Avoiding Charisma: 10 Tips for Putting Your Audience to Sleep During Your Presentation

Have you ever fallen asleep when listening to a speech or presentation? Sometimes a little nap during a presentation can boost your energy for the rest of the day.  Speakers- if you want to be the one to put your audience to sleep, so they will be fully alert for other people’s presentations follow these ten tips.

1.    Make sure that your material is dry and boring. Make sure that your material is either highly technical or complex. If at all possible fill your speech with specialized academic content that is not easily understood without prior study and research.


2.    Do not include any explanations or illustrations to make the content understandable to the average person in your audience.


3.    Schedule your speech to be at the end of a long day or after a big meal. This will give added incentive for drowsiness and lethargy.


4.    Speak softly and avoid any expression or vocal variety that might distract or interest your audience.


5.    Stand still behind the lectern for the entire speech. Any movement or sudden gestures could wake up your audience.


6.    Avoid any variation in style in your presentation. Do not change from talking to using a flip chart, PowerPoint or any other kind of visual aid or prop that will attract attention.


7.    Do NOT include any humor or stories in your speech that might illustrate the important points you wish to communicate.


8.    Do not keep to the topic of the speech. Spend a large amount of time rambling about subjects or personal experiences that are boring and totally off topic.


9.    Speak about a topic that is very familiar to your audience. Keep your content to things that they already know.


10.    Provide highly detailed handouts, so that your audience will not miss out on any important information during their snooze. Make sure that you do not say anything that is not included in the hand out. For best results, just read the handout word for word.

Hopefully, by following carefully the ten tips outlined here, you will have the satisfaction of seeing an entire audience snoring quietly and happily throughout your entire presentation. If you do not follow these tips you may be alarmed to discover that your audience is alert and interested in what you have to say.

Learn how to electrify your audiences, visit: Charisma

Persuasive Speech Topics That Capture Your Audience's Full Attention!

First, if you are looking for a charismatic or persuasive or speech topic, you must know that the more controversial the speech topic, the more response you will get from your audiences.  The topic sentence has to be short, declarative sentence that states the central idea of your speech. Your persuasive speech topics should zero in on one main idea rather than focusing on entirely different areas.  If you are looking for science related speech topics, there are plenty of those in the science forums. It is relatively easy to join forums.   A visual presentation is sure to bring your informative speech topics to a whole new level of interest.

Choosing a persuasive speech topic for your presentation is not an easy task. Introduce the topic with a statement of fact and support that statement with the main points of your speech. Write a purpose statement by stating the goal and topic for a speech and specifying the method to be used in developing the speech.  This means you will have to research your topic and work your sources into your speech and outline.

The more controversial your persuasive speech topic, the harder challenge you are creating for yourself, and the more you'll learn. Interest the listeners in the topic, purpose, and issues of the speech. Developing a topic and identifying the purpose of a speech will aid in the organization and direction of the overall performance.  You will get enthusiastic applause...perhaps even a standing ovation, every time you speak if you develop informative speech topics which are slightly controversial in nature! However, don’t go for total shock value. If you emphasize both the positive and negative characteristics of your topic in order to provide a well-balanced speech, you will definitely make your speech more interesting! Also, by instilling passion, you are seen as a charismatic speaker who can inspire others past their self-induced limitations.
So, the idea here is to first pick a topic and then list down the positive and negative characteristics of your topic. It will stimulate your mind in more ways than you can imagine, and could easily spawn dozens of speech topic ideas.

To develop more persuasive speeches, visit: Charisma

How Charismatic Leaders Speak to Touch the Heart

Presentations and seminars become all too familiar in the business world.  Jim Speaker is there with the overhead projector and PowerPoint slides-each with four of five points.  Hours later the seminar is over.  Seminars are informative but can be deadly. Just give me the handout and I’ll read it at home! It takes a dynamic and charismatic presenter to step out from behind the lectern and shake up and motivate their audience.

Facts touch or mind, but it is the power that comes from stories that touch hearts. Everybody loves a story. Stories give us insight life and human nature.  They can make us laugh and they can make us cry.  Storytelling will go beyond the bullet points and will make a memorable impression on the heart that can change a life. 

As a speaker, you can use stories to give your presentation the impact that you desire to:

• Tell inspirational stories to persuade, motivate or entertain.  Use stories to illustrate the point you want to make. Try to find stories that are relevant to the audience.  For example, for software engineers, tell a story about the young engineer who started a company in his garage and how Microsoft changed the world.

• Tell a story from your own experience.  Make a habit of keeping a story journal and record your day’s experiences.  You will have a rich supply of unique experiences to draw from to illustrate your point. 

• Use gestures and acting techniques to bring your story to life.  Don’t just tell your audience about a difficult client; get up and show them.  Actions have a greater impact on the point you are making. 

• Use description and dialogue.  Take your audience into the story by using description and dialogue. Help them visualize and feel that they are part of the experience.

• Practice your story until it’s natural.  Use the pacing and rhythm to communicate your message to your audience.  Listen to a tape recording of yourself.  Check how you have varied the tone of your voice and your speed to create the biggest impact in your story.

