Presenting & Communication: How to Give a Compelling Presentation

1. Introduction: Giving a presentation is becoming more and more common these days, which means that public speaking, is it just for speeches and wedding toasts? It could be communicating with your team, your manager, or your customers. Bernie had to give a compelling presentation, requires preparation and practice. In this class, we're focusing on the physical art of presenting your voice, body language, piecing habits, and delivery. We're going to go step-by-step. You'll have everything you need to knock that presentation out of the park. How are you? I'm a New York Times bestselling author and professor, and I've been speaking professionally for over a decade. I've spoken on live TV, on stage in front of thousands of people and in countless classrooms, meetings and workshops. I think everyone should take this class because presenting is really about communicating. You can have the best content or ideas in the world. But if you're speaking too fast or fidgeting or not owning your own cousins who might not get through to your audience. Our class project will be our trusty course workbook, but I'll also challenge you to video yourself as we fine tune your posture, tone, and other aspects of physical presenting. Please share your videos with other learners. Don't be shy. We're all here to learn and grow together. One of my favorite parts of this entire class is the nerve calming toolkit, where you'll create your very own custom strategy to overcome anxiety about an upcoming talk. I'm a big believer in preparation, and they've created an entire other class that focuses on everything you need to do before you present, like identifying your own objectives, analyzing your audience and building a compelling narrative. So be sure to check out that class as well. Are you ready to take their presenting skills to the next level? Let's get started. 2. Rehearsing Your Presentation: The fastest way to get comfortable with presenting is to rehearse. This has two big benefits. First, you'll know your content inside and out. And second, rehearsing has a multiplicative effect. Meaning every investment you make and rehearsing is contributing to your development as a speaker, let's talk about how to rehearse. There are some people who are big fans of memorizing. But I don't like this approach for a couple of reasons. First, it's very time-consuming and if presenting is a regular part of your job, it's not realistic to memorize everything word for word every time you have to present something. Second, memorizing is tricky if you forget or stumble or get distracted or lose your place, it can throw you off and you might not be able to get back on track, which is too risky for me. I prefer to focus on understanding my narratives and the points I'm going to make. And that's the process I want to share with you today. Let's use the rehearsing your presentation sheet from the workbook. After I make my presentation, I go through slide by slide and ask myself, what do I want to say here? What are the key points I want to make? Writing them down helps me get a sense of the overarching structure of the presentation. If I'm presenting a slide with a marketing campaign highlight, I might say that the key point is that the campaign was successful. We've hit all key metrics and we've over-performed across the board. I always make sure I add the so-what? The reason why this point matters in our example, we might say something like, Well, customers loved our campaign and that we're going to be applying the same strategy again next month. Then I go through the presentation out loud, usually sitting down using my notes as a guide just to get a sense of timing. Remember, you'll always speak faster when rehearsing alone. So make sure you give yourself a buffer of time. E.g. if I know that I have five-minutes to say something, I'll give myself 4 min of content because on presentation day I like to make an effort to speak at a proper pace, which is something we'll talk about in a later class. After a couple of run-throughs, you'll find that you won't need your notes anymore. You've got the story and the narrative and the key points down. Remember, you're not memorizing. You're making sure you know the key points you want to make. This is where your aids or slides can help you. Going back to our marketing example, I want to emphasize that customers loved our campaigns. So I'll make a note to add a picture of a client testimonial to my slide to remind me not to forget to mention this on presentation day. Another tip is to go through your presentation and look for any industry jargon or department acronyms. I want you to compile them into a list and make sure that everyone in the room properly understands their definition. They might sound like second nature to you and your team, but your manager or maybe a colleague from another department might not know and be too embarrassed to ask. I always review specific terminology and decide whether or not I need to add a quick definition to the slide or mentioned it myself. Once I'm happy with the structure and general timeline, this is when I'll start to refine in detail. This is where putting in the time does matter. Hearse multiple times from beginning to end until I'm hitting my desired timing consistently. And be sure to time yourself. You'd be surprised at how fast time can fly. Here's the test you can do to see when you're ready to move on. Pick a slide from your presentation at random. You know the key points you want to make without looking at your notes. Do you know what slide comes after and what slide comes before? Once you can identify these things easily, you're ready for