Etiket arşivi: ingilizce etkili sunum

Usta Bir Konuşmacı Olmanız için 28 Etkili Yöntem

Üst düzey yöneticiler topluluğa hitaben yaptıkları konuşmalarda hedefledikleri grupları etkilemek için aşağıda belirtilen yirmi sekiz adet yöntemi uygulamakta. Acaba, siz bu tekniklerin kaçını kullanıyorsunuz?

Endişe etmenize gerek yok! İyi bir konuşmacı olabilmek için çok sıkıntı çekmek zorunda değilsiniz. Her beceride olduğu gibi burada da kendinizi geliştirebilir ve ustalaşabilirsiniz. Tek yapmanız gereken iyi bir eğitim alarak bolca pratik yapmanız olacaktır.

İşte size, usta bir konuşmacı olmanız için kullanmanız gereken yirmi sekiz etkili yöntem:

  1. İzleyicilerinizi tanıyın. Sizi izleyenlerin kimler olduğunu ve konuşmanızdan neler beklediklerini bilirseniz, hangi konuyu onlarla paylaşacağınızı iyi seçebilir ve insanların istediklerini onlara kolayca verebilirsiniz.
  2. Konuyu doğru belirleyin. Konuşma yapacağınız konuyu seçme özgürlüğünüz varsa, konunun zamanlamasına ve ortama uygunluğuna dikkat etmelisiniz. Konuya ne kadar hâkim olduğunuzu ve izleyicilerin ilgisini de göz önünde bulundurun.
  3. Pratik yaparsanız çok geliştirirsiniz. Her türlü sunumda göz kamaştıran bir duruş sergilemeniz, akıcı ve doğal bir konuşmaya sahip olmanız için çok sayıda prova yapmalısınız. Güçlü konuşmacılar sayısız prova yaparak, kendilerini o ana hazırlarlar.
  4. Odaklanın. Paylaşmak istediğiniz noktalara odaklanın. Konuşma sırasında hedeflediğiniz bu noktaları izleyicilerinizin dikkatine sunun.
  5. Konuşmayı bir yolculuk olarak görmelisiniz. İçeriğinizi hazırlayın, izleyicilerinizi hazırlayın ve sizi dinlerken nereye gitmek istiyorlarsa, onları oraya doğru yönlendirin, liderlik edin.
  6. Dikkatlerini elde edin. Konuşmanıza vurucu bir girişle başlayın. Bu aynı zamanda, mizahi bir yön göstermek için en uygun zamandır. İzleyicilerle göz teması kurun. İzleyicilerin baştan sona sizi görebildiklerinden emin olun.
  7. Güçlendirin ve enerji verin. İzleyicileriniz sizi takip edecektir. Bu nedenle konuşmanız sırasında tutkulu olun, enerji yayın. Söylediklerinizi enerji dolu bir şekilde karşı tarafa geçiremezseniz, izleyicilerinizi heyecanlandıramazsınız.
  8. Saygı Duyun. Sizi izleyenlere saygı duyun. Kaba olmayın ve düşmanca bir tavırla konuşmayın. Her sözünüzde sizi dinleyenlere saygı gösterdiğinizi onlara hissettirin.
  9. Yaşanmış bir olay anlatın. İyi konuşmacılar iyi hikaye anlatıcılarıdır. İzleyenler sizden onlara ders vermenizi istemezler. Harekete geçmek için ilham almak isterler. Öylesine anlatmalısınız ki, izleyiciler anlattığınız hikâyeyi yaşıyormuşçasına sizi dinlemelidir.
  10. Tiyatro yapmayın. Konuşma yapmak rol kesmek değildir! Sahneye önemli bir konuyu izleyicilerin dikkatine sunmak için çıkıyorsunuz. Yapay hareketler ve davranışlar izleyenlerin sizinle aralarına mesafe koymalarına sebep olur. Antipati yaratır.
  11. İnce ayar yapın. Ses tonunuzu ayarlayın. Bu şekilde izleyicilerin sizi takip etmesini kolaylaştırın. Ses tonunu yükseltip, indirerek insanların dikkatlerini üzerinizde tutun.
  12. Vücut lisanınıza dikkat edin. Kendinden emin duruşunuzu koruyun. Omuzlarınız dik ve göz temasınız salondaki izleyici gruplarıyla olsun.
