Presentational Skills and Business Marketing Hints & Tips

What a fabulous start to the Annual Outstanding Presentations Workshop! If you missed the first session here’s a quick recap.

1. Add your own sketch to a slide

One of the techniques that Carmen Taran mentioned in her Outstanding Presentations Workshop 2011 presentation, that can help you create more authentic slides, is to hand-sketch a diagram or image on a piece of paper, scan it, and add it as an image to a presentation.

See an example and read the steps

2. First session of Outstanding Presentations Workshop off to a great start!

Dr. Carmen Taran led off the 7-session, free series with an amazing presentation entitled, “How authentic are your presentations? Using beautiful and thought-provoking slides, she explained how to avoid a canned, sterotypical look, both by the choice of images and the choice of words. One of her points about using simple, clear words was, “If they can’t repeat it, they didn’t get it.”

She talked about SGS = ?

Find out what SGS stands for, and more!

3. Presentation: Slide Design for the Artistically Challenged

I’m pleased to report that my presentation, partnered with PresentationXpert, has been published on SlideRocket, in their Presentations and Webinars Showcase.

The presentation is a short take on how people who feel “artistically challenged” can nevertheless design clear and professional-looking slides.

In the presentation, I tell the story of my embarrassment over a slide that I created and what I did to learn how to design slides.

Get the link so you can watch the presentation! Then tell everyone you know not to miss the next Wednesday’s presentation.

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Free Webinar: Outstanding Presentations Workshop

Posted on September 3, 2011 by admin

I am so excited! I just received an email from PowerPoint Guru, Ellen Finkelstein and had to share this unique opportunity with you. It seems that even PowerPoint Blog is announcing their superb annual webinar.

Here’s the link for more information: Outstanding Presentations Workshop.

If you ever have attended, shown, or put together a PowerPoint Presentation, or even if you just want to do so in the future, this is your chance to learn from the leaders in the industry. You’ll be astounded at the top talent Ellen has been able to garner. (No, I am not speaking this time, but stay tuned, maybe next time I can fit it into my schedule.)

Carmen Taran: Co-founder of Rexi Media and author of Better Beginnings

Cliff Atkinson: Best-selling author of Beyond Bullet Points

Bruce Gabrielle: Author of Speaking PowerPoint: The New Language of Business

Jan Shultink: CEO of Idea Transplant

Simon Morton: Founder of Eyeful Presentations

Andrew Dlugan: Founder and editor of the Six Minutes blog

AND Ellen herself will be closing out the program!!

Ellen Finkelstein: PowerPoint MVP and author of PowerPoint for Teachers

The webinars are every Wednesday at 11am PT, 12pm MT, 1pm CT, 2pm ET, starting on September 7th, featuring:

• Guest presentation experts
• Q&A
• Recordings available free for 2 weeks after each session

Did I mention it’s free? Don’t miss this one-time opportunity to get valuable advice from top experts and break out of the old presentation mold. Click here to sign up for the free 7-week webinar series. Even if you’ll be viewing the recordings, you’ll need to register; otherwise, you won’t be notified when the recordings are posted — and where!

I’ll be looking for you!

Today is Sunday and I am blessed to be in the choir at my local church. This gives me a chance to see a well-trained speaker each and every week from a back stage view. What does it mean to be a well-trained speaker? To me it is someone who holds themselves in a professional and authoritative stance. Not only do they speak well, know their topic and present it in a credible manner, but they communicate, with their body, an air of professionalism.

In light of the digital presentations we now are all privy too, it is just as important to communicate your message verbally with a tone of confidence. Just because you may not be physically in front of your audience don’t think that you can slack on practicing in front of your mirror. This exercise will help you build your level of confidence and give you just the edge you need when it comes time to share your message.

What are some other ways you can stand tall when presenting? Are there things you do to prepare for a virtual presentation that are different from a live presentation? Or do you always prepare the same way?

Welcome to Ginger Marks Books blog. This is where you, my readers, can converse. I invite you to let me know what you are thinking about the books that I have written or the topics that I have written about.

Since Presentational Skills for the Next Generation will be launching on Amazon very soon, I would love to open the conversation with public speaking as the theme. I pose this question to you, do you experience stage fright? If so, how do you handle it?