As president of the National Speakers Association, I have the privilege of presenting at most of our forty chapters in the United States. I have only gone to eight of the chapters so far, presenting Boring To Bravo at five of them (my other chapter program is on integrating facilitation into the service offerings). Needless to say, I keep learning from each presentation, and I think they get better each time!
Of course, it is always helpful to audio or video record your presentation to critique yourself later, but sometimes you just don’t have time….So here’s a quick way to make your presentations even better:
On the drive home or later in the day, take a moment to reflect, “What went well?” as well as “What could I have done differently?” Go ahead and list these items down on a new page in a small binder. Mine is a 5″ x 9″ spiral bound notebook. You may even want to talk to a few people you respect and ask them the same two questions. Write these down as well. Then draw a big, fat RED line close to the bottom. Underneath the red line, write the ONE take-away. For my last presentation, I think I really needed to mix up the medium. I rely on facilitative questioning too much and need to throw in multiple techniques to continue to engage and stimulate the participates.
Then, when preparing for your next presentation, flip through the book and you’ll see some trends appear before your very eyes! Pick one thing you want to improve, and in your preparation, determine what you are going to do to make your presentation even better!