  13. Nefes almayı unutmayın. Önemli fikirleri paylaşmadan önce ve paylaştıktan sonra bir duraklayın. Size çok uzunmuş gibi gelecek sessizlikten korkmayın. İyi bir duraklama, dinleyenlerin anlattıklarınızı tam olarak algılamalarını sağlar.
  14. Göz teması kurun. Gözünüzü sadece bir noktaya dikmeyin. Etrafa bakın ve sizi izleyenleri tarayın. Değişik noktalarda bulunan insanlarla kısa göz temasları kurun.
  15. Görsel malzemeleri akıllıca kullanın. Mesajınızı destekleyen görseller kullanın. Fakat görsellerin hikâyenizin yerini almasına izin vermeyin. Bir slaydı izleyenlere sakın okumayın.
  16. Özgüvenli bir duruş sergileyin. Sinirli ve kendini beğenmiş bir duruş sergilemekten kaçının. Gerekiyorsa maske takmış biri gibi davranın. Kendinize olan güveni izleyenlere gösterin.
  17. Kendiniz olun. Sakın başkalarını taklit etmeyin veya olduğunuzdan daha iyi biriymiş gibi davranmayın. Her yerde nasılsanız, sahnede de öyle olun.
  18. Övünmeyin. Uzmanlığınızı ifade etmek ve izleyenleri harekete geçirecek yaşanmış hikâyeler anlatmak çok etkilidir. Bununla beraber, alçakgönüllülük size övünmekten daha fazlasını kazandırır. Kendiniz hakkında bilgi verirken asla övünme tuzağına düşmeyin.
  19. Kalpten konuşun. Dostlarınızla konuşurcasına kendinizi kalpten ifade edin. Samimi, özgün ve olumlu olun.
  20. Kırılganlık gösterin. İnsan olduğunuzu, sizin de zayıf yönleriniz olduğunu izleyenlerin görmesini sağlayın. İnsanlar sizin de hata yapabildiğinizi gördüklerinde size bağlanmaları daha güçlü olacaktır.
  21. Baskın çıkmayın. Sohbet havasında konuşun, onlara hitap ederken “Ben ne dersem o olur” hissi uyandırmayın.
  22. Anlamlı konuşun. Kısa ve basit cümleler kurun. Acele etmeyin, yavaş ve akıcı bir şekilde konuşun.
  23. Tadında bırakın. İnsanlar saatlerine bakmaya ve yerlerinde duramamaya başlamadan önce konuşmanızı tamamlayın.
  24. Güçlü kapatın. Konuşmayı vurucu ve etkileyici bir noktayla kapatın. Etkileyici bir açılış ve kapanışın en önemli unsurlar olduğunu hatırlayın.
  25. Ulaşılabilir olun. Konuşmanızı tamamladıktan sonra ulaşılabilir olun. Bu şekilde insanlar akıllarındakileri sizinle paylaşabilirler. Böylece, sizi ve fikirlerinizi daha çok sahiplenirler.
  26. Akılda kalın. Ortalama bir konuşmacı veya iyi bir konuşmacı olmanız hak ettiğiniz ilgiyi size sağlamayacaktır. Bu amaçla, akılda kalıcı olmak için çok çalışın. İnsanların kalplerinde ve beyinlerinde yer edinmek için her şeyi yapın.
  27. Geribildirim isteyin. İnsanlardan size samimi geri bildirimler vermelerini isteyin. Prova sırasında ve konuşmadan sonra bu geribildirimleri talep edin. Bu şekilde güçlü yönlerinizi ve gelişime açık yönlerinizi görebilirsiniz ve buna göre konuşmalarınızı geliştirebilirsiniz.
  28. Dinleyin ve öğrenin. Diğer konuşmacıların ve uzmanların seminerlerde ve toplantılarda nasıl performans çıkardıklarını izleyin ve güçlü yönlerine dikkat edin.

 

Presentation Tricks to Keep Your Audience Alert

curtainBest practices for presentations, including practicing and structuring your presentation effectively, are important to make a high quality show. Try using these 10 tricks to command your audience’s attention.