Remember it’s not about you; it’s about your audience.  You have a great story and an important message to convey.  By concentrating on your audience, you will become more confident and relaxed. This will result in your audience feeling comfortable and more receptive to your message.

To learn how to be more engaging and persuasive, visit: Charisma

Adding Charisma to Your Presentations by Developing a Dynamic Story

Story telling is a very effective way to get your point across. Here are some tips to help you develop a dynamic powerful story to become more charismatic.

•Decide on the purpose for the story. What is the main point you want to make? Slant the telling of the story so that that point is clear.

•Create the backdrop. Describe the scene so that the audience can picture it in their minds. What is the time, location, weather? What is going on emotionally, physically, or spiritually?

•Introduce the main characters. Help your audience to picture the important characters through detailed descriptions. Become them; describe their relationships, quirks and personality. Add character voices or mannerisms to make them different from your own.

•Begin the Journey. What is the task, the goal, and the journey to take? What are the challenges that need to be faced?

•Meet the obstacle. To avoid boredom something must happen to get in your way and make it interesting. This could be a person, a self limiting belief, or a challenge to overcome. Exaggeration will add humor.

•Overcome the obstacles. What had to be done to overcome the obstacle? What inner resources did you have to summon? Did someone help you? A hero? Be specific. Break your solution down into a few steps in sequence. This is where the teaching happens.

•Resolve the story. How did everything turn out? Tie up the loose ends-what happened to the other people? To your hero?

•Make the point. A story needs one clear point to have more points confuses the issue. Write out and memorize the point, work on the words to make it simple and easy to remember. Find “the phrase that pays”.

•Ask the question. Make your story personal to the audience. “Has that ever happened to you?” Turn the main point into a question. Push their buttons!

•Practice, practice, practice. Tell your stories to anyone who is willing to listen. Get feedback and make adjustments accordingly. Remember people are emotionally driven and storytelling helps you draw them in becoming more magnetic.

For more tips for speaking with charisma and persuasion, visit: http://persuasivespeech.coreedgecharisma.com

If There Was No PowerPoint, Would You Have Enough Charisma to Perform?

Most of the presentations made nowadays are made with the help of PowerPoint. There are also class teachers and lecturers who use PowerPoint to make the teaching and learning process more interesting. However, it is the professional who makes presentations without the use of PowerPoint, while following some of their age-old beliefs for presentations. 

Presentations without PowerPoint prove to be quite boring. This is because the presentation will be monotonous, with no music background or visual aids to help in the presentation. PowerPoint presentations usually provide a change for the audience in the presentation, and also give the crowd some visual explanations to the points that are being told in the presentation. So without PowerPoint in the presentation, it is very important that the presenter use some creativity in the presentation. This is because it is only this creativity that will keep the audience interested and motivated in the presentation!

The most important thing that has to be remembered to give a successful presentation without PowerPoint is to exactly know what you are talking about.  If you are well versed with the matter you intend to present, you can very well present it without the help of PowerPoint.   However, make sure to make your presentation only after learning about the temperament and nature of your audience. Remember that it is of no use talking to the audience as a group of employees. Instead, make it a point to tailor your presentation to meet the intelligence of the audience you are facing. 

When beginning the presentation, you have to present it while keeping the end of the presentation in mind. You have to know what the purpose of your presentation is, as without PowerPoint you might lose the interest of the audience! Make sure you see, hear and feel what exactly it is that you want people to respond to in whatever it is that you say.  Make a strong start to your presentation. Without PowerPoint, it is very much important that the first words and your appearance set the right tone for the audience to listen to you throughout the presentation. One of the best ways of making a connection with the audience without the help of PowerPoint is to tell a story or an anecdote that has universal appeal. 

One of the main things that have to be done when giving a presentation is to practice on the speech as much as possible or at least memorize the outline. This is the only way of looking polished while speaking.  It is indeed a false notion that using PowerPoint slides in a presentation will make a person a dynamic speaker.  The process of becoming a dynamic speaker lies in the hands of the speaker. Only practice can make one a successful speaker, and this is one skill that cannot be delegated to anyone else. 

If PowerPoint is not used in a presentation, it is important that props be used instead. This is because a prop is basically worth a thousand words.  With props, people tend to anchor thoughts in their minds to these props.  It is no difference if the prop is large, small, funny or serious, as long as it relates to the point that you are trying to make and that the audience sees it! Another way of making sure that the audience loves you despite the fact that you don’t use PowerPoint in your presentation is to bring solutions to the problems they have. With your research of the audience, you would already have an idea to what their problems are; it is only up to you to bring new ideas to them to try.

Remember that when you are not using PowerPoint, you are the visual aid of the presentation. People will then gain more interest in whatever it is that you say, instead of visuals or fancy slides or overheads. So basically, without PowerPoint, it is important that the speaker be more self-confident and well versed in his speech. Without this, it may be quite impossible to imagine giving a presentation without PowerPoint!

To learn to speak more persuasively, visit: Charisma

Effective Communication: How to Emulate Charismatic Leaders When You Speak