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Presentation Basics VIP - Audio

Hello my VIP members. Welcome to this month’s lesson topic. Now, this month I’m going to talk about presentation basics. I may do more of these lessons in the future for advanced presentation ideas or advanced presentation techniques or methods, but in this one I’m going to talk about the very basics.

Now, when I talk about a presentation I’m talking about, for example, speaking in a meeting and presenting some information or doing a video like a YouTube video or something where you want to share information with people on your blog, on your YouTube channel, whatever. Or, of course, actually standing up and making a speech to a group of people. It might be three or four people and it might be three or four thousand people.

So there are some basic things, some basic principles that you should follow in all of these situations and I’m going to talk about them, some do’s and some don’ts. Of course, as you know, anything we learn here is always a little bit different than the normal, than the average. My opinion and my ideas about presentations are different than some of the things you may have seen and certainly different than the way a lot of people do presentations.

I want you to communicate effectively in your presentations and, of course, a presentation just means you’re speaking to a group of people. All the things I’m going to talk about right now in this lesson are, of course, important if you’re giving a presentation in English in a meeting, in a speech, even just semi casually. All these principles are very important, but they also will work when you give a presentation in your own language. These are general principles that work all the time, any language, so let’s get started.

First let’s think about what is the normal kind of presentation that we’re used to seeing. I go to a lot of meetings and conferences and seminars and speeches so I get to see a lot of presentations. I’ve seen a lot of really fantastic presentations by incredible speakers and I’ve seen some really terrible ones by some really horrible speakers and, of course, I’ve seen things all in between as well, just sort of your average presentation.

I would say the average presentation that you see in most companies, in most conferences, the normal thing is it’s traditional, it’s safe and it’s extremely boring. So what happens in these normal, traditional kinds of presentations at meetings, at conferences, at speeches, whatever, even teaching a class, right? Because you know when you’re a teacher and you’re teaching to a group you’re making a presentation. It’s also true of training, teaching, all of these situations, any time you’re communicating with a group, basically, and you could be doing it with technology or live in person.

So what’s the normal thing we usually see? Number one, very, very common is people stand behind something, traditionally. I’ve been to many, many, many meetings and presentations where someone is standing behind a podium. So a podium is that kind of rectangular thing and they put their notes there and it’s got a little microphone on it and they stand and some people hold it and if they’re nervous they hold it really tightly and if they’re not nervous they just stand behind it and then they give their talk. Blah, blah, blah, they talk and they talk and they talk and they talk and they don’t really move very much. They’re stuck behind the podium. That’s an acceptable way, kind of a traditional way to give presentations. It’s also really boring and it looks terrible if you’re in the audience. It does not help the audience at all.

Another common thing, a lot of people use notes when they give presentations. Some people use note cards so they might [flipping through cards]. Other people, well, again, they like that podium because they can put their notes there on the podium and then they can look at them. So they glance down and they will check their notes as they’re giving their presentation. Or if it’s just a meeting and you’re around a table then people, again, they look and they thumb through their notes. They look through their notes. To ‘thumb through’, by the way, is a good little idiom. To thumb through notes means to go through them quickly.

All right and then I’d say the most common nowadays is, of course, PowerPoint.

PowerPoint, PowerPoint, everybody loves PowerPoint slides and so they’ll project some PowerPoint presentation and then they kind of go through it. That is sort of the normal way of giving a presentation and it’s also extremely boring. This is what most people do and it sucks. ‘To suck’ means to be bad, to be not good, to be terrible. In my opinion, boring is terrible. It may not be horrible in the sense of people might not make a lot of mistakes, but it’s really, really, really, boring and you don’t want to be a boring presenter.

If you’re presenting information then you’re trying to persuade people or teach people.

You’re trying to get some effect on these people so you need to be powerful.

So let’s go through the don’ts and the do’s, the things you should not do and the things you should do to be a more effective, a more powerful presenter. Let’s start with the don’ts. I’ve already explained them. You basically don’t want to be normal. You don’t want to be like everyone else because everyone else for the most part is boring. So, number one, you do not want to just stand stiffly, just standing, and if you have a podium that’s the worst.

