Archive for the 'You the Presenter' Category

Why CEOs need to build executive presence among their senior executives

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Warwick
on June 18, 2010
in You the Presenter, executive presence and presenter
. 0 Comments

One of the biggest problems that multinational companies face is having senior executives who lack executive presence. Productivity, profit and morale are all tied in with this concept. Companies urgently need to address this problem because it can increase efficiency in project execution, distribute key messages properly and improve morale through all levels of management.

Gives a Personal Brand

One of the most important things about executive presence is creating a personal brand. Executives create a message simply by the way people see and hear them, as well as think about them. Having a personal brand gets an executive noticed, which allows them to build a successful career and drive progress in their business. Executive presence and personal brand extend to all stakeholders, like customers. This gives the executive a distinct advantage as they project authority to individuals who they have never met, nor worked with. Many call this the “WOW” factor and people with it get listened to more and are often seen as a centre of influence. A personal brand is ingrained with a person’s executive presence; one cannot exist without the other. An executive with presence has a clearly defined awareness of who they are and the value they can bring their company.

Creates Credibility

If an executive shows up to talk with their team wearing a Hawaiian shirt, with cargo pants and sandals on, the executive team may not see the senior executive as a leader. If the company culture supports suit-wearing , dressing too casually will impact how people judge and respect the executive. This could lead to a lack of credibility and result in the executive being unable to motivate his team. All companies have a template of what a leader should be and successful executives match this image. However, executive presence comes from more that dress sense. Credibility is extremely important and something that comes when the executive is seen a true role model. Executives who cultivate their image as a role model are more highly regarded both inside and outside the firm.

Connecting With the Team

One of the most important aspects of executive presence is that it allows the executive to connect directly with their team. They make that person feel as though they are the most important person in the world. A skill that former President Bill Clinton was famous for displaying. This connection, or charisma, is based on superb listening skills and when carried with sincerity becomes an accelerator that drives the team to achieve outstanding results. While over-use of emails tends to diminish this impact, a high performing executive will use a blended approach. Encouraging team members who are located in different sites, while maximizing face time to ensure the team can see and feel the important the executive places on them. These personal connections result in higher performance and productivity. An executive with presence engages their team and keeps motivation high – through good and bad times.

Conclusion

The greatest business leaders all have executive presence. Richard Branson and Steve Jobs use their executive presence to influence their team members as well as their stakeholders. This results in successful companies with highly committed people and a loyal customer base. Today’s executives need to raise their game to match this high benchmark, as the future of their business growth depend on it.

Resource Box

Warwick John Fahy coaches senior finance executives to influence key stakeholders, like clients, regulators, and investors with the innovative model: “The Bamboo Leader -  8 executive presence competencies for multinationals in Greater China”. To arrange an initial free “Build Executive Presence” consultation (value 200 Euros), call Jeremy Potts today +86 21 6101 0486 or download a free White Paper on Building Executive Presence at http://www.thebambooleader.com

Warwick is the author of the acclaimed book, The One Minute Presenter - 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. For free executive speaking tips visit http://www.oneminutepresenter.com/blog

For a media interview call +86 1391 786 7502.

Copyright 2010 Warwick John Fahy All rights reserved.

How to handle mobile phones during presentations Part 3 of 3: The Extreme Approach

Published
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Warwick
on May 22, 2010
in Manage all Interruptions and You the Presenter
. 0 Comments

smashed-mobile-phoneYou can read Part 1 on Ground Rules here and Part 2 on Incentives here.

Extreme Examples to Stop Mobile Phone use
While these suggestions will help most business settings, sometimes a presenter will adopt an extreme position to make their point. These high risk approaches can really make an impact but when done well add to the overall impact of your presentation.

For example, one presenter started a presentation by pulling out a mobile phone, placed the phone into a padded envelope, dropped the envelope to the floor, stomped on it repeatedly, picked the envelope back up, and then threw it to the back of the hall. He smiled politely and asked if anyone in the room had another device he could practice on. If so, all they had to do was let it make any noise during his presentation.
The outcome was that with over 200 people in the room for a two-hour presentation, there was not a single instance of a phone ringing, beeping, or even buzzing.  The key to  these extreme approaches is a certain sense of humour so choose them with care.

Remember as a presenter you need to keep the audience on your side, so while mobile phones ringing in meetings are an irritation, they are a fact of life. Set ground rules, keep a sense of humour and don’t react to a phone ringing in an angry way.

RESOURCE BOX

Warwick John Fahy is the international executive speech coach for senior executives, business leaders and entrepreneurs who need to influence clients, investors, shareholders and team members. His highly practical approach and deep cross cultural intelligence have made him a sought-after business presentation coach throughout the world.

