factor was the ability to stay within the allotted time, and some of those who did not make the grade had fallen into the trap of failing to practice, despite this area being strongly highlighted in their initial training.

Allied to this, the ones who battled had simply stuffed too much content in to their allocated time. This resulted in delegates rushing to get through their content and losing their audience along the way, with insufficient pausing along the way.

The presentation that stood out was completed within the allocated time. The topic was briefly but clearly introduced. There was one central purpose which was enunciated well using excellent eye contact. The few slides that were presented had good visual images but only a smattering of text. The conclusion was brief, but powerful. Her peers gave a large sigh of appreciation as she ended and burst in to applause. Their response said it all.

The best way to start planning your presentation is to ask yourself what you’d like your audience to do afterwards. It’s called starting with the end in mind. Once you know how you’re going to end, work out how you’d like to start. You’ll be surprised how easily the body just falls into place. Resist the temptation to add everything you know into the “Body”. You’re the expert, so select what the audience needs to know, and include that only.

Then leave enough time to rehearse, at least 2 or 3 times - and time yourself on the 2nd run.

The premise is that if your structure is designed properly and tested in rehearsal, you have removed most of your delivery pressure in advance. There are many different variations of the correct structure, but for simplicity’s sake, an introduction, body and conclusion is usualy what you’ll need.

It’s dead simple, really. Trouble is, in our quest to do well, the tendency is to over complicate. And it need not be so.

Paul du Toit, Certified Speaking Professional, Author and Presentation Skills coach

Being a presentaton skills coach, delegates often draw me aside at the beginning of a training class or coaching session to confide a unique truth to me: “You know, Paul, I get very nervous when I have to speak in front of people.” It is difficult not to be sympathetic to this seemingly unique fear, which “only they experience”. The reality is that nearly 100% of presenters experience anxiety before going live. The intensity varies from person to person, as does the duration of the anxiety, but it is tempered by experience and confidence. If you’ve had a bad presenting experience in the past, you may have a particularly intense fear of public speaking.

Look at it this way: You will agree that it takes quite a few lessons and considerably more practice to learn to drive a car safely. It also takes time to fashion a good speaker. The very best all started somewhere, usually at the same place they did when they learnt to drive. The only difference is that so many believe they can pull it off without being trained. That’s rather like getting behind the wheel of a car and tackling a 100km trip with no driving lessons. If you did something like that with public speaking you’d have be either deaf (so as not to hear the loud snoring) or very thick-skinned indeed.

Ironically, the worst culprits are often our executives, who stand up and bumble on at length, boring their hapless captives with waffle, misplaced humour, appalling irritators and busy, text-laden slide shows. And few would dare to tell the clueless chap that he’s just made a complete Wally of himself.

Surprisingly, this even happens to the person who tells such funny jokes around the table at the office year-end party. As soon as he is asked to get up and present in front of an audience everything changes. Everything. Why? Because standing up in front of a captive audience is an unnatural act for anyone who has not been groomed to do it. That is why we need to learn the practical ins and outs of presentation. No matter how good we are at speaking, we need to understand the theory and then practically learn the skills of presenting. If you speak well in normal conversation you have a huge advantage. However, more presentations are fluffed due to lack of training followed by a lack of experience than for any other reason.

Any successful act you’ve seen, whether on television, or in a show or presentation, was successful because it was well prepared and thoroughly rehearsed. The performers will have been thoroughly trained, mentored and coached. It’ll take just a couple of days to get you pointed firmly in the right direction.

Nervousness before a presentation has nothing to do with ability whatsoever. It has everything to do with our perceived ability to deliver, our training - or lack of it, our preparation and whether or not we’ve practised enough. And when we’ve built up some positive evidence of repeated successes, we can rely on experience too.

This means presentation skills training must be experiential. You should be filmed presenting. It should be played back and evaluated. You will identify both strengths adn opportunity areas. You will know where to focus first to obtain the quickest results. As you improve, your confidence grows.

Learning to present well brings with it increased assertiveness, a personal belief in yourself and an awareness of what you do and tend to do when verbally communicating with others. And who knows when you will be asked to stand and deliver?

