I was in London on the 8th May at Earl’s Court to listen to a lady I had never heard of before by the name of Joanna Martin.

Joanna is a livewire speaker from Australia but who spends half her time, along with her partner Greg, living in the UK. She basically coaches people who want to make a substantial living from speaking on stage and this one day workshop was a taster of what can be achieved.

As I said in my previous post, I get nervous about speaking and thought that this would be an great opportunity to banish some of those demons. So as I was travelling from Bournmouth and we had to register at 9am, I was up at 5am in order to catch the train to London Waterloo.

Luckily the train and tubes weren’t busy being early on Saturday morning so it was a pleasant journey to Earl’s Court even although I got on the right tube but thought it was going to the wrong destination so got off again…Doh! ( I put it down to tiredness myself  )

Got there eventally nice and early and found a few attendees already there with more arriving. Got upstairs and grabbed a coffee and seat and was soon talking to other people.

We got into the room and there must have been about 180 people in the end. Joanna was introduced and from the word GO, her enthusiasm and knowledge shone through her coaching. 

Joanna first of all got us to stand up and move around to meet three new people that we hadn’t met

We then had to pick ourselves a partner and talk for a minute each on the subject that Joanna gave us. That minute seemed to go and on and I was running out of things to say as my mind was going blank, my throat was going dry and so I must have started babling like an idiot.

There was so much content but I’d like to share with you, if I may, 7 Steps to an effective Presentation that can be used especially from stage, but also to a degree, in front of a camcorder for YouTube or on a webinar. These are from my notes that I was furiously scribbling away at whilst trying to take everything in. I’ll be doing this over a few posts as there is a lot of information.

STEP 1. – OFFER GREAT CONTENT
Two minutes is all that it takes for you to connect with your audience. The goal is to create trust and responsiveness. If you are serious about inspiring people to buy your product, you have to realize that you’re not actually selling your product…you’re selling yourself.

Your opening words are very much like a headline. It’s got to capture the audience and draw them in so they’re ready to hear more.

If you’re live on stage, get your audience to say ‘Yes’ in the first 30 seconds. For example ask them enthusiastically “Are you here to make money?” if you’re running a workshop on making money online or maybe if they’re business owners you could ask “Who would like to decrease their business headaches?”

Either way, the audience should give a resounding “YES”

From the start, you need to create an enviroment and an emotional state with the audience so that they will respond to any suggestion that you give. For example if you ask for hands up, all hands go up or if you ask them to stand, they stand, when you ask them to buy, they’re more likely to buy.

Include humour early on in your presentation. Humour is great BUT be very careful with it. If you use rascist or religious jokes or even bar room jokes, you can say good bye to audience goodwill. If you’re in front of the audience, then expect folded arms and silence throughout the presentation which will probably leave you extremely awkward at the stony silence especially if you have a 2 hour presentation to give.

STEP 2. – GET PERMISSION

If this is your first workshop, webinar or even video then you have to assume that no one knows who you are unless they’ve had experience with you before such as buying products or are on your mailing lists.

Remember to keep credibility, humility and ask permission to tell your story or offer information. You could say something such as “Do you mind if I share a little bit about myself with you?” or “Is it alright if I share that information with you?”

If it is your first time then tell them – they’ll appreciate your courage. Also if you have a lot of content that you have to get through quickly, then let them know so they can try and scribble as quickly as possible.

If you’re going to have audience participation then tell them so they know what to expect. Talking of participation – Jo included a lot of this in her presentation which I found really helped get over nervousness. It does get you out of the comfort zone especially if you are a shy person, but is a really great process to overcome any shyness or awkwardness.

Even if it’s simply getting them to nod or say ‘yes’ to simple questions, audience participation is vital as you go through your presentation otherwise it will feel like a lecture. Students of selling techniques will know that one way to get people to say yes to your eventual offer is to build up the ‘yeses’….i.e to get the audience to say yes to little things throughout you presentation.

In the next post, I’ll carry on with this step and also steps three and four, but in the meantime if you feel like this would be something you could benefit from, then click on the image at the top of this post and it will take you to Jo’s website where you’ll get more information.

Until next time