I loved Amelia the moment I met her…
She is a beautiful young woman who was recently promoted to regional manager over a large territory with many people and tremendous responsibility. She is warm, genuine and effervescent in her one-on-one conversations and very well loved within the organization.
Amelia came to the Transformative Presentation Skills workshop because she wanted to learn how to communicate effectively to larger groups now that she has to address a bigger audience.
Her presentation slides were artistically well designed. Her presentation had an excellent key message and was very well organized, systematic and logical.
It was also very corporate, especially in how she delivered it. Amelia came across scripted, professional and well-rehearsed, but drained of personality. I observed the audience. They were polite but disengaged.
To handle how nervous she was talking in front of people, Amelia had rehearsed and rehearsed before the workshop so her mind would not go blank when she stood in front of them.
Her slides provided her with a script she felt she couldn’t deviate from. Her slides, even though a beautiful work of art, along with her script and over-rehearsing, were totally getting in her way.
I coached her on being in the moment and letting go of her script. At first she was petrified. She was terrified of being up there and not knowing what to say.
In reality, if you want to be really good, “in the moment” is the ONLY way to be. When you are in the moment, you don’t know what you’re going to say next. You’re not supposed to. You’re in THIS moment, not the next one.
To focus on what you’re saying NOW, you must be willing to not know what you’re going to say next. You have to trust it will come to you. And, if you are fully connected with the audience, it will.
It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about financial numbers, an engineering design, a quarterly update or giving a sales presentation. If you want to be considered a great presenter, you have to create an emotional impact on the audience. The more powerful your emotional impact, the more effective you will be.
The truth is, you can’t do that with a script. It has to come straight out of you and be inspired directly from the connection you are making with the audience in that exact moment in time.
You simply cannot plan it. Or rehearse it.
As you create an emotional impact, the audience will change in front of you and you need to be sufficiently in the moment to respond to that change and then take them even higher.
I helped Amelia to be free of tension and anxiety so she would feel comfortable letting go of her script. Then she was able to fully face the audience, connect with each of them and observe them individually as she spoke.
She wasn’t thinking about the past, she wasn’t thinking about the future, she wasn’t even thinking about where she was going. She was simply 100% in the moment, fully with the people in front of her, creating the message as if it was the very first time and crafting it brilliantly. The audience was moved to tears as I saw many of them dabbing at their eyes.
Amelia revealed the brilliance hiding within her by letting go of the script.
Once you are able to do that for yourself, you’ll discover just how much the world is waiting to hear what you have to share…
Be the cause!
Ingrid