Paul du Toit, Certified Speaking Professional and Author of “Even YOU Can Present with Confidence”

People who can verbally project themselves effectively get the best breaks, the best jobs, the quickest promotions – and make the most money

Look around you. Who are the success stories? They are the men and women who command the respect and attention of others. The more respect they command, the more confidence they have – and the higher up the ladder they soar. They may not be the ones who are loyal to the company. They may not be the best brains. Or the most organised. But they know how to communicate! And they know how to do it in a way that grabs attention.

Whether it’s a job interview, a sales presentation, a speech or a meeting, the winner is usually the one who can express him or herself best.

It is no longer just the chief, the CEO or manager who has to stand before the tribe and gush forth. The world has changed remarkably in the last 100 years. In today’s economy your entire management team, most of the sales force, trainers, negotiators, IT experts and so on need to know how to communicate effectively. Today, if you don’t stand up and speak, at least occasionally, you’re the exception. If you want to be an effective member of your team, you are going to have to do it sometime. But if you’ve never done it before, I understand your hesitation.

We’ve all been there - emerging from school, college or university with our heads stuffed with information, ideas and insights we’d like to share with the world. But it all turned into a jumbled mess in our heads when we had to stand up in front of other people and actually articulate our thoughts. The situation could have been a job interview, sharing a few anecdotes at a friend’s wedding, presenting an idea to colleagues…

Oops! Someone has left out a most rudimentary area of your education: how to present yourself. And the interviewer thinks you’re an idiot, the wedding guests are shuffling uncomfortably and your colleagues are catching a nap or making a mass exodus to the loo.

Who in their right mind would want to place themselves in such an embarrassing situation? Don’t worry. This can be fixed. The first thing you have to realise is that it’s not your fault.

No one is born with presentation skills. A skill, by definition, is something that has to be learnt. But during our formal education no one bothers to teach us some of the most important skills needed in the business world of today, such as the art of speaking properly or using paralanguage and body language, how to ask questions or listen properly – the most effective tools available to us in terms of persuading others to a course of action.

Think about it. At school, writing is given massive priority. Reading (of which I am a huge fan) is punted with almost as much fervour. Yet an illiterate person who has ambition, drive and common sense can pay others to do those things for her. And, in reality, most people spend precious little of their working time reading or writing.

Let’s consider communication in the context of the business environment. Despite the emphasis on effective communication today, precious few companies have a policy of developing these direct communication skills in their key people – those who are expected to produce results. This notwithstanding the fact that presentation-skills training has been globally available for decades. The result is that there are far too many “experienced” presenters around who did not formally learn the rules of presentation. This results in the formation of a combination of both good and bad presentation habits that get passed on by way of example. You might be one of those people.

Paul du Toit, Certified Speaking Professional and author of “Even YOU Can Present with Confidence (2008). This edited excerpt is taken from the Introduction of the book.

It is wonderful to pull off a presentation that produces the desired result. I am a strong advocate of celebrating successes because it reinforces our self-belief and helps to “groove” winning behaviour. But it is important not to lose one’s head. No one has “arrived” after just one victory. The true test of a champion is that they can repeat their performance over and over again. It is vital to develop the skills to win consistently, over and over again!

So maintain perspective and humility. A great presentation does not automatically mean that the next one will be fabulous. With a different audience, a different place and different needs, you’ll have to do it all over again. The saying “you are only as good as your last presentation” isn’t a cliché for nothing.

By the same token, we should also understand rejection and develop an ability to put it into perspective. We do not fail because we are useless – we fail because we still have lessons to learn. The argument “I’m no good at public speaking” is almost always based on false information, ignorance and poor attitude. Literally anyone who can hold a conversation can learn to speak well in public. It just takes some of us longer than others. As a student of effective public speaking skills you will also find out very quickly that only those who apply themselves become really good at it!

So it is advisable to take the setbacks in one’s stride. Of course, this takes courage too.

