I was recently working with a group of executives at a well-known life sciences company
and what i uncovered while working with them is every single one of them was extremely
nervous about presenting to leadership. So I have 10 tips to share with you today
anytime you have to present to leadership or any high stake situation. Stay tuned on Moxie Talk!
Hey everyone I'm Fia Fasbinder, welcome to Moxie Talk where we help you find your voice,
share your message, and lead with confidence. Today we're talking about how to present to the
leadership team or any high-stakes situation. Now I've come up with a methodology that worked for
the executives I was coaching andI I think it will work for you too and this is a 10 step program
that you can use to make sure you are prepared and you are going to present at your best.
The first tip is to prepare I know it sounds like a no-brainer but how many
people do you know that just show up and throw up for their presentation?
It's so important with leadership teams that are extremely busy are going to see a ton
of presentations and you're just one in that lineup to prepare your content ahead of time.
So you're probably asking me now how do I prepare I'm going to tell you the first step to preparing
your content and this is something that if you do this I swear that leadership team will thank you.
The first tip is to begin with the end in mind. You have to think about what are the goals for
this presentation what do you want this audience to feel when they're done? What do you want them
to know when you're done? And what do you want them to do when you're done? This requires you to
synthesize the information that you're presenting to them so they understand the why. I'll give you
an example, I recently worked with an executive who was going to give a quarterly review right
and his job in finance was just to give the numbers or so he thought. His presentations
leading up to working with me were dry boring just numbers but really he was missing the point
he wasn't just supposed to give the numbers he was supposed to tell us why those numbers matter. What
are we supposed to think about those numbers are we making money? Are we losing money are there
ways we can be more productive? Are there ways we can be more effective? You must begin with the end
in mind with your content so that's tip number two. The third tip is to be clear and concise
don't ramble leadership teams are busy and if you ramble they will cut you off so of course how do
you avoid rambling how do you avoid going off on a tangent? You prepare. Prepare by rehearsing
your content ahead of time read it ahead of time say it aloud ahead of time. Make sure it's clear
concise logical you're saying your message and at the least amount of time possible so that
you don't get cut off in the middle of your presentation. Nothing worse than that right?
Number four is to tell stories and give examples bring the data to life.
I love the quote by Brene Brown which is stories are just data with a soul. So I know a lot of us
have data heavy presentations. Bring them to life by telling stories. I'll give you another example
I worked with a financial accountant who worked at a large finance company and he was giving a
presentation at their annual conference before this he just started with the how to's the how
to save money for your ira after working with him i uncovered that he actually had a single mom who
worked four jobs to support the family and didn't know how to save money and is now living with this
financial advisor because she didn't know how to save money and his single goal in life was
to teach people how to save money so that they can retire and there can be a point where they
don't have to work so hard when he told this story there was not a dry eye in the house everybody was
crying people remembered his presentation years later they came up to him after the presentation
and what he was doing was personalizing it and connecting to the audience with a story
the fifth tip has to do with your slides keep them minimal make sure that you are not
talking through a slide by reading us all of the bullets instead talk to the slide minimize the
death by powerpoint by taking the bullets off your slide and expanding on each of the points
now you're probably wondering well what do i do with the bullets if i take them off my slide
you put them in the notes section of your powerpoint or if you're not using a powerpoint
with the with the notes you prepare by rehearsing and you run it enough times that you know the
content i have died a thousand deaths when i have to sit through a presentation where a speaker just
reads the bullets to me and the worst please do not do this is when they go back a slide no
make sure your slides are minimal they're concise and that you speak to the slides
instead of reading to them our mantra at moxie is your powerpoint is not
your teleprompter if you can remember this you'll give such an engaging presentation
the sixth is to channel your nervous energy into usable energy how do you do this
the best way to do this is by practicing nothing builds confidence like knowing
your presentation look things can happen during the presentation that are out of your control
you might get cut off somebody might have to leave the room your monitor breaks we can't
control those things but if you know your content if you've rehearsed your content
those kind of things won't derail you the best way to feel confident is to practice
make sure you know your content well enough that if you weren't using your powerpoint you could
still talk to those executives and the general rule of thumb to make sure you know your content
is five to seven full rehearsals i know it sounds like a lot but if this is a high stake
stakes presentation you owe it to yourself to make sure you go out there with confidence
the seventh tip is to do a pre-presentation warm-up speaking of confidence you know most
of us are most nervous for the first five minutes before a presentation and the first five minutes
