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Stop Presentation Stress – Once and For All

Cope with Nerves

Stressed out about business presentations? Would you rather stay in bed, hide in the bathroom or find an excuse to leave work early than get up in front of a group?

For anyone looking for strategies to reduce fear of public speaking, a new webinar training series will help you calm down, reduce stress and handle presentations like a pro.

As a professional, it’s your job to give presentations. Most likely, all day – every day. Most people find that as they advance in their career, so does the number of presentations on their calendar.

But there is always the fear that shows up before getting up on stage. It may show up as nervous jitters, dry throat, upset stomach, nausea or sweaty palms.

Here are 7 tips to conquer nervous stress about presenting and public speaking – so you can rise in your career without having your blood pressure rise too!

1. Picture Success
Imagine vividly the positive outcomes of your speech. This could be applause, approval of your proposal, or winning a big contract. Perhaps your boss will finally notice how much value you bring to the team. Whatever motivates you and gives you a warm happy feeling – picture that!

2. Rename Nervous Energy
Feeling nervous can be a good thing. It’s a sign of positive excitement and adrenaline. This is necessary for peak performance. Rename the symptoms as a good sign and you’re much more likely to accept the sensations and move forward.

3. Hold Onto a Marker
The first moments of presenting can be when you feel most uncertain. Hold onto a marker – and head to a flipchart or whiteboard. Use your marker to steady yourself. This is also a great way to plan for specific steps and visual maps to structure your talk.

4. Pause
Pause before you speak. This makes you look, well, presidential. Many executives, politicians and leaders know this trick. Pause. It could be the most important thing you do.

While you’re gathering yourself, your audience is also focusing on you. Command the space during your pause. Then, you’ll feel much more ready to move ahead.

5. Breathe Slowly
Slow down your breath. Some people find that counting inhalations and exhalations is an effective way to slow down and calm down. Experiment to find your own comfort zone.

6. Structure Your Story
A clear roadmap for your presentation is a great stress reducer. Once you know what you’re going to say, do and draw, it’s a lot easier to handle the amount of time you have in front of a group. If you aren’t 100% sure how to structure a compelling story, take a professional training webinar to find out.

7. Review What Worked
After every presentation, ask yourself a single question: “What worked?” This will help you build a set of personal best practices. Instead of trying to remember a complicated set of expert rules, you’ll have your own private collection of what works for you.

Presenting in front of groups is a part of professional life. By learning techniques and tips to get comfortable you are positioning yourself for career success.

Just like many parts of professional life, measurement is a terrific motivator. Learn the tricks of the trade by recording your own progress in overcoming stress. Simple ways to increase measurement include tracking:

1. How many presentations are you giving a week?
2. What techniques are helping you reduce stress?
3. How many presentation training webinars are you attending?
4. What best practices work best for you?
5. How often are you getting expert feedback from a coach?

See how this works? And here’s the best news: A small amount of learning, tracking and personal feedback has a big impact!

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Postcard Printing – Presenting Newsletters in Style

Postcard printing has gone a long way since 1861 when John P. Charlton first patented the postcard in Philadelphia. The medium serves a lot of purpose these days. It can be used both for personal and business purposes. It even has an electronic version that contains a lot of graphics and animations.

People have seen the potential of this material that they have used it in many ways. Sending your love to your family and acquaintances that live far has become more creative through the use of picture postcards. Even up to this day when people are equipped with the latest gadgets that can send images in a jiffy to people around the globe, postcards still bring a different feel. It is more personal. It is more felt.

For such reason, business owners have learned to gain the advantages that postcards present. For one, this is an affordable route. They can have their cards printed and even personalized to suit each of their client’s preferences. And postcards can be used in different ways to help the entrepreneur in ways they want to be served.

A Different Kind of Newsletter
Do you send out newsletters to your clients? How sure are you that people are able to read your messages? The conventional kinds of newsletters vary from one page, two-folds or tri-fold paper material that contain the company’s announcements regarding events and promotions. Newsletters update the business’ clients and probable ones about what’s new with the company. The material provides them with information about the current state as well as the future happenings with the company.

But the multi-pages newsletters may not be appealing to everyone. If people still have to read all though the material to get your point, you are lucky if they will even open the envelope or unfold your letter for them to view its entirety.

This tool also has an electronic version. This medium is easier to distribute and less costly. You can send out pertinent information through email to the people who may be interested with what you have to say. But the main disadvantage of this is that you cannot control every Internet setting of all the names on your list. As a result, your email may be directed to the spam folder which your clients may not care to even look at.

For you to be able to conquer these obstacles, you must come up with variations that will help you get your message out there in ways that people will read and understand them. This is where postcard printing can help you out. You can use this type to contain your company newsletter. But you must remember the following.

o Be concise. Use the limited space to point out the most important facts that you want people to know about.

o Be different. Make sure that you will be able to capture the attention of your recipients by presenting your card in a different manner.

o Be clear. Before you head on to the printing company that will process your materials, look over your design to take note that it is complete. Read aloud your message to hear if it sounds real and convincing. Include a call to action, as well as your complete contact details.

Giving out newsletters to your specific list will never be the same again with the advent of postcard printing. Let this tool aid you to materialize your dreams to succeed and last in the industry you are in.

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The Missing Ingredient in All Sales Presentations

There is one critical ingredient that is missing in almost every sales presentation that will be given today by tens of thousands of salespeople worldwide. What is it? Tension management. What is tension management?

There are two factors in tension management that determines whether a prospect buys or doesn’t buy. They are simply resources and challenges. If their resources are high or if they believe they are and their challenges are low, or they believe they are they will NOT buy. Why? Don’t need it, everything is just fine the way it is. No need to change. They are in what we call apathy. This is the “do nothing” phase.

However, if their resources, or their perceived resources are low and their challenges or perceived challenges are low they will buy but most like for the wrong reasons therefore opening the door for a cancelled sale or unhappy customer. You see they are in what we refer to as stress and stress is the panic stage.

So, where do you want your prospect so they will buy and be happy they did? The key factor is to know where they are on the tension scale. There are 5 layers; stress, power stress, power, power apathy and apathy. If your prospect is in apathy you need to do one or both of the following. You need to show them where their resources are inadequate for the challenges they face so you can move them up the scale to Power Stress – this is where people buy.

If they are in stress, you need to show them how your products or services will reduce their challenges and increase their resources so you can move them down to Power Stress.

If this all sounds confusing, it’s really quite simple.
1) Identify which tension level your prospect is in with good questions then
2) Move them either up or down the scale by managing their awareness of their challenges and resources.

Yes, there is more to it but this gives you the essence. Basically what all prospects want is control and if they feel in control they won’t buy unless you can show them where they are out of control – playing with their resources and challenges. If they feel out of control they will tend to be more interested in what you have to offer as long as you can identify their level of tension and then manage it accordingly.

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