the next step. 3. Preparing for Your Presentation : Giving a compelling presentation requires confidence and calm. But since there's always a chance that something unexpected could happen, why not take a few simple steps beforehand to give yourself the best chance for success. I've created a handy checklist for you to use before an upcoming presentation. You don't need every section of this list, so use whatever is helpful to you. Let's go through it together. First, what type of room will you be presenting in a conference room and office and Auditorium? You can write that down. Where is the meeting being held? You can note down the address or specific conference room if your office has a lot of them, What time will you need to depart in order to get there early? You can fill that out too. Now, let's go over to the my computer box. If you're using your own computer, make sure you have your power plug adapter and any other equipment like a clicker that you need before your presentation. Be sure that your OS is up-to-date, that you closed any unnecessary programs and disabled notifications. Make sure your computer is compatible with the conference room software. If you're using the conference rooms equipment, make sure everything works beforehand, that you know how to use the projector buttons and that any videos or audio works ahead of time. If you have a tech team, you can give them a copy of your slides that are compatible and local copies of any media you want to play. The next part of the checklist is all about your position in the room. Things like will you be standing in front of a group, sitting across a desk and someone's office or sitting at a conference room table. Will you be standing? Will you be able to see your screen? Is there a safety monitor? Is there a timer? Next, think about your materials. Do you need printouts or any other aids? Will you be able to see your notes? Will you have a slide presenter mode or just the slides themselves? For remote meetings? Are you comfortable sharing your screen? Do you know how to select the right window? You can reach out to the meeting coordinator or whoever is running the meeting to ask for some clarity. If you don't have the answers to all of these items, it is always better to be prepared. And finally, always, always have a backup. If you need your notes, bring a printed copy, be sure to save your slides to the Cloud, have them on a USB key or give a copy to your colleague will also be at the meeting. If you need access to a website, make sure you have a screenshot in case you can't connect to the internet. If you're playing videos, make sure they're hosted locally as files and not as links. And if you can plan to arrive early, There's nothing worse than arriving somewhere. Realizing there is some sort of issue like to projector isn't working. They move the meeting last minute, there's some sort of delay and then having to rush around in a panic trying to fix it. The goal with this checklist is to make sure you feel calm and ready. Because trust me, at some point in your presenting career, something will go wrong. So why not do everything in your power to meet any unexpected circumstance with grace and with ease. Next up, we'll talk about making a positive first impression. 4. Creating a Positive First Impression: The first few minutes of your presentation are essential and giving people an idea of what to expect. And it's not just about content to presentation also sends a message about who you are and what type of experience and audience can expect. Have you ever started listening to a presentation where the speaker drones on and on or uses terrible slides and you just know that it's going to be boring. So you mentally checkout, how can we avoid this? Well, by making a great first impression, start with introducing yourself. You might laugh, but you'd be surprised how many times I've seen presenters get so nervous that they never identified themselves. This is especially important if you're speaking to other departments in your company or to colleagues who aren't familiar with your work. This doesn't mean giving your entire life story. It's one or two lines about who you are, your role, and why you're giving this presentation. We do this because it establishes credibility and lets people know why you're the one talking about this topic. Let's say I'm presenting our marketing campaign update for the brand I worked for. I could say something like, Hi, I'm half her foolish. I'm the marketing brand director for brand X. Our team is responsible for creating the strategy and executing our marketing campaigns for this product. This is great for internal professional visibility. Don't rush here, smile, make eye contact with people in the room. You can take a beat. Our instinct is just to rush right away, but take a few seconds because that will help form a connection with the people in the room. Now, the second thing you want to do is to give people a sense of what the point of this presentation is and what you expect of them. If you've taken my last class, you'll know we talk about audience objectives and presenter objectives. And to quickly summarize, a presentation can have a lot of different purposes. To inform, to get consensus, to make a decision to discuss, to train, or to educate. I would say something like, Hi, I'm or half her foolish. I'm the marketing brand director for brand X. Our team is responsible for creating the strategy and executing our marketing campaigns for this product. Today we're reviewing two potential suppliers and we'd like the team to choose one. Or today we're sharing results about our Q1 performance and the roadmap moving forward. So everyone is in the loop. You