The skill of public speaking has been in demand at all times, and ours is no exception. However, now we meet exclusively online. And even after the end of the pandemic, this format of events and meetings will remain popular.
How to prepare for online and offline presentations? Is it necessary to have charisma? How can you hook an audience? What should be emphasized? Experienced speakers answer these and many other questions in an interview with Axoft: Alexander Gutin, Marketing Director of Astra Linux Group; Maximilian Prilepsky, Senior Technical Engineer, Ivanti Consultant; Alexey Kakunin, Business Development Director for Siberia and the Far East at Axoft.
What are the main qualities a speaker should have?
Alexander Gutin
I think the secret of a speaker's success is a sense of humor, intelligence and a quick reaction. If a person does not have any of the above, it will be quite difficult for him to work with the audience.
Alexey Kakunin
The speaker must have a confident voice, the ability to keep himself on stage and keep the attention of the audience, and, of course, he must have a sense of humor.
Maximilian Prilepsky
In my opinion, the speaker should be attentive and respectful to the audience, understand and navigate well, ideally - be an expert in the topic of his report or presentation, have the ability to correctly express his thoughts, be eloquent, and also understand the "target" audience and its requests.
Do you need «charisma» or can you do without it?
Alexander Gutin
Of course you do! Another question is what to call charisma. I believe that charisma cannot be bought, you cannot learn to be charismatic from someone. This is such a property of a person, located on the verge of science and art. And yet, no one is born charismatic. Someone comes to this spontaneously, and someone can consciously develop charisma in themselves. I think for this we need to try to answer the questions “What am I?”, “How am I different from others?”, “Why might people like it?”, “How can I demonstrate it?”. And, of course, the sense of humor, intelligence and quick reaction that I have already mentioned. Without these qualities, it seems to me that it is quite difficult to be a charismatic speaker.
Alexey Kakunin
Without charisma, you can't hold the audience's attention even for two minutes.
Maximilian Prilepsky:
Surely, the possession of charisma will make the report or presentation of the speaker more interesting and exciting and will be able to motivate listeners more to follow-up questions on the topic. Although, in my opinion, in technical IT disciplines, given the "nature" of the audience, in the first place I would put the professionalism and level of knowledge on the topic of the report. Charisma and skills will help win over the audience and will be necessary when speaking “from the stage”, while in online conferences, when you, your gestures, facial expressions remain invisible behind the screen, the main thing is the ability to speak and reason: clearly, confidently, where it is necessary - with pauses, to be moderately ironic, as well as attentive to the audience and its questions.
Life hacks for those who want to excel in public speaking
Alexander Gutin
Two working life hacks: at least 1 joke for 5 minutes of speech. And obligatory questions to the audience.
Alexey Kakunin
Supplement each performance with real life situations and examples, diluting all this with a “as if random” joke (in fact, two or three blanks). It's good if there are provocateurs among the listeners, including decoys, who will help "start" the discussion. Think over questions ahead of time.
Maximilian Prilepsky
TOP 10 tips from Maximilian Prilepsky:
A good, memorable presentation should not be boring, lengthy, irrelevant.
To do this, I would advise not to schedule a presentation for more than 30-40 minutes, if possible, “dilute” the presentation with a demonstration and show the “live” interface of the solution or product and its main functionality, diluting it with practical examples.
Fix, change, don't clutter
regularly review the slides, correct, make changes, make them interesting for others, do not clutter them up - 3-4 phrases are enough.
Do not shrink with the font, remove irrelevant information - no one is interested in looking at statistics or the share of a product in a 3-year-old rating, as well as dummy slides on “nothing to say” subjects.
Do not read slides word for word
I'm sure many listeners say this without voice acting. Try to comment on the slides more. Do not read "papers" - in my opinion, the audience hears this well: your sound timbre changes and natural pauses disappear.
rehearse more
Practice at least once in front of a mirror, check your taste voice - I'm sure many speakers will not like it, and you will also find parasitic words repeated many times. But with each new performance you will be stronger.
Adjust the report according to your taste
Try to find out more information about offsite events from the organizers in advance. Adjust your presentation depending on the category of listeners - technical specialists, sales consultants, managers and directors, customers did not meet correctly at the same time to “accept” what they heard; direct content in a more or less technical direction or vice versa in the direction of marketing.
Do not offer to turn off instant messengers or browsers during the presentation
It can get in an awkward position when the audience sees your correspondence or eloquent bookmark titles.
Don't be afraid of questions from the floor
If your presentation is public, a question from the audience shows interest in your material. If with a response to a request, promise to answer this question later "in private". By the way, this will help to make the conversation and contact more trusting.
Warm up and separate
Many speakers, during public speaking, “warm up” the audience of possible gifts for an interesting question. Yes, it will help, but try to resolve issues from the mass of "collectors" of small gadgets and souvenirs to separate "hot" contacts.
Forget coffee
I don’t know about other speakers, but I try not to drink coffee before the speech - this drink “dries out” the throat, and you will need to drink afterwards.
Improve yourself
Train, upgrade your presentations, watch other people's speeches, learn from positive experience.
A good, memorable presentation should not be boring, long, not relevant.
To do this, I would advise not to plan speeches for more than 30-40 minutes, if possible, “dilute” the presentation with a demonstration and show the “live” (and not console screenshots) interface of the solution or product and its main functionality, diluting it with useful practical examples.