I once watched as a life insurance salesman took the stage at his company’s annual sales convention to accept the prize as man of the year, beating more than 900 other salesmen to the award. As he clutched his trophy in his arms he announced to the spellbound audience that he was, in fact, a failure. “In reality,” he went on, “I’m the biggest failure of all of you here tonight. You see, I knocked on many more doors than any of you did this year. I don’t think any of you could possibly have had as many doors slammed in your face as I did. I don’t think any of you heard nearly as many no’s as I did. But that’s why I’m holding this trophy tonight and you’re not – because I was prepared to take the rejection. I learnt long ago that every ‘no’ I get takes me one step closer to my next ‘yes’.”  

His colleagues gave him a standing ovation.

Paul du Toit, Certified Speaking Professional and author of “Even YOU Can Present with Confidence” (Congruence)

A while back I was delivering a public seminar in East London on the east coast of South Africa. Although the function coordinator had been given a full list of my requirements, I arrived at the venue to find that the setup was far from complete. To start with, the venue was locked. I wasted what seemed like an eternity arranging for the door to be opened. Then my “locksmith” disappeared! So instead of being free to set up my equipment I was reduced to moving tables and chairs around and creating a reception area. Shortly before my guests were due to arrive for registration, the hotel staff started sauntering in, with no sense of urgency whatsoever.

Mustering all my assertive powers, I created sufficient urgency to get events moving in the right direction, then found a manager to take control of the bad situation. This freed me to set up my presentation equipment. By the time I was happy with the room setup and all my equipment was working, there were only 15 minutes to go before my talk was due to commence and I was not in the best frame of mind. With the “front of house” situation now under control, I walked upstairs into the fresh air on the esplanade and spent the next eight minutes taking in the sea, the rocks, the waves and the gulls while doing a bit of earnest self-talk.

My audience were in no way responsible for the shambles at reception. They had not only paid good money, but had set aside precious time to come and hear me speak. What an honour, what a privilege! Today, I promised myself, I would deliver the most powerful, energetic, convincing and humorous talk I had ever delivered. And I did.

That talk stands out to this day as one of my most highly rated by a public audience. It proved to me that I was in control of my emotions – and you can be too!

Paul du Toit, Certified Speaking Professional and author of “Even YOU Can Present with Confidence”. This is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the book.

On one occasion I watched a mature man in a management position present in a very unconvincing and shy manner. I doubt that a child would have accepted a free ice cream sundae from him, so apologetic was his delivery. At the tea break we struck up an informal conversation. He related to me how he had recently been passed over for promotion. If you could have experienced the passion in his words, brought about by the hurt he was feeling at that moment, you would have observed someone who indeed possessed the ability to speak with authority. 

If you’ve ever witnessed a technically competent presentation and wondered why you weren’t convinced, the underlying reason might be a lack of enthusiasm. Beware also of the converse – overkill. Your audience will quickly read insincerity into an attempt at forced enthusiasm.

You have probably bought something you didn’t really need at some time in your life, purely because you were persuaded at the time that it was a good idea. What persuaded you? Logic? Unlikely. It’s more probable that the salesperson’s enthusiasm hooked you. Enthusiasm is a vital presentation tool, particularly when it is authentic and not overdone. It comes across best when the presenter is convinced of the benefits of the product and has a true belief in the results it will produce. One senses an almost tangible excitement! Best application? Know your stuff and have a clear idea about how you are going to put this exciting message across and deliver your message with passion. You’ll be irresistible!

Paul du Toit, Certified Speaking Professional and author of “Even YOU Can Present with Confidence”

This is the first and most vital truth you need to accept. You are allowed to be yourself when presenting. In my experience, the speakers who affect me most strongly are those who are simply themselves and speak from the heart, as one person sharing what they have to say with other persons, whereas those who are obviously performing do not come across as authentic and leave me with a question mark.

Of course, it is easy to be yourself when you’re chatting to your friends. Standing up to present is an entirely different and infinitely more complex set of actions, often with more significant consequences!