see, this gives people the chance to get into the right state of mind if they know they're going to be updated or that their input is going to be requested. It helps set expectations so they can be mentally prepared. If you're presenting to your team, you can obviously skip your name and role. But I would get into the habit of clarifying what the meeting is for and what the expectations are. Then you want to jump right into the content by capturing their attention right away. You can do this by asking a question or sharing a story. Now personally, I like to start with a question because it puts emphasis on the audience, on their needs and it gives them a chance to immediately be involved. If the question is about them, then there'll be more motivated to pay attention because they'll want to know the answer. And interactivity is always more compelling. E.g. going back to our marketing campaign update, I could open my presentation by asking something like, if you had to guess, what do you think our customers ask for it the most? Or what do you think a good estimate of engagement is in our sector? The question could have different emotional impacts. It could provoke them and make them think. It could make them laugh. It could help inform them. Now, ideally, regardless of the question, The purpose should be in your favor, e.g. if I asked what customers asked for the most, then when I share the answer, it should be something that our campaign is doing. And when I asked for the estimate of engagement, it's because our campaign engagement is exceeding it by asking questions in this way and giving a favorable response. You're also psychologically helping your audience develop confidence in you and to see you as an expert. Asking questions is a powerful way to establish credibility because you guide the listener to make their own conclusions. If you give them a metric and then you're exceeding it in their heads, they're already making a judgment about your competence. Now it's your turn. Take the Creating a positive impression sheet and fill out how you'll introduce yourself and how you will describe the various purposes of the different presentations you might be asked to give. Pick a subject you want to present and identify how you'll open and how you'll capture your audience's attention. Finally, I would encourage you to film yourself giving this introduction to see how it feels and what you think. In the notes on video box you might write something down like make sure not to sway back and forth or remember to maintain eye contact with the people in the room. Once you've made a good impression, you're ready to get into the core of your presentation. 5. Delivering Your Core Content: You've prepared, you've made slides, you've practiced and timed yourself. You've assessed the room in advance, you've got backups, you've introduced yourself, you've smiled, you've connected with the room. You've said why you're there and what the expectations are. Well now what? Well now it's your time to shine. Now we get into the core of your presentation. The materials. You have their attention. Now you have to keep it. You've asked them a question and late in the groundwork to reinforce, improved your competence. Now we have to capture their curiosity and their interest. In the last lesson, I started my presentation with a question, what do you think our customers ask us for the most? Let's say the results were that 83% of our customers ask us for organic ingredients and sustainable packaging. What I can do from here is to go from the data point, the 83%, right to a story to make it more tangible, to make it feel more real. 83% of customers ask us for organic ingredients and sustainable packaging. Customers like Nina, a mom from San Francisco, who has a baby with allergies and needs to be extra careful about what she puts on her skin. Or customers like Mark, a student of Michigan, who cares deeply about how the products he uses impact the environment. Remember the goals of a story or emotional and to strengthen the data you're presenting. You take the statistic to show the macro trend, and then you pick a few stories to show the micro impact so that people can visualize what you're talking about. Often, numbers or statistics are very abstract and they're hard to translate into real human behavior. 83% of our customers feels distant and cold. But I bet you can picture Nina. You can picture mark. You probably know someone like them in your life. And that makes the information sticky. You want to have a balance because too many stories and it will feel anecdotal and subjective, but too many statistics and you won't connect emotionally with your audience. In my creating compelling presentations class, we spent time architecting and narrative arc so that a presentation has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the journey you'll be taking your audience on, take the delivering your core content sheet and fill out an example of a macro trend or a data point. And then a micro story that helps emphasize it. Then as always, fill in the so-what, the point you're trying to make with this particular example. Now that you've got your materials, let's fine-tune the technical aspects of your delivery. In the next lesson, we'll be talking about one of your most powerful weapons. Your voice. 