In your opening you need to introduce yourself and your topic without losing your audience to daydreaming. People often meander into their speech and start by telling the audience what they are going to talk about in a sloppy manner – it’s too late, you have lost them already!

Statistics say you have sixty-seconds to capture an audiences attention – making that initial approach the most important. Captivating your viewers instantaneously will maximize the effectiveness of your presentation.

You are the entertainer to your audience so don’t be afraid to get visual! Here are five great ways to open your presentation that appeal to a variety of different audiences:

1. Quotes

• People love shared wisdom – and if it comes from a valuable source that gives it great credibility.
• Reference how it relates to your speech. A brief explanation can pull it all together.
• Keep a log of great quotes as they come along – they could do great use in an upcoming presentation!

2. Statistics

• First off, find your information from a trusted source and keep it relevant to your speech.
• If used correctly it can be a viable piece.
• A great way to capture Orange personalities (for those who are a fan of the True Colors Personality Assessment).

3. Questions

• Sometimes a simple “How is everyone doing today?” can make your speech feel like a conversation between you and your audience.
• Your viewers will feel connected and important to have become a part of the presentation and gives them a sense of power while you’re doing all the chatting.

4. Stories

• We have been taught to love stories since we were children – we crave them because we all have them.
• Don’t be afraid to make one up -it’s important to keep it relevant.
• If it is a story dear to your heart it will allow the audience to connect with you on a personal level.
• Create a friendly stance as if it were a conversation between just you and one other viewer. A great way to make them feel special and as a contributor to the speech.
• Do your very best to “paint a picture” for your audience.

5. Humor

• This can be quite a grey area but can also be very powerful. Remember, no joke is better than an unsuccessful one.
• A humorous visual can be a great idea – laughter creates positive energy!

In conclusion, your opening line sets the overall performance. Take a light approach and make it drop like a bomb! Also, by starting with a bang, you can release your elevated levels of adrenaline racing through your body, allowing the pace to settle down so that you can relax into your talk. A plus for you and your audience – everyone wins!

Hope you found these tips useful!

1. Preparation. Preparation. Preparation.

2. Rehearse. Rehearse. Rehearse.

3. Ask someone whom you trust to give you feedback on your presentation ahead of time.

4. Ask for the feedback to be specific, focusing in on commendations, recommendations and commendations preferably in that order.

5. In preparation, write down everything you want to say – without censorship.

6. Cluster what you consider to be the salient points and build your speech around these.

7. Present your speaking, life and work credentials very early on. This helps to build credibility.

8. Speak persuasively and authoritatively. The audience is coming to listen to you because they believe you have the answers.

9. Use interesting transitions that take you from one point to the next.

10. Create visual images with your words, remember the old adage; ‘a picture paints a thousand words’.

11. Speak clearly, annunciating appropriately.

12. Speak enthusiastically, if you’re not enthusiastic, why
should the audience be?

13. Start with a ‘big bang’ opening – something your audience will remember.

14. Close your speech with a call to action. What do you want your audience to do, say or think as a result of hearing your speech?

15. Research your audience. Who are they? What do they want to know? What do they know already? How large is the audience?

16. Find out what types of questions you might be expected to respond to.

17. Prepare answers to questions.

18. Deal with hostile questions by staying calm, receiving the question from the questioner and presenting the answer to the whole audience. Make sure you don’t get into a two way dialogue.

19. If using visual aids, make sure that they are in appropriate working order, check this ahead of time and certainly make sure they are checked on the day, ahead of your speech.

20. Make sure you project your voice appropriately to the size of the audience and the room.

21. Use a microphone as appropriate, there’s nothing worse for the voice than continually putting a strain on it.

22. Ensure you have appropriate inflections, no one wants to listen to a monotone voice

23. Pace your speech, not too fast, not too slow.

24. Avoid the use of jargon, unless you know your audience understands that jargon.

25. Decide what it is you want to do with your speech; entertain, persuade, inform etc.

26. Build rapport with your audience. Speak, using a number of representational systems: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic. This will ensure you are bringing most of the audience along with you most of the time.

27. The general format of a speech is: tell the audience what you will tell them, tell them and conclude by telling them that you have told them.

28. It’s usually best to take questions at the end of a speech, each time you allow questions you lose control of the ‘floor’.