People like podiums because they can hide behind them. It makes you feel a little less nervous. You’ve got something blocking most of your body and you can kind of hold on to it, but some people even if they don’t have a podium they just stand there. They maybe move a little bit like this and maybe they’re holding their notes or not, but they have a microphone and they just stand through the whole presentation however long it is and they just talk and talk and talk and they’re not moving at all. Now, for the audience that’s extremely boring. There’s no energy. There’s nothing. To watch somebody just, you know, standing like this and talking, horrible. So you don’t want to do that.

In fact, you don’t want to stand behind anything. If you have the option you want to avoid that. You don’t want a podium. Podiums are bad, don’t use them. If there is a podium there don’t use it. Get away from it. So if you have control over where you’re going to be speaking and how, always tell the people that you do not want to use the podium. At the least, get a microphone with a cord so you can move and you can use it, but you just gotta get away from that podium.

Something else you don’t want to do, you don’t want to read notes. Notes are not good.

You do not want to be reading to an audience, not good. Every time you put your eyes down and you start reading through something the whole energy in the room drops.

Very, very boring, it’s not effective at all.

Another thing that’s very common, unfortunately, and unfortunately it’s most common in people who do not speak English as their native language, I don’t why but I’ve noticed this that especially people from other countries, they did not grow up learning English, for some reason they try to use a lot of very, you know, difficult vocabulary. They’ll try to use the passive voice and they try to use all of this very formal English and I guess they’re doing that because maybe they feel insecure about their English and so because of that they’re trying to sound more intellectual or something, but you don’t want to do that.

Do not try to use complicated English. Do not try to use really big vocabulary words. Do not use the passive voice. For God sakes, please, do not use the passive voice when you speak. I don’t even think you should use it when you write. Whenever possible avoid the passive voice. The passive voice is like the kiss of boredom. It’s the kiss of death for your presentation, don’t use it. Use direct English and I’ll talk more about what you should do in a minute.

Along with this idea, avoid jargon and scientific terms whenever possible. Of course if you’re giving a scientific or a technical presentation you may need to use some technical language, but whenever you can use common, Basic English whenever possible. If you absolutely must use some kind of scientific term or jargon okay. Use it if necessary and your audience should easily understand it, but generally avoid it. Don’t use it to try to sound intellectual.

See, this is what happens, especially non-native speakers. They try to use more difficult English. They try to use a lot of very difficult vocabulary. They typically use very long, difficult sentence structures. They may try to use the passive voice and then they’ll try to add in, you know, a lot of scientific jargon or jargon for their particular field and they’re doing all of this to disguise their insecurity about English. They feel a little insecure and nervous about their English so they’re trying to sound super intellectual by using all of this stuff. They think oh, everybody will think I’m so intellectual because I’m using these big words and all this complicated language. Well, that’s bullshit and, of course, ‘bullshit’ means totally wrong. When you’re doing that all you’re doing is boring people.

You don’t sound intellectual, you sound boring. Don’t do any of that. Use the simplest English possible and if you’re speaking in your own language use the simplest language possible.

Finally, another tip is do not give handouts to your audience before the speech or presentation or during it. Don’t do it. Here’s what happens. You have some papers you’re going to hand out you want people to have. If you give it at the beginning or in the middle of your presentation people will not be focusing on you. Everybody will suddenly look down and they’ll be reading your handout while you’re trying to talk.

They’ll be ignoring you or kind of half listening to you while they read, so don’t give them anything before or during your presentation.

So that’s all the stuff you want to avoid. It’s a lot of common mistakes. What do you want to do? What should you do to be a more powerful presenter or teacher or performing for a video, for anything. Well, number one – you know I like this – is you need to move. You gotta move. Now, I’m in front of a camera so I do tend to stand here, but you notice my arms are moving all the time and I’m actually having to stop myself from moving my feet around a lot, because, normally, if I’m speaking on a stage to people or speaking to a class I am walking around everywhere. I am constantly pacing. I go back and forth, left and right. I also go into the audience if I can.

