Greenblasters! Whuddup!? Happy Leap Year!!

Man I love you guys.

I don’t know why, but this feels like my safe space.

Today, I’m gonna answer a question I got asked at my Powerful Pitch Workshop last week at OneEleven in downtown Toronto.

(It was awesome by the way. Those of you that were there, I’m so glad you made it. The rest of you are dead to me LOOOOL JK!!)

The question was:

How can I polish my presentation skills?

(I always read "polish" as "Polish". Is that just me? Shoutout to all my Polish people 🇵🇱)

But anyway:

Who cares about stupid presentation skills? Right??

YOU care. And I care. Because we both know the sad truth:

It’s not the best ideas that win. It’s the best presenters.

Unfortunately, a lot of bad actors use this fact to sell shitty products, sow misinformation and convince others to join terrible causes.

(By “bad actors” I mean bad people, not people who suck at acting)

So I want to teach YOU lovely people how to be better presenters, so we can use our powers for good. What do you say?

Good.

Each tip will fit into one of the 3 "phases” of a presentation:

1. Planning

2. Preparing

3. Performing

… which makes sure we’re not:

• performing with no preparation

• preparing with no plan

• or god forbid, having planned and prepared a great presentation but then f*cking it all up at the moment of performance

Enough P-based alliteration for ya? Me too. Let’s move on.

These are the 3 highest-impact things you can do to polish your presentation skills.

1. Planning:

Start with the “story” of your presentation.

I’m gonna be a bit thorough for this first point, because there’s a lot of confusion about what “story” means.

Here’s what I’ve heard recently:

• “A story has a beginning, middle and end.”

• “A story is something that either happened or could have happened.”

• “A story has a main character.”

These are all true(-ish), but missing a key component of what makes a good story, especially for our purposes of planning a presentation:

A story is about a transformation of the main character(s).

So what you need to do to plan your presentation is decide:

1. What is the PROBLEM you’re addressing in your presentation? (Who has it? The audience? Someone else? Why should your audience care?)

2. What is the SOLUTION you’re proposing? (It can be your product, your service, a recommendation, or an action you want them to take).

3. Finally, what’s the PRIZE? How does life get better for the audience if they implement your solution?

(I write about the “Problem>Solution>Prize” story in my book Transform Your Speaking Skills if you want to master this incredible structure).

After you answer to these questions, it will make creating your presentation so much easier.

You’ll have a high-level, flexible “3-Act” structure for your presentation, and you can decide what information helps or distracts from this story arc.

I know that’s a lot, but it’s important to build a strong foundation of story to make your presentation clear and compelling. The next 2 steps are simpler:

2. Preparing:

Write a f*cking script (please) & rehearse it.

I know. I know what you’re gonna say:

“But Will, I’m so much better when I wing it!”

… but ARE YOU, though?

You THINK you are, because you feel more comfortable. It feels like you’re just talking when you wing it, which makes more you more natural.

And don’t get me wrong, being comfortable and natural is important for a presenter or public speaker.

But not at the expense of:

• good ideas

• clear logic

• and emotionally compelling language

What’s much more important than feeling comfortable onstage is making the audience UNDERSTAND and CARE about what you’re saying.

So:

1. Write a script, EXACTLY as you want to say it (no bullet points)

2. Use Word or Presenter Notes

3. Edit it until it’s close to perfect (nothing is perfect)

4. And rehearse until it’s close to perfect (again, see above)

This will make the words you say when presenting so much better than if you wing, while still giving you enough flexibility in your language to feel like you’re not performing a monologue.

Deal?? Good. And speaking of performing:

3. Perfoming:

Emphasize the key words in each sentence.

If I could give one piece of presentation skills advice, it’s this:

1. Choose which words you think are important in each sentence.

2. Hint: it’s usually nouns, verbs, and adjectives

3. And emphasize them when you speak!

You can do this by saying these words louder; or clearer; or slowing down; or using your hands and/or eyebrows; or all the above!

Just make sure you signal to the audience that some words are more important than others.

This helps them UNDERSTAND and CARE as we talked about in point 2.

*BONUS* You can use underline, bold, italics, or ALL CAPS in your script on Word or Presenter Notes to help you practice emphasizing the key words while you’re rehearsing!

So that’s it! My mini-Masterclass on polishing (not Polish-ing) your presentation skills!

Please reply HUMAN to this email if you liked it, and consider forwarding it to anyone who wants to improve their public speaking skills 🙏

Greenblast: over and out 🚀