You can craft the most brilliant presentation, have visual aids that hit it out of the park and deliver the presentation flawlessly but if you fumble on your Q&A you can damage your credibility quickly and maybe even permanently. The challenge is that no matter how knowledgeable you are, once you lose credibility it is very hard to get it back. The Q&A segment of your presentation is a great way for your audience to see how knowledgeable you are, how well you think on your feet and for you to answer any of their concerns. It also provides you the opportunity to reinforce your message and persuade the audience to take the desired outcome. Here are some pointers in dealing with Q&A and crafting a persuasive ending.
Mark Twain once said, "It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech." Everyone knows that in order to have a successful presentation you need to prepare properly. You need to put your presentation together and create your supporting visual aids. But this is just the beginning. Your preparation isn’t done until you have practiced your presentation thoroughly. I hear so many people say that they don’t practice their presentations because they believe they deliver a better presentation when they “fly by the seat of their pants”. These are usually the same people who get sick with stage fright. The more you practice the more you know your material and the more relaxed and confident you will become.
Remembering names is one of the most difficult and yet one of the most memorable things you can do. Remembering someone’s name and the correct pronunciation of it in a face to face encounter can set you apart immediately. William Shakespeare said: “There is no sound so sweet as the sound of one’s own name” and he was oh so right.
Everyone loves the sound of their name. In fact, studies show that hearing one's name spoken actually activates the brain, even when the name is spoken aloud in a noisy room. Calling someone by their name is one of the easiest ways to make someone feel acknowledged, special and valued and yet so many people begin a first meeting with “I apologize; I am so terrible at remembering names…” Last month I wrote my newsletter article on “lying”. In this week’s blog post, I want to answer the number one question many of you asked of me —“once you know someone is lying how do you confront them?” In this article we are going to deal with occasional liars and white liars. We are not going to deal with pathological or sociopathic liars. They need professional help because lying is practically an essential part of their personality.
Before we discuss the answer to your question, you need to know that you do not hold the power to change someone else’s behavior. You can however set up some pretty clear boundaries that hopefully lead the liar to make different choices where you are concerned. Here are some factors you should look at first: |
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