6. Connecting to Your Audience: The expression, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. That's especially true when you're presenting. Your voice gives people the emotional texture that adds context to what you're saying. In this lesson, we're talking about tone, speed, pitch, and silence as ways to connect your audience. The worst thing you can do as monotone. This is one of the most common mistakes I see people do, and it's often from nervousness, but also thinking that it sounds more professional. Whatever you do, don't do that. Adding emotion and a combination of tones helps keep the audience's attention. Tell your story better, and emphasize that your messaging points. So let's get started with tone. E.g. if I said, our customers are curious and they have a lot of questions versus our customers are curious and they have a lot of questions. Different tones can be serious, it can be angry, defensive, positive, happy, upbeat, encouraging. You name it. The first thing you'll wanna do when preparing for your presentation as you go through it, is to think about the tone that you want to convey. There are two things to think about with tone. One is your tone as the presenter, and two, is the tone that the material needs. You don't want to talk about a natural disaster or something awful and an upbeat tone, e.g. in the connecting with your voice sheet, I've given you a script to practice with, and I want you to upload a video where you read the script with two different tones. One that's conveying good news, and one that is conveying bad news. So try it and let me know how it feels. The second way you can connect with your voice is speed, or how fast you speak. Speed is generally associated with emotion. If you speak fast, you tend to be impatient or excited or agitated. And when you speak slowly, it's used to create an opportunity for your words to have some extra weight. If I'm telling a story and there's an exciting part, I might start off with speaking a little faster. And then if there's a point I want to emphasize, I might slow down. So it might look something like this. Our customers were loving it. There were clicking liking, they were forwarding, we were going viral or views were off the charts. But what we realized was it was because they felt seen, they felt heard. Let's dive into this data. See excitement but also tension. So what happens if we only used one speed here? Like if I only use the fast one, our customers were loving it. They were clicking there were lacking, there were forwarding, we were going viral or views were off the charts. But what we realized was it was because they felt, they felt hurt. Let's dive into this data. Or what about just using the slow speed? Our customers were loving it. We're clicking, they were liking there were forwarding, we were going viral or views are off the charts. But what we realized was it was because they felt seen, they felt heard. Let's dive into this data. Each delivery feels a little bit different, right? So play around with your speed and use it to inject emotion and emphasis. Check the script provided and the connecting with your voice sheet to play around with fast speeds and low speeds of delivery. Next, it's pitch. Pitch is the timbre of your voice. You can have a high pitch, which is also exciting, or lower pitch, which is more serious. Now pitches often used in conjunction with speed and tone, lower pitches tend to be more serious. And this doesn't have to be comical. Think Elizabeth Holmes is famous, deep tone. It's not about extremes, it's about variety and variability. This is my normal pitch. This is my high pitch, and this is my lower pitch. It's subtle, but it makes a difference because as humans we've evolved to pick up nuances in voices to understand people's emotional states. Our customers were loving it. They were clicking, there, were liking, they were forwarding, They were going viral or views were off the chart. What we realized was it was because they felt seen and they felt heard. Let's dive into this data. Our customers were loving it. They were clicking, they were liking, they were forwarding, we're going viral. Our views were off the charts. But what we realized was it was because they felt seen and they felt heard. Let's dive into this data. The magic really happens when we combine pitches. Our customers were loving it. They were clicking, they were liking, they were forwarding. We were going viral. Our views were off the charts. But what we realized was it was because they felt seen, they felt heard. Let's dive into this data. The last tool in your kit is not speaking at all, silence. Now people hate silence because we've been taught that it's awkward so we jump in and try to fill it. I'm not talking about long silences, but often I noticed people rushed so fast from sentence to sentence that they rob their audience of the opportunity to let a point sink and take a look at this. Our customers are loving it. They were clicking. There were liking that we're forwarding, we're going viral. Our views were off the charts. But what we realized was it was because they felt seen. They felt heard. Let's dive into this data. See the pause. There was only half a second, but it's enough. Silences give people a chance to catch up, to process, to sit with your point. As with everything, it's about balance, too many silences and it will feel odd and too little in your presentation might come across as rushed. Silences and pauses are also ways to control the pacing of your presentation. Remember, you're creating an experience, a journey for your listeners. Try the silence script on your sheet to see where you can insert pauses to make the content more meaningful. At the bottom of the sheet, you'll find a complete script where you can practice all of these elements together. You'll eventually start to develop an instinct or an ear for how you tell people stories. When you're watching movies, a fun thing to do is to try to pick up on these tools when an actor is giving a monologue, CP can pick out tone, pitch, speed, and pauses. And like any skills, it's