Leadership

By Dana Bristol-Smith

Appeared in Presentations Magazine, April 2001

Knocking knees, butterflies (who came up with that word?) in your stomach, sweaty palms, quavering voice. We’ve all been there – some of us more than others. I’m going to share with you some of the tricks of the trade to help manage and reduce your anxiety before and during your presentation. These methods are tried and true and have helped many presenters.

How about having a conversation?

Use your mental energy to think of your next presentation as a conversation. You have conversations all day, every day! Do you get nervous before a conversation? Most conversations are non-threatening experiences, just a way for two or more people to communicate something. How is a presentation different than that? Try to think of your presentation as a conversation, just with a few more people. See if that eases your mind and nerves.

Make some new friends in the audience.

Most people are nervous in front of an audience of strangers. What would happen if you had a friend in the audience, or a group of friends? Would you feel more comfortable? Next time you have to give a presentation to a group you don’t know – do something revolutionary! Introduce yourself, shake hands, and greet as many of the audience as possible before your talk begins. That way, when you’re standing in the front of the room looking out, it is no longer a sea of strangers, but a friendly group, because you met some of the people first. You’ll want to find them in the audience and make eye contact, and it won’t be too hard, because they’ll probably be smiling at you.

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes for a moment.

Imagine that you are attending a special seminar at work. How would you feel if before the seminar, the speaker took a moment to introduce herself to you? Would you be a more receptive listener to what she had to say? I bet your answer is yes!

How about smiling?

Smiling has a physiological affect on us – it helps to calm our nerves and make us feel better. It also has the added bonus of making us appear more pleasant, comfortable and happy – definite positive characteristics of a presenter. Often times, the audience will mirror the expression of the presenter. So guess what happens when you smile? You got it; your audience will be more likely to smile back at you.

Let’s review.

You’ve just learned some simple, yet effective, techniques to help reduce and manage nervousness while giving a presentation. I challenge you to try them out and see if they work for you.

Remember to:

1. Have a conversation with your audience.
2. Make some new friends before your presentation.
3. SMILE! It just might prove infectious and make you feel a whole lot more at ease!
4. Learn from every presentation you give and you’ll see that it does get easier and easier.

High Impact Presentations

As an entrepreneur, your most effective marketing tool is your communication ability. How clearly and effectively you deliver your value proposition to prospects and clients is what enables you to grow your business. If you are interested in improving your communication and presentation skills, I invite you to enroll in High Impact Presentations on February 28 – March 1, 2006. This workshop is the same program delivered by Speak for Success to Qualcomm, Invitrogen, Mission Federal Credit Union and other San Diego and national organizations.

About the Author

Dana Bristol-Smith is the founder of Speak for Success, an organization that works with companies that want their people to communicate with confidence and credibility.

A New Year, new goals, new opportunities! Now that you have things sorted out and put together, put last year behind you, scrap the old plans and get ready for a new start. New things require new strategies, new tactics and new plans. There’s an old saying – if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Einstein may have put it better when he defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results.

Over the last 15 years as I have worked with business owners who had dreams and big ideas, many would set out ignoring the previous year’s sales and profitability results. Success in anything means you have overcome the obstacles, made adjustments to the plan and strategized a new focus.

I’m suggesting that you take time now to review, revise or better yet create a new plan of action. Outline some new tools and tactics for managing, marketing, financing and leading your business and how you are going to balance your time to handle it all.

Investing the time to reflect on which strategies worked and which didn’t last year, and then carefully mapping out your next actions based on this information, will pay dividends. Be realistic about your time, define the roles that you play along with action steps in order to plan your time reasonably. But remember to give yourself the boundless encouragement, kindly patience and unqualified support that you give to others. Much success in 2006, make it a GREAT Year!!!!

The Challenge: Stop! Take some time now and review the plans and action steps that truly answer the question, how can I achieve that goal?

Happy New Year!!!!

Mind Masters started the year with our 15th Annual Planning Workshop, with a great group of entrepreneurs in attendance. There were sponsor tables with products and services for everyone, new materials, handouts and special ribbons. Larny J. Mack of Larny J. Mack Photography was the first Mind Masters member to receive The Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Although he struggled through the first part of the year, he found purpose in his work and the year turned out to be his best ever, his client list reads like who’s who in the building and manufacturing industry, not to mention the great work he has done for the Mind Masters Brochure and Pictures for the our web site. There were two runners up Kathy Cazin of Accountkeepers of San Diego and Todd Cazin (a chip off the “ole” block) of Consolidated Concepts. (Check out our web site for their profiles.)

