The only way to get better at something is to do it. Taking a speech or business communication class will force you to make presentations to audiences of people you don’t know.

Speaking to groups of people that you don’t know can be an extremely hard thing to do. For some it comes naturally but for most of us it’s about as pleasant as getting a tooth pulled. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With most skills that a person develops the old axiom “practice makes perfect” holds especially true. And eventually you might find that you even enjoy giving a presentation.

I’ve always hated giving presentations. I hated it so much that during high school I’d often be absent the day I had to give a speech or presentation. I hated it with a passion. I was always afraid I’d embarrass myself and in school if you do that you still have to show up the next day. Of course most of my fear was self induced.

But from the many speech’s I’ve been forced to give in my life I did manage to learn a couple of lessons. The biggest lesson I have ever learned about giving a presentation actually came in the seventh grade. Our teacher gave us an assignment for a speech that allowed us to pick what we wanted to talk about. For my topic I picked baseball cards. It was my favorite hobby so much so that I worked part time in a sports card shop and spent all my wages on baseball cards. I believe that they were my first ever true love. And when it came time to make my presentation I aced it. I even went beyond my allotted time without realizing it.

I later wondered what was different about that presentation compared to others I’d had to do. Then it dawned on me, I loved my topic and I knew everything about it.

As a small business owner I also love what I do. I love talking to people about what my company does. And I hope that you as a small business owner love what you do because passion can take you a long way. And loving what you do can make that sales presentation go a lot easier. After all you’re just talking about something you love.

My second important lesson came years later while I was in college. To meet my degree requirements I was forced to take the always dreaded speech class. In it I learned to prepare because if you don’t love the subject then you need to know it even better. It will lessen the potential stumbling that might otherwise occur.

But even more importantly it made me get up in front of a group of people I didn’t know. And I had to do it again and again. Naturally I was able to get more comfortable with what I was doing. Later on in my schooling I took Speech two and business communication so that I could stay in practice even though I could have opted for other courses.

I can’t begin to emphasize how important practice is to becoming good at presentations. And practicing in front of friends doesn’t cut it. You need an audience you don’t know. I know for a lot of us going back to school may be a pain but you only need to take speech, not get a degree.

Another way to get regular practice is to volunteer as a guest speaker. I myself periodically volunteer as a guest speaker for one of my former professors who happens to teach small business. A good place to do this would be your local community or junior college where there’s less pressure on you and the professors are more open to people that approach them with such an idea. All you need to do is contact the business department for information. You might even end up liking it. You might dread giving a speech now but with practice you may embrace them.

Cash Miller is an experienced entrepreneur and speaker who has spent over a decade as a small business owner. His years of experience in small business cover many topics. For more small business information you can go to http://www.SmallBusinessDelivered.com

As with all technology, there are positives and negatives. This is evident with the web as a new marketing source. Most products are becoming a fast commodity, even if they were not before. If you are interested in buying a chair, you can quickly search on Google, eBay, or any other major search engine, and you will instantly find all chairs of the kind that you are looking for. You will also know the appropriate price of that style of chair, give or take a few dollars.

This wonderful technology makes it much more difficult for a furniture store to compete in the marketplace. The chair may be selling for much less on the net, because the furniture store has a great deal more overhead to run the business.

In order to overcome the problem of being technologically put out of business, the furniture store will have to start selling the benefits of dealing with the store more than the benefits of buying the individual chair.

Imagine two sales clerks who are approached by a prospect looking for a new chair. Sales clerk number one takes the prospect over to the chair that they are interested in and begins to describe the chair and the price. Armed with information from the web, the prospect knows the prices that are available around the country as well as all the details about the chair. The salesman is in the difficult position of having to either match the online price or lose the sale.

Instead of spending time discussing the chair, salesman two discusses the store. The salesman describes the history of the store, the customer service philosophy of the owners, and how the store stands behind its product. When the prospect and salesman arrive at the demonstration of the chair, the customer now has additional factors to consider when comparing the e-store with the furniture store. For example, the prospect also considers the possibility of effortless returns or exchanges if problems develop after the customer takes the chair home.

The purpose of teaching the salesman to spend extra time with a customer to discuss the store’s long-term relationships with customers is to attempt to educate the buyer and create brand loyalty. Over time, brand loyalty and the desire to work with a store that stands behind their product can overcome many objections, including pricing. Price is always an important element, but in most cases and particularly over time, brand loyalty to a local store is stronger. The key is to make sure that the sale is made based on the store benefits and not the chair.

WANT TO SEE MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?