going to feel a little forced at first. Or you might feel like it's too many things to keep in mind at once. But you can start with one skill and slowly layer on the rest. Be kind to yourself and give yourself space to learn these skills and to apply them. Don't expect to pick them up instantly. It's a learning curve, but that's what makes it fun. 7. Projecting Confidence: In addition to your voice, which we covered in the last lesson, your body is also an important tool that can convey messages like nervousness or confidence. Let's break down a few key elements of body language. You'll need the projecting confidence with body language sheet that has multiple exercises for you, just like in our last class. First, I contact, you know that making eye contact creates connection and intimacy. Obviously don't stare without blinking at people because that's weird. But taking a few seconds to make eye contact with people in the room while you're speaking is another way for you to control your presentation experience and to convey confidence. E.g. if I said, the marketing team received a lot of feedback about our latest product launch and marketing campaign versus the marketing team received a lot of feedback about our latest product launch and marketing campaign. You see the difference between the two. I've heard advice that says look to the back of the room if you're nervous, but generally that applies to large spaces. If you're in a smaller environment, not making eye contact is going to be odd. If we're nervous, we tend to avoid making eye contact. So what you can do is find what I call a friendly face in the room. Maybe that colleague that has your back or a manager you like, and you can tell them in advance, you're going to be my friendly face and their job is to not encouragingly and smile and just help you feel confident while you present. You want to look around the room, but don't spend too much time on one person, not even your friendly face. It should just be a couple of seconds and you do this so that people feel included and what you're saying, you can use the script provided and record yourself with and without eye contact. Now, look at your video. Did you spend some time looking at each person? Were you focused on a random spot? How did the delivery feel different when you were looking versus when you weren't looking? The second thing you want to consider is your posture. We feel nervous, shy or uncomfortable. We draw in on ourselves. We might unintentionally lean away or turn from the people were addressing. It's a subconscious mechanism to make us feel safe by avoiding the source of our distress and this case presenting. Now posture indicates confidence. Do you want to make sure that you are standing straight and facing your audience head-on. You don't want to be stiff, you just want to be open and steady. A good tip is to shrug your shoulders and then just drop them. And that's your neutral position and it's a good starting point for you. If you're sitting in a chair like IM, make sure you're not slouching. You can lean forward a little and put your hands on the desk in front of you. You can practice this in a mirror or with your webcam, but find something that feels comfortable for you. And how are you standing? What is your body language say about your comfort level? Try the exercise script under the posture box and see how it feels to deliver the same content. Once while slouched, once while sitting or standing up straight. The third is your body movement or how you fidget. Some common culprits are swaying back and forth, fidgeting with jewelry or shirt collar, playing with your hair, playing with your hands, readjusting your clothing, you get the picture. These gestures convey nervousness. Richard Newman, who is an expert on body language, has some great tips I want to share. He says that if your words are saying one thing and your body language is saying another, people will actually listen to your body first. Meaning you could be saying how confident you are in something, but if your body language shows nervousness, people will pick up on that first. I always recommend that you start with developing a comfort and standing still, walking around might be good when you're on stage, but in a meeting room or office, you might not have the space. So focus on planting your feet, having a relaxed posture and addressing your audience. Record yourself with the test script. Now look at your video. Can you spot some of your habits? We all have these little tails and being aware of them can be helpful in making sure we're presenting an intentional version of ourselves. Now, try the same script while walking around the room and practice doing both until they feel natural. The fourth part of body language is your gestures. Many of us talk with our hands and use our hands to emphasize a point. Examples are pointing the thumb, fist, and all the ways we use both of our hands. You wanna have a variety of gestures that you feel comfortable doing. Because if you're only doing one for the entire time that you're presenting, it feels stiff and it will bore the audience. But if I cycle through them, it's more visually interesting. So you want to make note of a few that feels good for you. One powerful gesture that I learned from Richard Newman is the palms up, palms down movement. It's simple yet effective in underlying your point. Palms up is open, receiving questions. Palm down is assertive and certain. He says, imagine someone asks you to clarify your data on a slide and you say, we've checked these figures in their correct. Are there any other questions or we've checked these figures and their correct. Are there any other questions? Same delivery, but the body language gives it a very different nuance. So gestures like these can signal openness and assertiveness. So make sure that you're using them at the appropriate point. I've also included a script for you to practice putting all of these skills together at the same time. And remember you don't have to master them all at once. Just take your time and soon there'll be second nature. 