This can be the year of your dreams, the year of great accomplishment, the year you realize and utilize your untapped potential; the year you achieve long sought after goals in all areas of your life. This year will be exciting and rewarding only if you make it so. You ask how can I determine to make it such a year? The year will hold accomplishment, realization and achievement only if you expect it to happen; only if you enter and live each day with POSITIVE EXPECTANCY.

Paul J. Meyer of Success Motivation Institute said “POSITIVE EXPECTANCY is the attitude you must adopt and maintain.” The greatness of your accomplishments depends upon your understanding and application of the principles of positive expectancy; you must positively expect things to happen by:

1. Vividly imagining – being able to visualize a concise and clear picture of precisely what you imagine yourself to be, have and do.
2. Activating your Desire with an intensity that creates in every new day an opportunity to earn and justify your rewards; to develop the consciousness and habits of success, to seek greater heights and accomplish your dreams.
3. Maintain and develop a sincere Belief in your ability and worthiness to attain your goals.
4. Be willing to take the Action necessary to see your Goals accomplished.

When you work with these principals your expectations when held over a period of time exert inexorable power on your outcomes – so plan this year with Positive Expectancy and make it your best ever!

The Challenge: Spend some time this month reviewing your plans with an eye to areas that need some outside support.

Last month we addressed the need to prepare for and anticipate growth for your business in the New Year. The planning process is time consuming, but necessary. In the many years I have spent working with growing business owners on the goals that help them determine their success, I have seen how important it is for them to share those goals and plans with people whose experience and expectations can contribute to that success.

Napoleon Hill in his classic work Think and Grow Rich stresses the absolute necessity of having a definite plan for the accomplishment of one’s goals. But goes on to describe the need for “power” to accomplish those goals. Power refers to organized effort, sufficient to enable you to produce the results you want. Where do you find the support that produces that kind of power?

One of the fastest growing trends in business today are strategic alliances. These can range in scope from informal business relationships based on a simple contract or joint venture. The basic idea is to minimize risk while maximizing your leverage. You can do this through joint production, joint marketing, joint sales/distribution, joint design collaboration or R&D.

You can find “power” in trade groups and associations where you can keep up to date on industry changes, trends and competitors. Seeking out people that sell to your same market niche, can also help to keep you on track for what is working for them that may be of value to you. There are also centers of influence who have direct influence on people in your market place, whose interest in you can add power to your plans.

You are often faced with making decisions and would like to have the insight of other professionals, but fear the expense in hiring outside consultants. This is where a Board of Advisors or your “master mind” group can be invaluable. Large companies have used this form of accumulated knowledge and experience for years to address employee, technical, sales, financial and marketing issues.

In any of these associations it is essential that you are willing to listen and that you work with people who have your best interest at heart. That means there is a Trust relationship that can be developed. You must be willing to make commitments that will produce the growth and success you want, be accepting and open to criticism and be willing to give to the others who are giving to you.

The Challenge: Spend some time this month reviewing your plans with an eye to areas that need some outside support.

Here we are in the second month of the year, are you already finding yourself coming and going, wondering how to get done all the things your business demands of you? Is it more like being in a batting cage with things coming at you, rather then in the game playing to win? Over the years I have experienced my clients suffering through those long lists of “got to get done” things, but what I have come to understand is most of those “things” are not focused, nor do they consistently support the things that really matter, your dreams and goals.

But, you ask, when the list is so long what does really matter? That sounds more like you are striking out instead of scoring. So let’s think about your game – how many up at bats have you skipped this week? This month? Managing the high priority, high pay off areas of the business means first having a clear focus on the mission and goals of the business. Anything that distracts you from realizing those goals is likely producing inconsistent results. The question to ask yourself to stay focused is, “is this activity helping me reach my goal?”

Weekly you must carefully define your work and break it down to essential tasks which will give you a game plan. Growing a business means having consistent up at bats, i.e. activities that produce high pay off results, that means prospecting for new clients, calling for appointments and having face to face encounters with them. In addition it means staying in touch with your “centers of influence” who recommend you.

Paul J. Meyer, Founder of Success Motivation Institute once wrote “There is a world of difference between mere action and constructive action.” So instead of just adding to that “to do” list, take time to plan a week of constructive action, focusing on the things that hit the mark consistently. I recommend that you break your activities down to Business Development, Contract Fulfillment/Work to be Completed, Follow up, Personal/Home, and Administration. When you have your goals in front of you it is easier to see what needs to be done.

Challenge: Take one half hour each week to review your accomplishments and plan for the next growth steps for your business.