Presentations can be really good or really bad. Even the “okay” presentations–the ones that are well put-together but don’t particularly stand out–end up being really bad, and usually it’s for one reason: They’re boring. Boring presentations are reputation killers, and they can turn a room full of attentive professionals into a room full of sleepy zombies, checking their phones and counting the slides.

Best practices for presentations, including practicing and structuring your presentation effectively, are important to make a quality show. However, it’s the little things, the speaking and body language tricks you use, that will keep your audience awake long enough to hear it.

Start using these 10 tricks to command your audience’s attention:

1. Start off with something shocking. Don’t start off a presentation with something general and clunky, like a conventional introduction to your topic. If you have a bold conclusion planned, why not start out with a tease of it? For example, if your presentation builds to a conclusion that your company can change the way people talk to each other, start out by introducing a vision of that change. Inspire a bit of interest right off the bat, and people will be desperate to know how you got there. You can also use surprising statistics or eye-opening facts in the same way.

2. Tell a story. Humans take naturally to stories. Narratives are an evolutionary social tool we use to convey experiences, so we find it far easier to listen and relate to a story than we do a list of facts or statements. Transform anything you can in your presentation into a story format. Use real-life and invented examples, and use illustrative metaphors to prove your points. The more narratives you can weave into your overarching presentation, the more people will want to pay attention.

3. Go off script. It’s a good idea to prepare your presentation in advance, and even practice it a few times so you can iron out all the kinks. But once you’re on stage, you should probably abandon the cue cards altogether. At this point, you should be so familiar with your subject matter and so engrossed in your presentation that you can talk about it naturally in your sleep. Veer off course. People will be able to tell which lines you’ve rehearsed and which ones you haven’t.

4. Use emotional inflections in your voice. If you aren’t emotionally invested in whatever it is you’re presenting, you probably shouldn’t be the one presenting it. Be sure to show that emotion to the people listening to you. Get angry if the statistics call for it. Get excited about the solutions you propose. Get animated on the stage, and use emotional vocal inflections to put some real texture behind your words. Without that emotional inflection, you might as well hand your presentation to a robot to read.

5. Use the power of louds and softs. Speaking in one constant tone will bore your readers, even if you somehow manage to put some emotion behind it. Certainly, some sections or your presentation are more compelling or more important than others. Use the power of louds and softs to accentuate those differences. Speak softly when you can afford your users to trail off, and rise back up to a higher volume when you drive home an important point.

6. Alternate your pacing. Similarly, it’s a good idea to vary your pacing. Talk fast when it comes to background information that most people already know, or when you recap sections from earlier, then slow way down when it comes time to hammer in an important piece of information. Use the power of silence, but don’t become trapped in a predictable pattern of speech.

7. Call out individuals in the audience. This one demands a degree of improvisation, since you may not be able to predict the makeup or participation willingness of your audience until the day of your presentation. Try to get individual people involved in your presentation however you can. This may include taking them onstage for a demonstration or something far more innocuous like pointing to them when making a point.

8. Set up some jokes. Even the most serious of topics deserve some kind of humorous break. It’s your job to help people find humor throughout your presentation. If you can get them laughing, or at least smiling, you’ll keep their attention firm. Obviously, you’ll want your jokes to be appropriate, but don’t be afraid to push the boundaries–confident, unexpected humor tends to facilitate likeability.

9. Skip the data. If you can, avoid mentioning statistics and facts at all. Put them on a background slide for people to visualize independently of your presentation. People don’t attend presentations to be read information they could read themselves. They want new insights and personally related beliefs.

10. Never read a slide. Last, but certainly not least, you should never read from a slide directly during the course of your presentation (assuming you have some kind of slideshow in the background). Your audience can see the slides for themselves. Reading those slides aloud insults their intelligence and makes your presentation flat-out boring. Say something different, and let your slides speak for themselves.

Your presentation doesn’t have to be boring, so why would you let it be? Use these 10 useful tricks to keep your audience focused and engaged in your subject.

How to Improve Your Presentation Skills

Your presentations skills are as important as the information you are presenting. This guide will help you prepare for a presentation and polish your speaking skills for a successful pitch. 