8. Handling Questions : One of the most stressful parts of presenting is the unknown of what people will ask. What happens if you get asked something that you don't know or something that you can't answer. In this lesson, we'll cover some strategies for handling questions Like a Pro. First and foremost, preparation is key. Make a list of all the possible questions someone might ask you and then think about how you would formulate a response. You can ask your colleagues or friends for ideas. Have them grill you about the topic and see what happens so that you can rehearse your answers. Let's say despite this, someone asked you something and you have no idea how to answer, okay, what do we do? There are three steps here. First step, received the question. Don't panic. I sometimes see people freak out and rush to answer the question immediately. But you can take a second and you can say something like, Great question or thanks for your question. This is just a few seconds to give you the chance to think about your response if you haven't answered, great, give it. If not, move on to the next step. Step to seek clarity. If you need a little bit more time or you're not sure exactly what they're asking, you can do one of two things. One, you can either repeat the question back to them, say something like, let me make sure I'm understanding the question or what you're asking is and then just repeat their question back at them. Or two, you can ask for some more information. Great question. Are you asking specifically about these figures? Are you more interested in these figures? You can ask the person to elaborate to buy more time. Third step is answering. By this point, you might have figured out the answer in which case, great, go ahead and give it. If you're still not sure. Can you think of any adjacencies, e.g. if someone asks you about data for a campaign that you don't have, you could say something like, I don't have the exact figures for campaign a, but I do know that when we ran campaign be last year, this is what happened on those campaigns. Share a lot of similarities or you can redirect to something that you do know. I don't have the exact figures for campaign a, but I do know that the marketing team regularly tracks these metrics and we've learned XYZ. Finally, you can also see that you don't know. You can say something like, I don't have those exact figures, but I can get you something right after the meeting. Be sure to speak confidently because it's normal not to know everything. You can say. Something like, I don't want to speak on this without double-checking the numbers first, so let me do that and I'll get back to right after the meeting. It's normal to have some gaps and your expertise information moves so fast that it's impossible to be on top of everything. The key is to be calm and composed to acknowledge that you don't have all the answers to gracefully handle it. And then to follow up, now it's your turn. Fill out the handling questions, cheat with your strategies to receive, seek clarity, redirect, and say that you don t know. Videotape yourself practicing each of these steps and soon, no question we'll be able to face you. 9. Conquering Your Nerves: Nerves are a normal part of presenting. I've been speaking for over a decade and I still get really nervous right before I go onstage. So here are a few things to think about when combating nervousness. Nerves are assigned that you're growing and learning. You should be pushing yourself and you should be a little uncomfortable. It just means you're acquiring a new skill set. Growth is essential and you are investing in a skill set that is going to serve you for the rest of your career. I've created a sheet for you to think about how you can build your very own nerve calming toolkit. So let's go through it together. If you follow the advice in this class so far you've done the heavy lifting because the hardest part is to prepare and practice. Now while we can do is focus on calming our body and our minds. So first, let's focus on how we'll call them our body's breathing techniques are an effective way that we can use to regulate our nervous system. So you can do a counted breadth where you do a 478. That means you inhale for four, hold for seven, then exhale for eight. The next thing to think about is how to calm your mind. So much of this is about mindset. If you accept that nerves are normal part of this experience, you can slowly find a calm within the nervousness. I'll share with you a trick that I like to do. I picture in my mind my seat or the place I'll be standing on stage. And then imagine all the people that I love and the people who have my back. I picture all the love and support that I feel from them. And I pretend that all of that love is accumulated on that one spot. Then when I stand on that spot, it's like being in a love force-field. It really works. But you can choose to do a meditation or choose a mantra or affirmation, use whatever works for you. You can also try using a symbol, something like a talisman, like a crystal or a key chain or a piece of jewelry, something that gives that extra boost. I sometimes put a little crystal in my pocket or where a lucky necklace, just little symbols to give my subconscious a jolt of courage. Another thing you can try is having a ritual from what