I have sat through thousands of corporate presentations. On the whole they have 1 thing in common: the presenters all look alike to me.
There can be wide differences in industries, job roles, status, audiences, messages, purposes, countries of origin, age. And HUGE differences in personalities. Yet, even with all these individual differences, they end up looking alike.
In case this is happening to you, I want to let you know there is a way out.
You have to start by discarding any faulty education in how to give presentations that you’ve undoubtedly received. It’s an education that makes individuals look like the masses and makes your presentations look like they were mass produced, not creative, not unique, not showing your true power.
Most people learn how to give corporate presentations by taking workshops and observing others. The problem is that most training on how to do public speaking or giving presentations focuses on the mechanics and doesn’t touch the core of you.
The core of you is where your power really lies.
Not in your hand gestures, not in your slides, but deep within you.
This is what you want to have as your true source when you speak.
I just wrapped up a series of workshops for 10 individuals in a tightly regulated pharmaceutical industry. The problem was that all 10 individuals came across as tightly regulated too. Absolutely no personality was in view, nothing unique to touch the audience. Their slides were cumbersome yet it was mandated they had to cover everything in the slide. It was difficult for presenter and audience alike.
When they tapped into their own unique core, what was released was incredible. I actually started to cry during one of their presentations, even though I’d heard that slide presented 100 times. Suddenly what he was saying became REAL and I realized the tragic debilitating effect of the illness that their pharmaceutical product was designed to alleviate. I had involuntary tears in my eyes imagining a young teenager having to suffer without it.
The core of you is very worth finding and nurturing. Very worth expressing.
It doesn’t matter what your content is.
What matters is that you communicate from the core of you.
That is where you are truly causative.