The opportunity to pitch your services to a potential client, spell out your business plan to a potential business partner, or promote your business at an event may require that you give a presentation. Whether or not your presentation achieves its desired outcome can be affected by your skills as a speaker, so it’s important to step in front of your audience with your best foot forward. As Speakandmore, we explain how to prepare, deliver, and answer questions about a stellar presentation.

Preparation

1) Research your audience. Knowing the needs of your audience can help you tailor your presentation to target their interests and explain how your company can be of use in their specific situation.

2) Structuring your presentation. The classic format is to tell them what you’re going to say, present, and then tell them what you told them, What we advise is to start off with the benefits of what you’re going to say, the benefits to the audience, and then present and review.

  • Opening. Your opening should be something that makes an emotional connection with the audience.  It can be a story, a question, or a shocking static. It should not be an introduction of yourself or five minutes of thank-you. Any stories you use should represent your audience’s position in life and should use characters that are analogous to your audience.
  • Body. Try to stick to your three most important points. It’s more important to engage the audience than to tell them everything you know. You will need to leave some information out, but it is likely that what you don’t cover in the presentation will come up when you take questions. Keep your outcome in mind. You don’t have to write out your presentation word for word (or worse, memorize it) if you just remember to keep going back to your main points and working toward your desired outcome. Be prepared to present both sides of an issue. You’ll appear more credible if you acknowledge your competitors or any opposing arguments. After you’ve explained the other side, you can spell out exactly why your company is better or your argument is stronger.
  • Closing. The closing of your presentation is the last opportunity you have to give your audience something that will stick in their minds. You can go back to your opening or end on a clever slogan or a call to action.  When making a business proposal, you end on a positive forecast. Your forecast will provide fodder that can serve to validate any subconsciously generated optimism.

3) Practice, practice, practice…but don’t memorize. If you practice your speech only once, you’re going to stink. Starting to rehearse your presentation about a month in advance. You can talk into a mirror, talk to a wall, or ask a family member to listen. Do whatever works for you, but make sure it includes practicing out loud so that you can get a sense of timing.

  • Rehearsing does not mean memorization. Memorizing your speech can make you sound mechanical and over-rehearsed. Really the only people who are good at memorizing things are actors, If you’re going to do it well, you actually have to act it out and play a character, and most speakers aren’t very good at that. Even if you are good at acting, you don’t memorize your speech to perfection. When an individual is too polished, it makes them relatively inaccessible in the mind of the audience. The audience is human at the end of the day, and this person doesn’t seem to be like them.  It really retards the rapport building process.
  • Videotape yourself. You can’t know how you come off to people until you see it. Recording yourself is the best way to target the areas where you can improve.
  • Calm your nerves. Changing the word ‘presentation’ to ‘conversation’ when thinking about your big day. Feel better yet? If not, you can also quell panic by conditioning yourself to be in presentation-mode.
  • Stop working on it. You really need time to start getting into relaxation mode. You can’t be in your hyper rewriting, restructuring mode right up to your presentation. Take a couple of days to relax before your speech.

Yeni Resim

Delivery

1) Verbal Delivery

  • Be Brief. The average adult was able to focus on a loading web page for only four to eight seconds before looking somewhere else. Attention spans are short; don’t dwell on a specific subject too long.
  • Ask questions to keep the audience engaged. This can be something as simple as pausing to ask if your audience understands everything you’ve presented so far.
  • Speak to your demographic. Match the semantics of your audience as closely as possible. Speak their language. If you’re selling a new video game, for instance, your semantics are going to be a lot different than if you’re working with a litigation attorney.
  • Work on your tone. Evolutionary psychology suggests that people of both sexes respond better to deep male voices and high female voices. It takes practice to change the tone of your voice, but it can be done.
  • Avoid speaking softly or other speech patterns that make you seem unconfident. For example, avoid ending sentences in an escalating tone that suggests every sentence you speak is a question.
  • You should avoid words like ‘umm’, ‘uhh’. One strategy for kicking a fill-word habit: Say the offending word and concentrate on it.Then tell yourself, ‘this is a fill word, I’m avoiding this”. When you say this, it creates that pattern of changing it so that you’ll catch yourself when you start saying it.
  • Don’t use words like ” don’t “. It’s important to avoid phrases like “don’t worry”. Tell your audience what they should do instead. Similarly, don’t say“I hope you will enjoy this presentation”. Say, “I am confident that you will enjoy this presentation.”