The irony is that most people instinctively perform the actions necessary to present when involved in informal dialogue with others, but lose it when they find themselves in front of a “formal” audience. Take the office joker, for example: You’re at a social gathering. Harry’s in the mood and the subject is football, which he knows plenty about. Harry launches into an animated description of a match he watched of how a goalkeeper managed to miss a back pass, resulting in an embarrassing faux pax. Everyone roars with laughter. You see, Harry was telling a story of something that actually happened on a subject with which he was familiar. It was true to life, perhaps with a few embellishments, but it worked! The reward was the laugh he received. But put an untrained Harry in front of an audience with a brief to present his company’s product to a potential buyer and it’s as if you have an alien from another planet, someone very different from the confident, joking Harry having a beer with his friends.

Why? It’s quite simple really: speaking conversationally with friends is natural and feels familiar; because a presentation is staged it feels unnatural. So instead of being ourselves we try to be what we think we need to be, when being ourselves will usually do just fine, thanks!

Most people play themselves very well indeed, but only actors, and good ones at that, succeed in playing other people convincingly. So, either we need to learn to act, or we need to learn to be ourselves in unnatural situations.

This encapsulates the art of learning to present. We need to learn to be comfortable being ourselves “on stage”.

Paul du Toit, CSP - Author of “Even YOU Can Present with Confidence”

Confidence is gained by having positive experiences, because positive experiences provide hard evidence that you can in fact do what you’d felt you couldn’t do. When your belief system changes your outcomes change. But you can’t gain these positive experiences without putting yourself out there. This means you need to pluck up your courage, make that vital decision and grab presenting opportunities that come your way.

Once you have a good grasp of the techniques I shall show you, start with small groups, practising on one or two friends if you like – people who you know are on your side. But do it! When friends or colleagues respond positively, your confidence will grow. Ask for feedback, what worked and what didn’t work for them. If they are critical, remember that they are criticising your technique, not you as a person. Then try again. The more you keep at it the more you’ll improve and the easier it will seem. When you feel ready, grab those presenting opportunities at work.

As confidence grows, you can challenge yourself to get better – try new things! Watch other presenters critically, identifying the things you liked and things you didn’t – what was convincing and whether or not you trust this person enough to buy from them. As your skills build and your confidence increases, so will your self-belief. When you stand up to deliver a presentation with no doubt about your ability to be compelling, your audience will feel the same.

In some, this happens quickly, in others it takes a little longer. But through patience, practice and perseverance you will get it right. It is important to understand that one’s initial botched attempts are completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn’t mean you are a failure; it just means you still have to hone your skills. Many of today’s best speakers progressed slowly at first, but through perseverance and experience achieved increasing degrees of competence. The tragedy is that so many give up without giving themselves a sporting chance.

Paul du Toit is the author of “Even You Can Present with Confidence” (Congruence Publishing 2008).

The manner in which you will approach an upcoming presentation has much to do with

1. The beliefs you hold about yourself and your presenting ability.
2. What you have done to address that belief system.
3. How close you are to believing that you have what it takes to pull off a convincing presentation. 

We adopt our beliefs about ourselves at an early age and in a random fashion. More specifically, we formulate opinions about ourselves at key moments. A teacher telling six-year-old Johnny “put down your hand, Johnny, Sarah will recite the poem for us” can have a chilling effect on Johnny’s self-confidence. If this is later followed by encouragement, a different outcome is likely, but if followed by further discouragement the idea will solidify in Johnny’s mind that he is not good enough to stand up and recite the poem and that Sarah will always be preferred because she must be better. In future he might avoid speaking up to avoid the pain of rejection. This kind of scenario is the source of many people’s anxiety surrounding speaking. It need not be so.

Our first attempt at speaking in front of the class can be quite harrowing. We all react differently to this staged situation and what pops out can be as unexpected as it is random. It is dangerous to assume you will be less nervous as an adult than you were as a child. Emotions are time travellers. We psychologically draw on past experience to anticipate the reaction we are likely to get. So past bad experiences teach us to expect rejection and this expectation robs us of our ability to present with confidence. As a result, the adult who suffered failure at some time in the past is likely to meet with limited success when attempting to speak with authority in front of a captive audience – at least until that early programming is corrected.

Paul du Toit, Certified Speaking Professional…excerpt from “Even You Can Present with Confidence”