See The Business Growth Blog at http://www.DicksNantonAgency.com

Ignoring proper English grammar in your business could be devastating to your bottom line. While you may not think of yourself as a writer, your role as a business owner requires you to write on a regular basis. You likely send out correspondence to potential clients, email back and forth with your employees, and write memos to the organization as a whole. If you do not use proper grammar when writing these documents, you could look foolish and uneducated in the eyes of your employees, your superiors, and your potential clients.

What are the consequences of this? One or two serious grammar mistakes could cost you that contract you have been working so hard to land! Besides making you look foolish, improper grammar can lead to confusion between you and the person you are writing to, because many common grammar mistakes actually change the meaning of what was written. For example, if you write a double negative, such as “You don’t never need to come to work on Saturdays,” you will not only sound silly, but you are actually saying that the individual does need to come to work on Saturdays. This lack of clarity in your writing can cause tremendous confusion.

To further understand the need for proper grammar in business, put yourself in the place of your client for a moment. If you are considering whether or not to spend a large amount of money on someone’s product or service, do you want to feel confident in that individual’s ability to do the job? Of course you do! Often the written word is the first contact someone will have with you and your business. If you do not come across as professional, you will lose some credibility in that individual’s eyes.

Sometimes a simple grammar mistake that is easily overlooked by you can stand out to your customer. Your customer may not notice anything else about your letter, because that grammar mistake is so glaring. Also, you never know when the person you are negotiating with is a grammar expert. Sure, your potential client is probably not a school teacher, but many people have grammar pet peeves, and ignoring proper grammar could rub your client the wrong way from the very beginning of your professional relationship.

Additionally, if you create ad copy that has grammar or punctuation errors, you will lose many more potential customers. A misplaced apostrophe or comma can show quite a bit to your target audience about your attention to detail.

If you are worried about your weak grammar skills, you will be happy to know that there are ways to get around this problem. Not everyone can have excellent grammar skills, but almost everyone can use tools to create well-written documents. First, make sure that you take advantage of electronic grammar and spelling checkers.

While these do not catch all mistakes, and they may point out mistakes that aren’t actually wrong, they can help you to see areas that you need to improve. After running your grammar check, have someone else read the document and make suggestions. This doesn’t take long, but having an outside source read what you have written will help you to catch any clarity or grammar issues that the computer didn’t catch. Then, set the document aside for at least a day. After this short break, come back to it and read it again. Read it out loud to further check for clarity. At this point, you should have a well-written document that is ready to be sent to your most important client.

These steps do take time, but overlooking grammar could be deadly for your business, so take the time to create well written copy every time!

Learn English with the specialists at Online English School. http://www.englishlink.com

The degree of how effective a presentation is lies with the presenter and not with the all singing all dancing presentation enhancing technology available today. You could have the very best PowerPoint presentation along with absolutely fabulous audio-visuals to impress the targeted audience but if you still do not manage to deliver your message your efforts will be rendered totally ineffective. It is true to say that technology helps and is important in its own way, but only as a means of support for you to get your message across.

You probably have far too many slides to begin with so you should have a good look through them and select the ones most relevant. Once this is done, you can then successfully intertwine what you are trying to say with your slides, ensuring that your message is not overshadowed with technological materials.

Even though being in possession of many slides to choose from is a good thing, the priority has to be crafting the point you are trying to get across with the storyboard. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word storyboard as “a panel or series of panels of rough sketches and major changes of action or plot in a production to be shot on film or video”. This is why you have to think of your presentation as a production of this type and put your story together first of all.

Throughout the development of your presentation you must take into consideration the objectives you are trying to achieve as an end result. Your storyboard can then be designed with this in mind. Working through it this way will make sure that anything else you add acts as a means of support to your message instead of drowning it out.

When you have your storyboard in order, and have selected the slides which are needed, if you find that multiple slides are required to put over what you want to say, then dig a little deeper and try to pull together just one or two slides which would act as a support for the main points of your message.

You may well look through all your slides and decide that none of them is particularly relevant to what you want to say and this could be a good time to prepare some new slides. Your initial effort is always reviewable and changes can be made wherever you feel it is necessary for the easy flow of the presentation. Keep focusing on your message and objectives and if certain aspects have to be dropped or altered, don’t hold back, simply get the changes made.

Many people get carried away with all the gimmicky assistance which is available when putting together a presentation. Use of such features to add that extra impact to the presentation is great, as long as they do not become a burden to you.

