Powerful Presentations: Selling Your Story on Stage or in the Boardroom

ISBN-13: 9781484281376 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022

Stephen Haunts

Opis

Unlock your potential and understand how you can have an audience hanging on to your every word. Entrepreneurs and business professionals often have to pitch their products and projects to an audience - whether at a conference stage, meetup group, to VC firms or even at the office to their peers and leaders. Through this book, you will learn how to plan, rehearse, and deliver the perfect presentation for your needs. 

You'll review different presentation styles, how to craft and structure a talk and how to make it engaging for the audience. If you've ever wondered how you can be chosen to speak at a conference, this book will show you how and go in depth on how to craft a winning talk synopsis and proposal to stand out over the competition. You'll also examine many other details that go into giving a presentation such as face and hand gesturing, pre-performance rituals like visualization techniques, time management , addressing technical difficulties, preparing for question-and-answer sessions, gathering feedback, the differences between in person events and online talks/webinars and how to mold your presentation to the medium. 

Powerful Presentations will show you how to perfect your public speaking and presentation skills.
What You'll Learn

• Explore the design and structure of presentations that retain an audience’s attention
• Prepare for a talk, including rehearsal, but also failure contingency planning for things like projectors, Wi-Fi, demo failure, etc.
• Review all of the useful tools and services available to help you develop and deliver a great presentation

Who This Book Is For Professionals who want to design and deliver talks in their chosen fields of expertise, whether that be a software developer or an entrepreneur. 

Spis treści

Chapter 1 – Why I Think Public Speaking is the Greatest Skills you Can Master

In this introductory chapter, I talk about my personal journey with public speaking. I used to be terrified of speaking to an audience and I talk about how I overcame that fear. My intention is to show the reader that it is achievable. I also talk about the benefits of being able to speak in public in your career.

- The benefits of public speaking.

Chapter 2 – Writing Engaging Presentations

In this chapter, I talk extensively about the presentation creation process. I discuss multiple styles such as highly visual presentations, data rich presentations, free flowing presentations, motivational presentations, and instruction (or tutorial led) presentations.

I also talk about research techniques, organizing your presentation round a 3-act structure, scripting, outlining, and cue cards and prompts. I then look in more depth about creating effective slides and the idea of less is more, to not draw the audience’s attention away from what you are trying to convey. I also talk about creating calls-to-action if you want the audience to do something after the talk.

- It should be centered on a problem

- Relevant to Your Audience

- It Should Engage the Audience

- It Should be Well Organized

- The Presentation Creation Process

- Choosing a Presentation Style

- Use an Organizational Took You Are Comfortable With

- Creating Effective Slides

- Summarizing Information

- Creating a Call to Action

Chapter 3 – Writing a Synopsis to Draw in Your Audience

Writing an engaging presentation is only part of the puzzle with public speaking. If you intend to speak at meet-up groups or conferences, then you need to write an effective synopsis of the talk. The synopsis will be used for the call-for-papers process where you aim to get selected to speak at the event.

I also talk about using the synopsis as a sales pitch to encourage attendees to choose your talk over others. In this chapter, I walk through 4 pitches that I have used for my talks. These talks have all been selected at conferences all over the world and gained high speaker approval ratings. I teach the reader about the structure of a synopsis and talk through my examples.

- Talk 1: Fighting Back Against a Distracted World

- Talk 2: .NET Core Data Security – Hope is Not a Strategy

- Talk 3: Protecting Encryption Keys with Azure Key Vault

- Talk 4: Hacking Humans – Social Engineering Techniques and Hot to Protect Against Them

Chapter 4 – Preparing to Give a Talk

In this chapter, I discuss how to prepare to give a talk once it has been developed. I cover how to think about the physical delivery with gestures and facial expressions. I talk about pre-performance rituals for the day to help you reduce anxiety levels, and I discuss how to handle timings for your talk, so you do not run over or under. I also talk about using a practice audience to get feedback and how their questions can help you prepare for the Q&A section of your talk.

I also spend time talking about internet and Wi-Fi contingency planning. Conferences often have bad Wi-Fi, so if your talk, and demos, require a Wi-Fi connection, you can get stuck on stage. I walk through various techniques to help mitigate these worries, which will make you calmer on the day of the presentation.

- Physical Delivery -Gestures and Facial Expressions

- Creating Pre-Performance Rituals

- Be Aware of the Time You Have for Presenting

- Get You Practice Audience to Ask Questions

- Memorize the Introduction to Each Section of Your Talk

- Gathering Feedback and Improving Your Performance

- Internet/Wi-Fi Contingency Planning

Chapter 5 – Delivering the Talk

In this final chapter, I talk about delivering the talk on the day. I cover what to do if anything goes wrong during the talk, projecting your voice and eye contact, dealing with disrupting attendees, and how to create a good first impression early in the talk.

I also talk about managing anxiety, including some breathing techniques designed to calm you down. I then discuss one of the most feared parts of any presentation, the questions, and answers section, at the end. I finish up the chapter by talking about presenting online talks as opposed to in-person presentations.

- Be Prepared

- Visualize Your Success

- People Want to See You Succeed

- Giving Your Talk

- In the Case of Technical Difficulties, Apologize and Move On

- Rehearse in the Event Venue At least Once If You Can

- On Stage

- Managing Anxiety

- Handling Questions

- Online Talks and Webinars

- Final Summary

Appendix A - Frequently Asked Questions

This appendix provides a frequently asked questions where I answer lots of questions, I have been asked in my many years of mentoring and coaching new speakers. 

Appendix B - Presentation Creation Resources

Here I list out lots of resources that are useful when building and delivering presentations.

O autorze

Stephen lives with his wife and two children in rural Derbyshire in the United Kingdom. Stephen is a trainer and writer, specializing in helping individuals, and teams excel at becoming the best versions of themselves. He specializes in helping teams transition to Agile practices, as well as coaching productivity, creativity, innovation, and self-motivation.

Stephen is also an accomplished public speaker who has travelled the world, delivering talks at large conferences, and private companies. Stephen loves nothing more than being on a stage, in an enormous hall, and educating people on various subjects like entrepreneurship, creativity, productivity, self-motivation, and procrastination & focus. Stephen also regularly coaches and mentors new and aspiring public speakers.

For fun, Stephen likes to go hiking in the British countryside, composes electronic ambient music, and writes children’s fiction.

Blurb

Unlock your potential and understand how you can have an audience hanging on to your every word. Entrepreneurs and business professionals often have to pitch their products and projects to an audience - whether at a conference stage, meetup group, to VC firms or even at the office to their peers and leaders. Through this book, you will learn how to plan, rehearse, and deliver the perfect presentation for your needs. 

You'll review different presentation styles, how to craft and structure a talk and how to make it engaging for the audience. If you've ever wondered how you can be chosen to speak at a conference, this book will show you how and go in depth on how to craft a winning talk synopsis and proposal to stand out over the competition. You'll also examine many other details that go into giving a presentation such as face and hand gesturing, pre-performance rituals like visualization techniques, time management , addressing technical difficulties, preparing for question-and-answer sessions, gathering feedback, the differences between in person events and online talks/webinars and how to mold your presentation to the medium. 

Powerful Presentations will show you how to perfect your public speaking and presentation skills.

You will:

• Explore the design and structure of presentations that retain an audience’s attention
• Prepare for a talk, including rehearsal, but also failure contingency planning for things like projectors, Wi-Fi, demo failure, etc.
• Review all of the useful tools and services available to help you develop and deliver a great presentation