tagged: Jan O’Daniel page: 1

A presentation transformation: part 2.

On Wednesday this week, Jan and I attended the ‘final exam’ in Alaina Sheer’s presentation transformation.   I hadn’t written about our style and delivery session that we had a few weeks ago as I knew there was some additional work to be done before she was really ready to present. Tuesday night we had a chance to review the entire talk together and I saw the difference.

So what was it?

For me, it was grounded in her attention to her story.  She knew it, had lived with it and felt passionate about it. Most importantly, it connected with for her audience.  As a result, she was able to start to pay attention to her delivery. Before, her content was disheveled and somewhat irrelevant to her audience, so her delivery had no ground on which to stand.

When we get a good video clip to share next week, we’ll post it for you to see the before and after. In the meantime, we had a really fabulous time watching the following on Wednesday:

For her content organization, storytelling and overall message – she listened carefully to Jan’s advice. Her opening hook was interesting and strong, she kept to the rule of three for some of her factual-heavy learning modules, her examples were applicable and well versed, and most importantly, she tied it together beautifully.

For her public speaking style and delivery, we saw immense improvement. She was no longer a slave to the slide or lurking only behind her laptop. She took some vulnerable steps to be more connected with the audience and as a result, she was rewarded. They were compelled and engaged from start to finish (a far cry from the original talk where she reported a disappointing response) and had thoughtful responses and questions upon her conclusion.

Because Alaina has some background in radio, she is able to tease you with a very smooth voice. Before we engaged with her, often she was rushed, her words melded together without necessary pausing for the audience to follow and process. In this final presentation, she demonstrated an increased awareness of those traits and continues to work hard to assure they aren’t what is remembered.

Thanks to Alaina for being so brave to share this experience with us and for giving us a chance to demonstrate how proper preparation decides the fate of a talk.

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A presentation transformation: part 1

From fairy tales to extreme makeovers, who doesn’t love a good before-and-after story? HGTV has built an empire around ’em (with good reason) and TLC offers a veritable pantheon of makeover shows about babies, weddings and beauty.

So Ruth and I thought it would be fun and, more importantly, helpful and enlightening, to feature a before-and-after story of our own.

Our client, Alaina Sheer (aka Ms. Single Mama) is a sought-after social media and search expert, and a veteran radio broadcaster. In spite of her stellar credentials, Alaina needed our help to learn how to involve, inspire and impact her audience.

In part one of our five-part series, “A presentation story,” we’ll show you how we upped Alaina’s ar.tic.u.la.tion quotient to help transform her from knowledgeable guest speaker to powerhouse presenter.

If you watch Alaina’s “before” presentation, you’ll see an enthusiastic presenter with a lovely voice who knows (and loves) her subject matter. She wins on knowledge and being conversational but, alas, that’s not enough.

Here are 8 common presentation mistakes found in Alaina’s “before,” including four on presentation content and four on presentation style:

CONTENT

  1. No opening hook
  2. Confusing message points
  3. Hard-to-follow presentation flow
  4. Lack of storytelling

STYLE

  1. Closed body language
  2. Nervous or anxious movements
  3. Lack of eye contact
  4. Inappropriate pacing

Stay in touch here as we chronicle Alaina’s transformation.  From the early returns, it will be a big one.

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From Jan: Next chapter

The year was 1989. I was a newlywed armed with a degree from Otterbein in Speech Communications when I started working at Ohio Magazine. My first day on the job they gave me a stack of magazines and said, “Here. Read these.”

Read these? Read all day long and you’ll pay me???

I thought I’d won the lottery. Read More

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From Ruth: 25 years in the making

San Diego, August, 1996: I was sequestered for a day in the speechwriters’ room behind the big stage at the Republican National Convention. I was there to “traffic” a speech. I was charged to make sure the one that was supposed to scroll on the teleprompter was the one my ‘principal’ was expecting to give, er, read in front of hundreds of thousands of TV viewers. Read More

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