An excellent method to find out if the presenter is more significant than the slides is to make your presentation without the use of slides. This way you know you are delivering a sincere and genuine presentation and that any other visuals you may have in use are there simply as a means of supporting you and planting a firm picture in the minds of the people in your audience.

When you are addressing your audience, look them directly in the eye and make sure you keep eye contact. Think about how you have felt in the past as part of the audience of a presentation where the presenter has little if any eye contact with the attendees, and just simply reads from the slides. You probably wondered why the presenter bothered to turn up to the presentation at all, as you could easily have read the slides and gleaned exactly the same information without him or her being present.

So, you have cut down the number of slides in your presentation and feel confident that you have the right message going out with the important visuals supporting what you have to say. You may now like to use some of the following simple tips to help you deliver an outstanding presentation to your audience.

First of all, give a little thought to why the people may find your presentation interesting. Bear in mind the saying about a picture painting a thousand words and present your information with pictures that the audience will connect with your message and keep in their minds.

Another way to communicate with people and their emotions is by storytelling. Individual pictures are created by the audience and are better remembered in the future as they are their own pictures. A story also makes an otherwise boring presentation of facts and figures far more personal and interesting.

With your presentation prepared and ready to go, take a little time out for a practice run. If you find during this process that any part of your plan is not running as smoothly as you first anticipated, say for example, you discover some of your visuals are not having the desired effect, then pull them out. However super they look, getting your message across has to be the most important part of your presentation.

It is always a good idea to have a fall back plan which does not rely on power supplied visuals. This way, if there should be such a drastic event as a power cut, you will be able to continue, deliver your message and successfully achieve your objectives at the end of your presentation, This is another way of being sure that your visuals were there merely as a support to help you get your message across.

It may well be simpler to rearrange a bunch of slides and save yourself some preparation time. However, you are sure to find that the little extra effort to add some individual touches and your own original thoughts will be rewarded ten fold by way of personal satisfaction, when you use technology in a smart way and dazzle everyone with your well prepared and professionally put together presentation.

Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business. http://besuccessfulnews.com/

Do you suffer from a crippling fear of speaking in public? Or know someone who does?

Does that nerve wrecking feeling of being the centre of everyone’s attention leave you feeling queasy, breathless and like your head is full of cotton wool? Not to mention highly embarrassing sweaty palms and painful blushing that leaves you feeling like an awkward teenager again?

If so you are not alone!

The fear of speaking in public touches the lives of many people and unlike a medical condition there isn’t the simple option of a pill to pop and many people do not feel comfortable, or can afford, a personal therapist to help them work through this phobia. As the years go on the effect that this condition has on your life becomes more and more frustrating as you struggle to communicate effectively in not only social situations but in your working environment also.

You might be worried that you’ll be passed over for a promotion or not recognised for the contributions you have made to important projects due to you inability to clearly and concisely communicate with your boss.

Fortunately there is an alternative to those pricey therapy sessions that can help you re-train your fear response into a much more positive speaking experience. Self-hypnosis is an alternative therapy that has provided outstanding results for people just like you.

Using self-hypnosis techniques that have been around for more than 100 years, many people are starting to take control of their public speaking fear using the power of the mind! A quality self-hypnosis program that is specifically designed to take you on a journey to becoming an effective public speaker will help you unlearn old fears and build amazing new confidence in your own abilities.

The key to this new confidence is understanding that you need to re-educate your mindset to lift away the fear associated with speaking in public and replace it with a healthy and calm perspective.

It’s lifestyle change… Much like using a healthy diet to keep weight gain in check, people who are poor communicators must commit to spending 20-30 minutes a day, for just 30 days, using these techniques to re-programme their fear response. But as anyone who suffers from a phobia of speaking in public will tell you, it’s a small price to pay to be able to communicate confidently in both your personal and professional life.

Just imagine if 30 days from now you were able to deliver a toast in front all of your family and friends at a special event or chair an important meeting or speak one on one with your boss about your contributions, aspirations and goals in your role at work – all without the slightest hesitation or twitch of nerves, wouldn’t that be truly amazing?

So if you suffer from a fear of public speaking, self-hypnosis might be the answer you’ve been looking for.

Lisa Dyke has put together The Mind Training Series which is a high quality range of self hypnosis audio programmes, for more information on curing the fear of public speaking please visit http://www.public-speaking-confidence.com

When you think about getting up in front of an audience to speak with, do you start to sweat? Many people don’t realize it but public speaking is actually one of the most common phobias that people have. The problem with having this phobia is that it is difficult to hide whenever you are actually on the stage in front of your audience. This tends to compound the problem which, in turn, shows in the form of further nervousness on your part. Believe it or not, your nervousness about public speaking can be overcome with just a little bit of practice.