29. Determine how long you will speak for and stay within
that time frame.

30. A speech lasting much more than 45 minutes will have much of your audience asleep.

31. Get your audience’s attention from the outset with a quote, a story, a statistic, a joke, an anecdote etc.

32. If you can, it’s best to have nothing between you and your audience.

33. If you wish though, ‘cue’ cards are acceptable to help you remember the key points you wish to make.

34. Join a speaking club such as Toastmasters International – a great learning ground for fledgling speakers.

35. Control your nerves with diaphramic breathing.

36. Be mindful of inappropriate body language – fidgeting for example will take people away from the speech.

37. Dress appropriately for your audience and for your own comfort.

38. Pause appropriately, a well timed pause adds intrigue and draws your audience in and is better than the ubiquitous uhmmmmmmmms and ahhhhhh’s.

39. Have a glass of water handy, for the potential dry mouth syndrome – take sips during pauses, rather than gulp.

40. In order to combat shortness of breath it’s best to inhale and then speak on the out breath. This may feel a little strange at first and gets better with practice.

41. Prior to speaking it makes sense not to consume alcohol unless you want to risk inarticulation and muddled ideas.

42. Be aware that milk causes mucous and so may make you nasaly, here again you might want to think about what liquid you intake prior to a speech.

43. Ahead of your speaking in public take a few moments to scan the audience, this gives the added benefit of enabling you to relax prior to beginning.

44. If speaking humorously, remember this really must be done with confidence or you could go down like a lead balloon.

45. A humorous speech has a number of benefits: acts as an ice-breaker, could win over a hostile audience, keep people interested and helps them to remember what you have said.

46. Use a range of resources to build your speech: books, magazines, current and historical news stories, movies, tapes, internet, themes from your own life and those around you.

47. Engage with the audience’s own experiences, use information that they have given you during the question process.

48. Leave the audience satisfied, wanting more and wishing to hear from you again.

49. At the end of your speech undertake a self-evaluative review: what went well in the presentation? What could you do differently? How effective overall was the speech?

50. Please create your own list of tools for effective public speaking.

If you feel your friends, relatives or colleagues may benefit from this information I would be really happy and grateful if you could forward this article to them. Many thanks.

Imagine you are sitting across the table from someone you are negotiating with. This could be a negotiation for the purchase of a business, the sale of a car, or just trying to get your kids to do their chores.

In any negotiation, you want the other party to do what you want and by the same token, they want you to do what they want. So how do you tilt the scales in your favor?

Well quite simply, you have to become a better negotiator. Contrary to what people may think, this is a skill that can be taught. You just have to be willing to learn.

If you are ready to learn and want to invest the time, effort and money necessary to become a better negotiator, then keep reading. Otherwise, stop reading right now! Negotiation skill training is not for you.

I don’t mean to be harsh, but that is the reality of it. If you want to continue losing negotiations in your everyday life, then don’t work on it.

But if you are still reading, then this information is for you.

Just like master mechanics have an arsenal of tools in their toolboxes, master negotiators must also have different weapons that they call on to win negotiations.

One weapon that you can have at your disposal is the power of hypnosis. Say what?

That’s right, I said hypnosis. Now I know what you are thinking.

You will have to waive a gold watch in front of the car salesman and count to ten, at which point he will get very sleepy. Then he will lose all ability to think for himself and you can get your new car for half off.

No, that’s great for the movies, but that’s not how it works. Let me explain it this way…put yourself in the other person’s shoes for a minute.

In order for that person to give you what you want, what is the first thing that will have to happen? They have to like you.

Think about it.

From the other person’s perspective, if they look at you and see a mean, grouchy person, will that give them any reason to give you what you want? Of course not.

However, if you form a good rapport with them and they see you as a friend, wouldn’t they be more flexible in a negotiation? Usually yes and at the very least, it can’t hurt.

As you probably know, this is the Rapport Step in sales and negotiation. This is where you get to know the other person as a person and not just someone you are about to negotiate with.

If you already know this person well, like a family member, then the rapport step is necessary to dig deeper and get more information about the topic you are negotiating about. This is so that you can understand where that person is coming from and use that to your advantage.

What does this have to do with hypnosis?

My point is that what the marketers are calling hypnosis is not hypnosis in the way that we traditionally think of it. It is just a series of steps (like the rapport step) and mental cues that you can use the persuade the other party to give you what you want in a negotiation.

Don’t get me wrong, even though you may not be able to get someone to dance like a chicken in front of 300 people, these techniques are still very powerful and can give you the edge in a negotiation.

So don’t forget to include hypnosis negotiation skill training in your arsenal and be prepared the next time you go into battle.