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When you have been asked or hired to give a presentation, you will usually be introduced to the group before you present. Often, the person chosen to introduce you is not a seasoned speaker. The introduction, therefore, by this well-meaning person can turn the audience off before one word comes out of your mouth. How can you avoid this?

Write out your introduction!

• Prepare a short and snappy introduction to hand to your introducer.
• I often send one ahead also. This helps the group to have pre-presentation information for a flyer or newsletter.
• Even if you send one ahead, bring a copy with you.
• When you arrive, ask who will be introducing you and give him/her the copy and take a couple of minutes to point out pronunciation of any words that might be difficult or unfamiliar.
• Another note is to double space, use a font of at least size 12, and do not use all caps, which are hard to read.

What to include! When I wrote “short and snappy” I meant it. If the introduction drags on or is too praiseworthy, it will turn the audience off before you stand up. Just include the pertinent facts in the description — facts that are interesting and make the listeners sit up and take notice. The only time I include my college background is when I feel I need it for credibility.

What is your topic? Include words in the introduction that position you to speak on the topic you are presenting. What is it about you that gives you the expertise to talk about this topic? For example, if you are talking about running a successful home business, do you, yourself, have a home business? If not, you might want to reconsider speaking about home businesses.

A little humor goes a long way! One humorous fact can help any introduction to warm the audience. However, don’t depend upon pacing or delivery from the person who is reading your introduction. You can even add a line at the end that leads into a quick note of humor for your beginning comments.

What to do while being introduced! Often, while we are being introduced, audience members can observe us (we may be up on a stage or platform, or sitting at a table in full view). Make sure that you look lively, prepared and professional (I’ve seen presenters with their heads down, looking completely bored or practically asleep). As soon as the introducer is finished, be ready to jump up with enthusiasm and shake his/her hand.

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!

Entrepreneurs know that understanding common negotiation tactics is good business. Having a good understanding of the strategies that can be used by you or on you is necessary to becoming a skilled negotiator.

Negotiation is usually a part of any deal or transaction and it must be a strong part of your game. In this article we present some ideas that will give you an opportunity to look at negotiation in an entirely new way and will give you a better basis for playing the negotiation game. It will help you work on your business psychology and to become a more skilled entrepreneur and negotiator.

Everything’s negotiable

The first tactic for successful negotiation is, always, “everything’s negotiable”. There are many negotiating strategies and tactics, but if you don’t get rule number one, those strategies won’t apply because you will not be doing much, if any, negotiating. You must believe that everything is negotiable. For example, I recently asked my phone company to throw in a couple of free months phone service because I had been a customer for a number of years. They said yes. Had I not asked, I would not have received the bonus months.

In most deals multiple items can and should be negotiated. In a purchase of a mid-size apartment building I negotiated several items before we would close the deal. The seller carried a large, unsecured note on the property, gave us a seller credit for repairs, which bought us a new roof, asphalt and sidewalks, and they accepted a significantly lower purchase price. Whether a deal is small or large, most people and companies are willing to negotiate.

Be willing to walk from the deal

The second tactic for successful negotiation is you must be willing to walk from the deal, and the other party must believe it. That means you need to believe it. If you’re buying a new house, for example, and you’ve completely fallen in love with it, you absolutely must have it, negotiations will not be as successful. If you must have the house or property, use a “partner” as the one who could do without. In this instance you could say, “I doubt my partner will agree to that. He doesn’t really want this particular house that bad. I’ll ask him.” In either case, the other party must know, without a doubt, that you are willing to walk from the deal with zero regrets.

Once you have these two rules down, it is pretty much smooth sailing from here. But, you’ve got to believe rule #1 and rule #2. This is non-negotiable (in spite of rule #1).

Be able to set aside a single issue as you work towards an agreement

Use your people skills, no need to be pushy. Negotiations can and should be about people. Take your time. Find out what motivates the other party through conversation, questions and listening. Ask yourself, “What does each party need to accomplish?” This will give you an opportunity to navigate towards a solution where each party realizes their desired goal (ideally). You might say, “Let’s sit down and talk and see if we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement.”

This is an important strategy to fully understand. Let’s say from our example above, that the seller of the house you looked at had already told you he would accept nothing less than a full price offer. Rather than let this kill the deal, your goal will be to say, “Let’s put that aside and see if we can agree on everything else.” There are still many scenarios where the seller could get his full price but not in the way he might be seeing right now. For example, you could end up negotiating a seller credit for repairs, or the seller could carry back a small second. In both cases, he could still get the full asking price, or close to it, but the actual dollar amounts would be categorized at closing as something other than the purchase price.

You’ll have to do better than that

This is a simple and effective strategy. When the offer is made, you simply reply, “You’ll have to do better than that.” This is particularly effective when the other party clearly realizes that you are not desperate to get the deal done and are, in fact, willing to walk. The key here is to make your statement and then stop talking! Give the other party an opportunity to negotiate against themselves and make a better offer.

The High Low Game

There are many negotiation strategies. Some, such as the High Low game, are old and frankly, unnecessarily confrontational. You start low, the other party starts high, and hopefully, you meet somewhere in the middle. This is generally not an effective strategy. It’s a game where the focus is solely on the money and all other elements of negotiation are set aside. It’s a game of chicken which is time consuming and can even damage the relations between the parties. There may be issues of more significant value to both parties when the simple dollar amounts are removed from the negotiations.

When to quit

If the other party refuses to negotiate further, and you have not reached an acceptable deal, always remember you can walk away and come back later. You could offer to resubmit an offer in a week, or a month. This accomplishes a number of things. It reinforces rule #2 (you are willing to walk from the deal), it provides a break from negotiations and gives both parties an opportunity to think about what they’ve brought to the table so far, and it allows for some distance, helping you to reevaluate your desire to see the deal through to completion.