you eat for breakfast or doing an extra meditation, whatever columns you and makes you feel good. Maybe on the day of the big presentation, you go out for an early morning run to get some of that excess energy out. And rituals are powerful because they send a signal to our brain about the predicted series of steps that get us in the right headspace. My presentation routine is to drink a coffee, do some stretching, and review my notes. I always like to do a final practice, even if it means getting up really early that day. So do whatever works for you. Go through and think about what techniques will be effective for you and list them out so you have them ready when you need them. Finally, let's talk about planning for the unplanned. And this is a big one. Go through all the nightmare scenarios that you can think of and forced herself to figure out a response. So nightmare, I forget what I'm saying. Solution. I have my notes that I can refer to. Nightmare. Someone asks me a question. I don't have the answer to solution. I'll say I don't have those figures off the top of my head, but I'll be sure to follow up with you shortly. Nightmare, the projector fails halfway through the presentation solution. I've got backup printouts of my presentation and handouts for people. Nightmare, I get interrupted. Solution. I'll say, I'd like to refocus on this issue and come back to questions after you get the idea. Sometimes the worst thing about an unexpected thing happening is that it catches you off guard. So having some sense of what you'd say or do could ease your anxiety of the unknown. Remember, courage doesn't mean you don't feel fear. It just means that you feel the fear and you do it anyway. So trust me, You've got this. 10. Landing the Close: You're almost there. You've made your points and answered questions. It's now time to wrap it up. You want to close strong with the same intent and thoughtfulness that you've put into other parts of your presentation. The good news is you have all the pieces. So let's use our landing the close sheet to make sure we get it right. First. You want to remind people of the objectives of the presentation. So what were the core messages and goals you wanted to achieve in our marketing example, I would've said to communicate how our team successfully executed a new campaign, fill out whatever your objectives are in that box on the sheet. Next, you want to summarize the key points of your message. You want to ask yourself, what were the most important things that you wanted people to remember from your presentation? So for me, I would write, consumers told us they wanted to sustainable packaging and organic ingredients product. We created it, the results were positive and increased our engagement across the board. So I would fill that out and you would fill out yours on the sheet as well. Then we're going to think about how we want to define any call to action. Maybe I'm requesting an increase in budget for next year or I want a new software to help me reach more customers, or our team wants to hire more people, whatever it is, remember to reiterate the ask so that it's top of mind and super clear. So go ahead and fill out that box. And then finally, don't forget to thank people for their time and attention. People like to be appreciated. You can thank the person who organized the meeting or other team members for contributing and also the people in the room for listening. But this shouldn't be long. It's not an Oscar speech, but when you put it altogether, it should sound something like this. To summarize, our customers requested sustainable packaging and organic ingredients. So we've promoted a new product with these features using our word listening campaign. This campaign resonated with our clients and exceeded metrics and we're planning on extending it for the next three months. Thanks Susie for bringing us together today to talk about our campaign. The team worked really hard for these results and I'm thrilled and thanks everyone for your time. We're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback about our proposed budget and requests for new hires. Thanks again. And that's it. So now it's your turn. Fill out the landing, the close sheet with these different components, and then record yourself practicing them until it feels natural to you. And then the presentations over you did it. You can bask in your success knowing you've created a compelling presentation that made you, your team and your work look great. So congratulations, you've earned it. 11. Final Thoughts: You did it. We've covered all the tools you need to communicate your ideas and compelling way from how to effectively recurse to being prepared for the big day. You now even have a checklist to make sure you don't forget anything. You know how to create a positive first impression and have mastered using your voice to connect to your audience through tones, speed, pitch, and silence. You also know how to use your body to convey confidence, especially when handling unexpected questions. You spent some time developing your own unique toolkit to master nerves. And you know exactly what you need to do to close strong. I can't wait to see your videos in the class project section. So join me there and let's keep the conversation going. Presenting is just a skill like any other. The best way to keep improving is to put yourself out there. So find as many opportunities as you can to speak in public and practice on your family and friends. You can even suggest some presentation practices for your team and go through the scripts together. I have several other classes on Skillshare, so I hope you'll continue your learning journey with me. I'll see you soon.