2) Body Language

  • Stand at a comfortable distance. Remaining within 2.5 – 7 feet of your audience. This presupposes (at a subconscious level) a personal to social relationship.
  • Eye contact. Don’t surf the audience with your eyes.  Rather, make eye contact with one person at a time.
  • Appear confident:

a. Shoulders back

b. Arms at your sides or held in front of your body when making gestures

c. Hands open or only slightly closed

d. Smile slightly or keep your face neutral.

e. Take long strides

f. Make every movement purposeful and decided

g. Treat props (like your resume or a handout) as though they are of value.  Don’t let a paper in your hand flap back and forth carelessly.

3) Powerpoint

  • A Good Powerpoint…
  1. Relies heavily on images.
  2. Has only one or two sentences per slide.
  3. Entertains.
  4. Enhances your presentation, but doesn’t summarize it.
  • A Bad Powerpoint…
  1. Contains font smaller than 32pt.
  2. Has more than five or six lines of text per slide.
  3. Displays a logo on every slide (your audience won’t forget who you are).
  4. Is printed and distributed as a handout.

Questions

Being prepared to answer questions plays a major role in appearing credible to your audience.

Taking questions before the end of your presentation. You’ll have to let the audience know that you plan to continue after questions so that they don’t start packing up their things, but this approach allows you to close your presentation on your own note. The audience will leave with your final message in their minds instead of some random question that someone asked that maybe was off-topic.

For further details you can always contact us in order to boost your presentation skills and impress your audience.

Running Effective Meetings in English

Meeting 2There are good meetings and there are bad meetings. Bad meetings drone on forever, you never seem to get to the point, and you leave wondering why you were even present. Effective ones leave you energized and feeling that you’ve really accomplished something.

Meetings fill an increasing number of hours in the workday, and yet most employees consider them as a waste of time. Meetings can be ranked as the number one office productivity killer when we make a survey with our workshop participants.

But there are ways to run effective, efficient meetings in English that leave your employees feeling energized and excited about their work.

Here are some useful tips:

  1.  Make your objective clear

    A meeting must have a specific and defined purpose. Before you send that calendar invite, ask yourself: “What do I seek to accomplish?” Are you alerting people to a change in management or a shift in strategy? Are you seeking input from others on a problem facing the company? Are you looking to arrive at a decision on a particular matter? Standing meetings with vague purposes, such as “status updates,” are rarely a good use of time.

  2. Consider who is invited 

    When you’re calling a meeting, take time to think about who really needs to be there. If you’re announcing a change, invite the people who are affected by the announcement. If you’re trying to solve a problem, invite the people who will be good sources of information for a solution. When people feel that what’s being discussed isn’t relevant to them, or that they lack the skills or expertise to be of assistance, they’ll view their attendance at the meeting as a waste of time.

  3. Stick to your schedule

    Create an agenda that lays out everything you plan to cover in the meeting, along with a timeline that allots a certain number of minutes to each item, and email it to people in advance. Once you’re in the meeting, put that agenda up on a screen or whiteboard for others to see. This keeps people focused.

  4. Take no hostages 

    Nothing derails a meeting faster than one person talking more than his fair share. If you notice one person monopolizing the conversation, call him out. Say, “We appreciate your contributions, but now we need input from others before making a decision.” Be public about it. Establishing ground rules early on will create a framework for how your group functions.

  5. Start on time, end on time

    If you have responsibility for running regular meetings and you have a reputation for being someone who starts and ends promptly, you will be amazed how many of your colleagues will make every effort to attend your meetings. People appreciate it when you understand that their time is valuable. Another note on time: Do not schedule any meeting to last longer than an hour. Sixty minutes is generally the longest time workers can remain truly engaged.

     6. Follow up

It’s quite common for people to come away from the same meeting with very different interpretations of what went on. To reduce this risk, email a memo highlighting what was accomplished to all who attended within 24 hours after the meeting. Document the responsibilities given, tasks delegated, and any assigned deadlines. That way, everyone will be on the same page.

Meetings truly can be valuable and productive. You just have to take the steps to make them that way. For further information, you can always call us (Speakandmore.com).

Çiğdem Karabel

Managing Director

Speak & More