Warwick is the author of the acclaimed book, The One Minute Presenter - 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. For free executive speaking tips visit http://www.oneminutepresenter.com/blog

To arrange presentation skills training or coaching to build your executive presence visit this web site.

For a media interview call +86 1391 786 7502.

Copyright 2010 Warwick John Fahy All rights reserved.

Theater Rehearsals: What Executive Presenters Must Know Part 5 of 5: Dress rehearsal

Published
by
Warwick
on May 13, 2010
in You the Presenter
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dress-rehearsalTo view the other steps in this series, see Step 1 “Script read through” , Step 2 “Run Through”, Step 3 “Cue to Cue” and Step 4 “Top and Tails”

Step 5: Dress rehearsal
On the day, regardless of what time the presentation is due to start, schedule time for a dress rehearsal. Rehearse in the same room if possible using all the technology planned and microphones needed. This final run through boosts confidence for the live version. The second delivery of the day will be smoother and appear more natural.

Most business presenters skip this step because they start to feel self-conscious of presenting to only a few people, rather than a whole audience. But surely, if you can’t feel comfortable with a small group, how can you scale up to the large one?

Don’t worry about what this small audience are thinking, because chances are they are thinking how professional and thorough you are as a presenter!

Related Articles:

iPad product launch: What Makes Steve Jobs a Great Presenter?

RESOURCE BOX

Warwick John Fahy is the international executive speech coach for senior executives, business leaders and entrepreneurs who need to influence clients, investors, shareholders and team members. His highly practical approach and deep cross cultural intelligence have made him a sought-after business presentation coach throughout the world.

Warwick is the author of the acclaimed book, The One Minute Presenter - 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. For free executive speaking tips visit http://www.oneminutepresenter.com/blog

To arrange presentation skills training or coaching to build your executive presence visit this web site.

For a media interview call +86 1391 786 7502.

Copyright 2010 Warwick John Fahy All rights reserved.

Theater Rehearsals: What Executive Presenters Must Know Part 4 of 5: Step 4 : Tops and Tails

Published
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Warwick
on May 11, 2010
in Create Your Connection, You the Presenter and rapport
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To view the other steps in this series, see Step 1 “Script read through” , Step 2 “Run Through” and Step 3 “Cue to Cue”

Step 4 : Tops and Tails
The two most important parts of a presentation are the opening and closing. Both parts attract the greatest audience attention and are the best opportunities to deliver a takeaway message. They are often delivered at a higher level of authority and punch. Take the opening two minutes and rehearse as a stand-alone section. Record it and while listening to the recording, look for ways to make the delivery more impactful. Use crisper and sharper words. Make a closer connection to the audience with words they relate with. Likewise, repeat this approach with the closing. This is the final chance to convey the message and leave the audience with a positive impression.

Related articles:

iPad product launch: What Makes Steve Jobs a Great Presenter?

RESOURCE BOX

Warwick John Fahy is the international executive speech coach for senior executives, business leaders and entrepreneurs who need to influence clients, investors, shareholders and team members. His highly practical approach and deep cross cultural intelligence have made him a sought-after business presentation coach throughout the world.

Warwick is the author of the acclaimed book, The One Minute Presenter - 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. For free executive speaking tips visit http://www.oneminutepresenter.com/blog

To arrange presentation skills training or coaching to build your executive presence visit this web site.

For a media interview call +86 1391 786 7502.

Copyright 2010 Warwick John Fahy All rights reserved.

Theater Rehearsals: What Executive Presenters Must Know Part 3 of 5: Cue-to-Cue

Published
by
Warwick
on May 9, 2010
in Manage all Interruptions and You the Presenter
. 0 Comments

cue-to-cue

To view the other steps in this series, see Step 1 “Script read through” and Step 2 “Run Through”

Step 3: Cue-to-Cue
Always plan a technology check for all types of presentation. For smaller conference room presentations, go at least a couple of hours before to connect your computer to the projector, test the sound and video and ensure the mouse clicker works. For larger settings, arrive the day before and work with technicans in the venue. Spend time on the stage and walk around planning where to start, how to move on the stage and where to finish. Rehearse a couple of sections of the presentation with a microphone to hear what vocal volume is needed to fill the room.

Related articles:

Do you hate rehearsing?

Vary your Lifeforce

Product Launch like an Executive - Memorable product launches Part 3

RESOURCE BOX

Warwick John Fahy is the international executive speech coach for senior executives, business leaders and entrepreneurs who need to influence clients, investors, shareholders and team members. His highly practical approach and deep cross cultural intelligence have made him a sought-after business presentation coach throughout the world.