If this is your first time public speaking then perhaps you are nervous because you’re not sure what to expect. That is a perfectly natural response to have but be careful not to allow it to run away with your emotions. Depending on your audience, you may actually know people in attendance and would not feel at all nervous speaking to them in a one on one situation. Whenever there is a group of them, however, and their attention is focused on you, you might feel as if they are going to pick apart everything you say. This is not typically the case.

If you are someone experienced at public speaking then perhaps your nervousness is not all that bad of an emotional response after all. A little bit of nervousness is healthy whenever you’re getting up in front of an audience and can actually keep you on your toes. Try to turn those negative emotions into a positive experience for those that you’re speaking to. You can do this in one of three different ways that I like to call the 3 P’s of public speaking, preparation, persistence and perspiration.

The first P of public speaking is probably one of the most important, preparation. If you’re going to be able to speak intelligently about anything in a public situation you need to be very familiar with it. Think about your favorite hobby or perhaps a sport that you really love. How difficult do you think it would be for you to speak about this in front of a group? The same would hold true for almost any subject. The more familiar you are with it, the easier it will be to speak about.

The persistence part comes in after the initial preparation is done. You need to hone your skills in public speaking and be persistent in your practicing so that you are confident whenever you finally take the stage. Yes, you will be nervous to a certain extent but the more persistence you have in your preparation, the smoother you will appear to be. Finally, the perspiration part of your talk comes whenever you are actually giving your presentation. Just sweat it out and do your best and get it done in the best way possible.

Although it may be difficult for you to speak in front of a group, you certainly can overcome your fears to a certain extent with a little bit of practice. Just make sure that you take the time in advance to prepare yourself and you will be more confident with what you have to say. That confidence will show through on the stage and you will be able to feed off of your audiences response.

For more public speaking tips to help cure your stage fright please visit http://www.overcomestagefright.org

So, you’ve been asked to give an acceptance speech on behalf of your organization and you don’t know what to say. You do know however, that you want to leave your audience with a presentation that is funny, emotionally moving and memorable. But where do you start? Here are a few tips that will get you through the experience with flying colors.

Before you begin crafting your presentation, take a moment to understand the psychology of an award ceremony. Consider the role the people in the audience played in your standing before them with an award in hand. What do they want from you? What do they expect from you? What can you do or say that will make them feel good about themselves and their decision to present you and/or your association with this award? Once you understand the answer to these questions, you’ll be well on your way to giving the acceptance speech of a lifetime.

I’ve had the opportunity to give more than one acceptance speech in my career, and this is what I’ve learned from those experiences. If you do a good job, you will quickly discover that the appreciation the audience had for you before your speech will pale in comparison to how they will feel about you after your speech. Giving a humorous and gracious acceptance speech that makes the audience feel good about themselves, is the most powerful, career enhancing, relationship building experience you will ever have. Please don’t take this speaking opportunity lightly.

Generally you are going to find three different groups of people in the audience. The first group is composed of the people on your staff or within your organization who helped you achieve the award. The second group is made up of the people responsible for giving you and/or your organization the award. And the third group includes people who have nothing to do with your award. They typically include spouses and invited guests. Your job is to make certain that all three groups are acknowledged and rewarded by your comments. That’s all there is to it. And it’s not a bad idea to give them something to chuckle about along the way.

One quick word of warning. It is not appropriate to brag about why you won the award or tell the audience what you did to overtake your competition. This is a time to be gracious and thankful. You’re only goal is make everyone in the audience feel good about themselves and this is how you do it.

1. Start your presentation by immediately thanking the people who gave you the award. Make sure you thank them on behalf of all the recipients of the award if it was given to you on behalf of your team or organization. Under no circumstances is it appropriate to imply that you are not worthy of receiving the award. This is insulting to the people who gave it to you. It is appropriate however, to praise everyone else who was under consideration for the award.

2. Acknowledge the people in your organization who made it possible for you to win the award. If your team is a small group, ask them to stand and acknowledge them individually while mentioning their specific role in your success. If you are accepting the award on behalf of a large group, ask them to stand and acknowledge them as a group.

Here is a quick rule of thumb. If you have time to say something nice about everyone in your group, do it. If you don’t have time to say something nice about everyone in your group, don’t call out anyone individually. It is better to avoid mentioning anyone than it is to forget even one person. The only exception to this rule is if everyone in your group knows that a particular individual played a key role in you receiving this award. Then, and only then is it OK to call them out by name.