of our presentation that's like the witching hour when our heart rates are racing and are we're
sweating and we can feel our cheeks getting hot right the best way to ensure that you don't look
nervous to that executive team because they don't know you're nervous unless you look nervous or you
tell them you're nervous the best way to ensure that you go out there with confidence is to warm
up right before you go into the presentation look any athlete that has a high stakes game warms up
before the game they would never think of just going into the game without a warm-up do you
think that a super bowl athlete doesn't warm up before a game of course they do but for something
for some reason as speakers we think we can just waltz right in there and start and we're not going
to get nervous we need a warm up too and i have four major components to any good speaker warm-up
the first is mindset so give yourself a mantra you know say something aloud that makes you feel
great and you must say it aloud if you say it allowed you're going to believe it a lot more
the the second part to this warm-up is breath work take deep relaxing breaths from your diaphragm and
if you're not sure how to do this i have a whole video on diaphragmatic breathing but my mantra is
breathe low and slow this will literally bring your heart rate down and tell your body that it
can get out of fight or flight and into rest and digest third is do a little warm up with your body
you know a lot of us when we're speaking we get stiff right all that adrenaline hits our body and
we get stiff or we shake the best way to ensure that you don't look nervous is to do a physical
warm-up shake out all those nerves do jumping jacks do push-ups run in place do something
to get all of that adrenaline out of your body and the last thing this might sound ridiculous
but it is to warm up your mouth the best way to make sure that you don't fumble over your words
is to do a warm-up and my favorite easy warm-up is to pretend you're chewing a ton of bubble gum
like this right and then it looks ridiculous but you're really warming up your speaker muscle
so that you can speak clearly so really easy do this warm up ahead of time obviously don't
do it in front of the leadership team if you can find a quiet place to do it that would be great
and the eighth tip is to have what i call vocal executive presence look a lot of us when we get
nervous it shows in our voice right we can hear it in our voice either our voice goes high in
register or it's quivery or it's too soft the best way to ensure that you have vocal executive
presence which means that your voice is amplifying your message of authority instead of undermining
it is to do a quick vocal warm-up and the easiest way to warm up your voice you do not have to be
a singer to do this is to do some simple hums humming is a great way to warm up our vocal cords
do your breathing and if you want to learn how to stop your quivering i also have a video on
this if your voice quivers women pay attention to your voice going into what we call your head
register a lot of us myself included when i get nervous my voice goes into this high register
which really undermines our authority and the first step is awareness if you can be aware of
going into that head register you can absolutely bring it down and ground that
voice right imagine your voice coming from your belly instead of your head practice this way so
you feel and hear the difference in your voice so that vocal executive presence is so powerful
now along with vocals executive presence is commanding the space with our body
now this is what we call presentation power posing and if anyone's watched amy cuddy's ted talk
on power posing it's incredible but what this really means is maximizing the space our body
takes up in a room when we get nervous a huge cue that we're nervous is our bodies get small
right we cross our hands we do what i call the fig leaf our shoulders are slumped we
look down we make our bodies small and this is actually an unconscious ancient
signal that we are literally trying to hide so that we are not being attacked but we are not
going to be attacked this is a presentation it's probably a pretty friendly audience and the best
way to ensure that you show vocal executive presence with your body and command the space
is to maximize the space your body takes up in a room this is simple just open your chest cavity
by imagining that if i were to cut you in half from top to bottom your shoulders would be on
the back half of your body right it's not some staunch military pose it's just slightly opening
your chest cavity and now strain out the s curve in your spine by imagining imagining an invisible
string it starts in the middle of your head and the other half is attached to the ceiling and
it's just gently pulling you up right this is what our parents taught us in elementary school stand
straight and smile but it's great advice it's a great way to make sure you're commanding the space
last but not least we are to the 10th tip is to make sure after all this practice
that your authentic speaker persona shines through some of us are natural comedians
some of us are more solemn some of us are just a little bit more serious some of us
love to move around a room some of us love to stay still whatever it is if it's done with confidence
this is showing authenticity and audiences love authentic authenticity we have something called
mirror neurons which means we mirror behavior from people we see
if you go in there with passion and excitement and confidence your audience will mirror that
and that can come in so many different ways so work on developing your authentic speaker persona
so there you go guys 10 tips to make sure that you present to leadership with confidence
and you ensure success if you like this video make sure to share it subscribe to our channel like
our videos maybe watch some more videos on our channel and we'll see you next time on moxie talk