Warwick is the author of the acclaimed book, The One Minute Presenter - 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. For free executive speaking tips visit http://www.oneminutepresenter.com/blog

To arrange presentation skills training or coaching to build your executive presence visit this web site.

For a media interview call +86 1391 786 7502.

Copyright 2010 Warwick John Fahy All rights reserved.

Theater Rehearsals: What Executive Presenters Must Know Part 2 of 5: Run Through

Published
by
Warwick
on May 7, 2010
in Memory, You the Presenter and presenter
. 0 Comments

run-throughs-bw

To see Step 1, click here.

Step 2: Run Through

With an outline in hand it’s time to have a run through. This should be rehearsed until the content is memorized. Find blocks of rehearsal time. Instead of going to a restaurant at lunch, grab a sandwich and take a walk in the park. While walking around, talk through the presentation without looking at notes. Speak it out while driving into work, or book a meeting room to practice the delivery. The key here is that it should be spoken aloud as new ideas will arise while the delivery becomes smoother. Don’t use a computer or any slides at this point. The aim is to be 100% comfortable with the flow and content.

This is the step often overlooked by business presenters. Master this step and you will be confident that you know your content forwards and backwards.

Related Articles:

Product Launch like an Executive - Memorable product launches with taglines Part 2

Executive Presence: Memorize your content with taglines

Writing taglines that are memorable

RESOURCE BOX

Warwick John Fahy is the international executive speech coach for senior executives, business leaders and entrepreneurs who need to influence clients, investors, shareholders and team members. His highly practical approach and deep cross cultural intelligence have made him a sought-after business presentation coach throughout the world.

Warwick is the author of the acclaimed book, The One Minute Presenter - 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. For free executive speaking tips visit http://www.oneminutepresenter.com/blog

To arrange presentation skills training or coaching to build your executive presence visit this web site.

For a media interview call +86 1391 786 7502.

Copyright 2010 Warwick John Fahy All rights reserved.

Theater Rehearsals: What Executive Presenters Must Know Part 1 of 5: Script Read Through

Published
by
Warwick
on May 5, 2010
in You the Presenter
. 4 Comments

One of the most common excuses that executives use before they deliver presentations is that they are not prepared: The board of directors are filling up the meeting room before the annual strategy review session. The financial director comes up and says he doesn’t think he is prepared for the presentation. What impact does this have on his credibility? Business presenters often spend hours preparing PowerPoint slides only to deliver a low-energy dull presentation in front of the people who will be deciding their promotion prospects later in the day. Executives can learn from the theater world. Over the next few blogs we have five steps to guarantee a winning presentation.

Step 1: Script read through

At the start of rehearsals, actors read through their scripts, first alone, and then with the other actors. Script mastery is just the first step in their performance preparation. Most business presenters struggle to get to this step, often unable to have a coherent presentation on the day of delivery. The presentation must have a clear overall message, and the content clearly separated into distinctly different ideas. An opening that sets the context and engages the audiences by addressing their most pressing concerns. A body that divides the content into separate sections or to use a theater word “scenes”. A closing that brings all the content together into a clear outcome, reinforces the overall message and moves the audiences into the next part of the meeting, often the question and answer session. An important tip to remember is that at this stage the script or outline does not need to be perfect. There is still opportunity to modify during the next steps.

RESOURCE BOX

Warwick John Fahy is the international executive speech coach for senior executives, business leaders and entrepreneurs who need to influence clients, investors, shareholders and team members. His highly practical approach and deep cross cultural intelligence have made him a sought-after business presentation coach throughout the world.

Warwick is the author of the acclaimed book, The One Minute Presenter - 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. For free executive speaking tips visit http://www.oneminutepresenter.com/blog

To arrange presentation skills training or coaching to build your executive presence visit this web site.

For a media interview call +86 1391 786 7502.

Copyright 2010 Warwick John Fahy All rights reserved.

Product Launch like an Executive - Memorable product launches Part 3

Published
by
Warwick
on May 1, 2010
in Deliver with Style, Finish on Time, You the Presenter and presenter
. 0 Comments

preparing-rehearsal-video-camera-and-man1In part three of this three part look at product launches, we will build on “Less is More” as featured in Part 1 here and Taglines in Part 2.

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

One of the most overlooked part of a presentation preparation is the rehearsal. Most presenters think making a slide deck is enough. Or silently clicking through slides. While others may deliver it out aloud while alone in the office. Any rehearsal is good rehearsal, but the best type is putting yourself in the actual same situation that you will face on the day.