Adjust, change, don't clutter
Review your slides regularly, correct, make changes, make them interesting for others, don't clutter them up - 3-4 phrases are enough.
Do not shrink with the font, remove irrelevant information - no one is interested in looking at the statistics or position of the product in the rankings of 3 years ago, as well as empty slides on which there is “nothing to say”.
Don't read the slides word for word
I'm sure many listeners will be able to read this without your voice acting. Try to comment on the slides more. Do not read "from a piece of paper" - believe me, the audience hears it well: your sound timbre will change and natural pauses will disappear.
Rehearse more
Practice at least once in front of a mirror, listen to your recorded voice - I'm sure many speakers will not like it, and you will also find many repetitive parasitic words. But with each new performance you will be stronger.
Adjust the report depending on the composition of the audience
Try to find out more information about the composition of the audience from the organizers in advance. Adjust your presentation depending on the category of listeners - technical specialists, sales consultants, managers and directors, customers will not be able to correctly “accept” what they hear at the same time; direct content in a more or less technical direction or vice versa in the direction of marketing.
Do not forget to turn off instant messengers or browsers during the presentation
You can get into an awkward position when the audience sees your correspondence or eloquent titles of browser bookmarks.
Do not be afraid of questions from the audience
If your presentation is public, a question from the audience shows interest in your material. If there are difficulties with the answer, promise to return to this question later "in private". By the way, this will help to make the conversation and contact more trusting.
Warm up and separate
Many speakers, during public speaking, “warm up” the audience with possible gifts for an interesting question. Yes, it will help, but try to separate the “hot” contacts from the mass of “collectors” of small gadgets and souvenirs from those who ask questions.
Forget coffee
I don’t know about other speakers, but I try not to drink coffee before a speech - this drink “dries out” the throat, and subsequently you will want to drink.
Improve yourself
Practice, pump up your presentations, look at the speeches of others, learn from positive experience.
Pitfalls of online performances
Alexander Gutin
The biggest difficulty of online performances is the lack of a clear reaction from the audience. Therefore, feedback from the audience is even more important. In a remote format, this is a much more difficult moment than in a full-time one - because. how you have to pause, waiting for the reaction of the participants. So the main thing when preparing for such speeches is to think about where, what questions you will ask, and what you will say while the audience is typing their answers.
Alexey Kakunin
It is much more difficult to keep attention in online mode, because here the visual range is only a presentation, and it is difficult to attract attention with gestures. You need to be able to master intonation, work with your voice, and involve the audience in a dialogue.
Maximilian Prilepsky
In the case of online conferences, the ability to present the material in an interesting way, the ability to "hold" and captivate the listener's attention throughout the report comes first. Also, do not forget about the content and the relevance of the information provided, which together will help make the presentation memorable and promising in terms of opportunities to build business relationships with clients and customers.
Difficulties, pitfalls may appear in the absence of experience in public speaking, but over time, neither the tricky questions of competitors, nor the inconvenient time of your report (before the break or the last one, when many are tired), nor technical overheads can prevent you from making your speech memorable if you prepared interesting, relevant material.
When preparing, I try to carefully approach the audience's requests, learn more about the audience - this will help to anticipate some questions, adjust the content, if necessary.
Which online conferencing platform to use
Aleksandr Gutin:
Platforma dla online-konferencij dolzna obladat sleduusim harakteristikami:
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simple, understandable and convenient form of registration of listeners;
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the ability to demonstrate video and the speaker's desktop;
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a chat that is visible to both the speaker and the audience;
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a separate window for important questions and answers to them, which does not interfere with the main action;
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and, of course, uploading presentations (preferably with animation).
In our company, we use the pruff.me webinar platform, which satisfactorily meets all of the above requirements.
Alexey Kakunin
For workflow conferencing, I most often use Lync and WhatsApp.
Maximilian Prilepsky
Most often I had to use Cisco Webex or, more recently, Microsoft Teams.
In my opinion, the platform should be convenient, support various operating systems and browsers, and avoid changes in screen resolution.
When discussing online webinars and presentations, I love interactive communication with the audience, with the ability to ask questions right during the presentation. It helps me to “feel” the audience, sometimes “wake them up” or make them laugh.
A good distinguishing feature of the platform is the possibility of an online survey after a presentation or speech. This is one of the most important parts of each presentation, for which it was held - its result, i.e. responses, reviews, audience survey. This helps to find new "hot" and "warm" business contacts or work additionally with those who still have questions.
Alexander Gutin
I had the pleasure of watching the most memorable speakers at the university. David Iosifovich Barkan, who taught several marketing courses at the Graduate School of Management at St. Petersburg State University, will forever remain for me a benchmark in the field of public speaking and working with the audience.
A good speaker is an interesting speaker. Each audience, of course, has its own specifics. But to make a crowd of yesterday's schoolchildren, with bated breath, listen to themselves, is perhaps no easier than to "sell" your product at a specialized conference.
Alexey Kakunin
Ilya Sachkov, CEO and founder of GIB, who presented the report "The Path of a Cybercriminalist" at SYNERGY EXECUTIVE FORUM 2018, is a story of a young man's success in a leading cybersecurity organization. Ilya's report is distinguished by a light form of presentation: in simple words - about the complex.
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