If I’m up on a high stage then I can’t do that, but if I’m in like a normal classroom or something I’m walking into my audience many times. I’m constantly trying to be near as many people as I can and I’m dynamic. My hands are moving all the time. My face moves a lot. My feet, I’m walking and moving and pacing. I want lots of movement because that gives energy and it’s much more interesting to your audience. It makes your presentation much more powerful than standing there and giving a speech. So don’t just stand there, you want to move. You want to be walking. You want to be moving all the time. Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

This is something you’ll develop as you give more presentations or do more teaching or whatever it is you’re doing, whatever the situation is. Of course, you don’t want to be nervous and in the beginning when I first started speaking I moved probably too much, but it was because I was nervous, right? I was kind of shaky a little bit, but that’s still better than standing there stiffly not moving at all. So it’s better to move too much than not enough is my point, so move.

Another thing you should do is talk, chat. When you’re giving a presentation of any kind, I don’t care if it’s a business meeting or a speech or something in your private life it doesn’t matter, you should be chatting with people not reading. Do not read anything.

So I know you’re thinking well how can I do it? How can I remember it all? Well, if you’re giving a speech about something or you’re teaching something or presenting something you should know it and if you don’t know it well enough then perhaps you need to review and rehearse and practice it more. So here’s how I practice.

I might have a couple notes, like a basic outline. Like right now as I’m doing this video I’ve got a basic outline of about five major points I want to talk about, but I’m not reading it. Okay, don’t stand stiffly. Do not stand behind anything. No, no, no, no, no. The only use of notes of any kind is just to remind you of the next topic, that’s all. It should just remind. What’s the next topic? You check your notes. You should glance down and it should take you two seconds. Ah, yeah and then you just start talking about that topic and you talk and you talk and you talk like you’re having a conversation, casually chatting.

When I do like big all-day seminars or for multiple days, that’s all I do. So, of course, I’ve got to practice that before. I have to know what I’m going to talk about. I have to know each of those topics very well and how I do that is I just practice like talking to myself about those topics. I’ll just be in my living room by myself and I’ll just start chatting about it imagining I’m talking to people. I’m not trying to memorize everything. Every time I practice it’s a little bit different.

You can also talk to other people about your topic, like actually have conversations about your topic. If you are doing a presentation with other people then you can kind of practice with each other. But, remember, you’re not trying to memorize. You’re just trying to get the major points and each time you do it it’s gonna be a little different. In that way it sounds like you’re actually conversing with people not talking at them, not saying some memorized speech. Memorized speeches are boring. There’s no energy in them.

There’s no aliveness, but when you chat with people about a topic that you know well there’s an aliveness. There’s an energy. They feel it. Your audience feels it and it’s much, much, much more powerful.

That was the end of that topic, right? Here’s what I’ll do, just to give you an example. I’m going to look down and see what my next topic is. Oh yeah. I glance back up and now I’m just going to talk about it. I’m not reading anything.

So the next ‘do’ is you want to use casual, direct, simple English as much as possible.

You’ll notice when I’m teaching you I’m not using a lot of complex sentence structures and grammar. When I talk to native speakers, when I talk to Americans, when I talk to Canadians, it doesn’t matter who I’m talking to I’m always using the most direct, simple, basic language possible because I want to be powerful and I want to be understood clearly.

I’m not trying to impress people and make them think I’m super intellectual because I can use some big vocabulary word. I am focused on communicating powerfully and directly and that’s what you should be focused on too. If you communicate powerfully and directly and your information is good people don’t care about your vocabulary. They don’t care that you can use a lot of long sentences. Nobody cares about that and, in fact, those things are extremely boring. You’ve gotta do the opposite. Short, simple, direct, powerful, that’s how you want to speak English and even your own language.

Next thing, this is very big, PowerPoint or slides. It doesn’t matter which software program you use, but people use slides. There’s a phrase in American business ‘Death by PowerPoint’ and this describes the situation of going to some business meeting and watching someone put up a PowerPoint slide and the slide is full of words, usually these little bullet points, right? There’s a little dot which we call a bullet point and then some long text and then the next one and the next one. A lot of presenters what they do is they click the slide and then they just read them. They read the whole slide. Point number one and then they read it to the audience. Point number two and then they read it to the audience. Well, your audience can frickin’ read it by themselves. ‘Frickin’, by the way, is a polite way to say fucking and both of them just add emotional power to what you’re saying. So try and be a little more polite. I usually am not, but anyway it’s horrible.

If you’ve endured this yourself watching somebody put up some big slide with lots of words on it and then just proceed to read it step by step and then go to the next one and read it to you, I mean you feel like you’re in kindergarten. You feel like you’re a child.