Jobs is a role model as he conducts live on-stage rehearsals to ensure every aspect is thought through from start until finish. He is known for putting in hours at a time in the days leading up to the big day. This has helped create a culture of presentation prowess in Apple that showed in the launches that were given by Job’s colleagues in his absence due to surgery. Are you a role-model for presenting in your company?

Allocate one whole day before your next big presentation and spend the day rehearsing in a live environment with your slides, projector, and clicker ideally on the actually stage that you will deliver the product launch. If there is a question and answer section in your presentation, rehearse that too by inviting your team members to fire questions at you from the floor. Time spent in live rehearsal will show when you deliver with style on the day.
Make sure you don’t sell your next product short by cutting corners on the big presentation launch. Investing time to deliver a visually stimulating, tagline-rich message will allow all your stakeholders to walk away with an easy-to-remember message. A good presentation can then be passed onto your sales team to use in front of key accounts and helps your marketing team push a consistent powerful message through your usual marketing channels. An added benefit will be that your high standards of presentation preparation will trickle down to your team members.

RESOURCE BOX

Warwick John Fahy is the international executive speech coach for senior executives, business leaders and entrepreneurs who need to influence clients, investors, shareholders and team members. His highly practical approach and deep cross cultural intelligence have made him a sought-after business presentation coach throughout the world.

Warwick is the author of the acclaimed book, The One Minute Presenter - 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. For free executive speaking tips visit http://www.oneminutepresenter.com/blog

To arrange presentation skills training or coaching to build your executive presence visit this web site.

For a media interview call +86 1391 786 7502.

Copyright 2010 Warwick John Fahy All rights reserved.

How can you improve your attention span?

Published
by
Warwick
on November 9, 2009
in Attention spans and You the Presenter
. 1 Comment
Meditation can improve your concentration

Meditation can improve your concentration

With the need to multi-task and sift through a never-ending flow of information, we have adapted - with the help of technology - to become more skillful at darting our attention spans from point to point.  From an email, to the mobile phone, to a web site, to a download, to a conversation. And so on.

While this adaption is an important part of being productive in a digital information age, it also impacts our ability to focus on one thing for a long period of time. Switching attention between tasks reduces effectiveness and hampers our ability to get things done in one sitting.

I recently attending a workshop and received a 25 minute meditation recording which I use at the end of the day to relax, unwind and calm my mind.  One thing that surprised me was how difficult it is to focus for the complete 25 minutes. While listening to the guided meditation (basically someone’s voice), I noticed that my mind was drifting onto other thoughts.  Even after pulling my attention back to the recording, my mind kept darting onto other topics.

Gradually, the more I meditate with the recording the longer I am able to focus my attention entirely.  As we continue to plough through life with our numerous distractions, it’s good to remember that we can also “work out” our concentration and focus from time to time. Turn off the devices and just relax for 25 minutes. Your mind and attention span will appreciate it.

Preparing before your presentations: Sharpen Your Focus

Published
by
Warwick
on August 5, 2009
in Memory and You the Presenter
. 0 Comments

prepare-sharpen-your-focus

In this tip, you will learn how to become more aware of the type of presentation you deliver.

What do you mean by presentation?

Understanding when you are presenting and when you are expected to present is a key first step in awareness. Some companies don’t use traditional meetings, with stand up presentation and PowerPoint slides. But does that mean they don’t present? Of course not. A business presentation can take place in almost any location or venue. For example, conference calls, annual meetings, board of directors gatherings, marketing or product roadshows, client meetings, trade or industry conferences, financial IPO roadshows, department meetings, or just a cup of coffee with your boss. The list goes on.


Originally the word “presentation” was first used in the 14th Century from the word “representation” which often referred to a theatrical performance. Moving forward to the 21st Century, my definition of presentation is “a performance with a purpose“.  Today’s tip looks at the purpose part. Future tips will consider performance.

What is your purpose?

Why are you presenting? What is your general purpose? A four step model can help you define your purpose:  DRIP

D is for differentiating. Your general purpose is to highlight the differences between your proposal, your product, your company and other choices. What is special or unique about you, your proposal or your product.

R is for reminding. Your general purpose includes updating a group of people on a project’s purpose, keeping a team on track for a project deadline or even keeping you and your purpose top of mind with a senior management team.

I is for informing. The most common type of business presentation. Topics cover new regulation and laws which a group needs to know about, product updates and upgrades.

P is for persuading. This general purpose is to bring a group of people around to your point of view. Necessary when selling, gaining acceptance for an idea or proposal, or asking for budgets.

Any time you need to communicate a message, you need to first be aware of your purpose. Once you are clear on your purpose, selecting appropriate content, examples and delivery becomes more focused.