Why are they reading this to me? I can read it myself. Why did I come here just to have somebody read slides to me? Don’t do it. For God sakes don’t do that. So let me tell you how to use slides in a much more powerful and effective way. Use pictures not words.

Use pictures not words.

You can take your own photos. You can find free photos called stock photos on the Internet. Some you have to pay for, some are free. You decide what you want to do, but what you want to do is choose a picture that gives the feeling of the topic that you’re talking about. Like if I’m talking, let’s say I’m talking about textbooks, textbooks are bad or something, well then I would find a picture of a textbook. That would be my slide. I would click it and a picture of a textbook would come up or maybe I’d have a picture of a textbook on fire if I could find something like that which would be even more cool and interesting, more dramatic. What you’re doing with the pictures is you’re trying to make an emotional impact. You’re triggering a memory, so you want something very visual that connects to the topic you’re talking about.

Another thing you can do, another technique, is you can use words, but a maximum of three words. You should never have a slide that has more than three words on it, one word is best. So if I’m talking about textbooks then I might just have the word ‘textbook’ really big or ‘textbooks’ on my slide and that’s all. It’s just a visual reminder of the topic.

People look up ah he’s talking about textbooks now. Or, maximum of three words I might say ‘textbooks suck’! It’s a little more emotional and stronger so therefore more memorable. The whole point of the slides is just a memory trigger so again, maximum of three words on your slides, and finally, handouts.

If you have any handouts, handouts are fine, but give them at the end of your presentation. The handouts can summarize what you’ve talked about or provide additional resources and information. Whatever, it doesn’t matter, but give them at the end. Give them at the end so people listen to you while you’re talking completely 100%.

Then at the end you give your handouts and people oh, cool. They get more information and they’ll be very happy.

Okay finally, the structure, the basic structure of a presentation. I’m going to go very fast with this. There are many possible ways to do this, but here’s what I recommend most of all. You start with a story or an example, then you recommend an action, then you tell them the benefit of taking that action and then, if you like, you provide additional supporting facts or evidence or research.

Most people flip this. They start with the research and everything and people get really bored listing to all these facts and by the time you try to tell the action they’re sleepy. It’s not powerful. It doesn’t work. Instead you want to give a story or an example. Tell them a story that illustrates your point and why it’s important. So, for example, if I was talking about grammar I might tell you the story about this student named Gladys that I used to have and she used to study grammar all the time. Every day she’s memorizing grammar, grammar, grammar, grammar, grammar, but then when it was time for her to speak ah- ah- ah, she could never speak very well.

Then finally one day I convinced her to stop doing that and to just use the Effortless English method and in three months she could speak much better and her speaking got better and better and better every month. That’s the story. Now, if I was really telling that story and I do tell that story in my seminars it would be much more detailed, but you get the idea.

Next, action, what should they do. So then I summarize, I say so do not study grammar rules. Instead focus on lots of easy listening. That’s the action, step two. Step three I say the benefit. So I tell them, if you do this you will speak English more fluently, more easily and more automatically and then, finally, step four the supporting facts or evidence. Then I might share, you know, a study by Dr. Crashin shows that easy listening improves your grammar better than studying English rules and I might talk about more details and facts and evidence at that point.

That’s the basic structure for every single topic that you’re going to talk about. First give a story or an example or a case study, then tell them the action they should take, the action you recommend, then tell them the benefit of that action and, finally, at the end share the facts or the evidence. Not too much, but just enough. That is the basic structure. Do that for every topic in your presentation.

So I’ve given you a lot. Here’s what I want you to do for homework and I’ll talk more about this in the commentary, but I want you to do a presentation on video and then put it on our VIP site. You could put it on YouTube and give us a link. However you want to do that is up to you. Use your little webcam and give us a presentation about any topic at all and try to use as many of these principles and ideas as you can. And maybe some day you can come watch me speak like in front of a really big group and watch how I do it or just model and watch other great speakers, Tom Peters, Tony Robbins, people like that.

All right, good luck. In whatever situation you’re going to be speaking to groups, whether it’s two people or 2,000 or 20,000, whatever, follow these principles. I promise your speaking will be much better. Your audience will love you. You’ll have a much stronger impact whenever you give any kind of presentation.

All right, see you again. Have a great day, bye-bye.