3. Tell a story about how you got involved with this organization or how this project has impacted you, your family and/or your business. It’s a good idea to list at least three things and be as specific as possible.

4. If anything funny or inspiring happened during the project, mention it here. What did you learn from the wonderful people you associated with on this project? How are you going to be a different and better person because of your association with this organization? How is the world a better place because of what this association has done and is doing? Answer one or more of those questions in a funny and inspiring way and you will move the audience to tears.

5. Pause to thank the people responsible for giving you the award. This is the most important part of your speech. This is your opportunity to be sincere and thankful and appreciative for the wonderful opportunity you have been given.

If time permits, thank everyone involved in making this award possible. Don’t rely on your memory. Take a piece of paper with the names of everyone you want to thank to the podium with you. You don’t have to look at it, but if you need it, it’s there in your hand.

6. Close your speech with a moving comment. Your audience will remember you and leave the event with complete confidence that they gave the award to the right person.

7. Have fun, be humble and be brief.

Watch Bob Sommers give a live acceptance speech. Go to http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/bob-sommers/75-how-give-acceptance-speech.html and search for the term acceptance speech.

Energisers can have a dramatic impact on your audience, they can wake up, motivate and completely energise your conference or event, ensuring that your audience is listening to your message. With careful planning they can transform your event.

So how do you know which are the best energisers for your event and for your group? There are a number of factors that will help to steer you in the right direction. Firstly take a look at your numbers, how many people are going to take part and think about how this can affect the logistics of any energiser you have consider.

Will you need a large room for the energisers? If so are you certain your conference room is suitable? If you are not sure, ask the team building company for their advice. What style of meeting room set up have you got? If it’s theatre style, don’t consider an energiseing activity which involves delegates sitting at a table.

What do you want to achieve from hosting one? Do you want to ensure that they are awake? If that’s your main objective then plan carefully the timing, perhaps after lunch may be the optimum time for it. If it’s to grab delegates attention and to get them communicating with each other, then you need to look at hosting it early on at your conference or event.

Think carefully about your conference objectives, any themes or keywords that you are communicating to your delegates and see if you can tie them into your energiser. There are many different types of energisers that can illustrate communication, back to basics or working with limited resources. Talk to your team building company, they will be able to advise you on which would best illustrate your company message.

If you have space in your conference itinerary for more than one energiser, then the optimum is three energisers. The first one would be at the start of your conference, wake them up and break the ice. Second session would be after lunch where delegates are more inclined to sit back and fall asleep and the third session is at the end of your conference so you can really energise and leave each and every delegate on a real high, ensuring that your conference message is heard and remembered.

One key element that many conference organisers forget is that you use a conference energiser to energise your delegates, to wake them up and to motivate them. Your delegates will be eager to listen and on a high, it’s now crucial that the next activity or speaker is engaging, the person presenting has to be charismatic and enthusiastic because this is when you could lose your audience.

Some organisers make the mistake of not placing enough importance on energisers but by carefully choosing effective activities could be the difference between hosting a typical conference and hosting a motivating memorable effective conference.

Shaun Parker has been managing conference and company energisers for several years. For more information visit http://www.accolade-corporate-events.com/conference-fillers-ice-breakers.htm

Public speaking is an excellent way to position yourself as the expert in your field. It’s also a great way to show your audience that you’re likable, caring and funny. The focus of this article, however, is going to be on the importance of public speaking and how to use it to position yourself as the authority in your field.

It’s significant to note that there are two levels of expertise you can convey to an audience if you choose to practice the art of public speaking. The first and most basic level is to establish your expertise in your field of interest. The higher and more profitable level is to apply your expertise to the unique concerns of your audience.

It’s the difference between a media coach speaking to a group of financial planners about how to get media attention and speaking to them about how they can position themselves as financial planning experts focusing on the media their clients read, watch and listen to. The first positions the speaker as a media expert and the second positions the speaker as the financial media expert.

Here are ten tips on public speaking to insure that your audience will see you as the ultimate authority in your field.

Pre-program Preparation
Send your audience a pre-program outline of your presentation and make sure it’s tailored to your audience. Ask them to fill-out a simple questionnaire and encourage them to ask their most burning questions about your topic. Use their questions and answers to demonstrate your ability to apply your expertise to their specific situations.

Introduction
Write your introduction and ask the most respected person in the room to introduce you. Make sure to include your name, the subject you’re going to talk about and why you’re qualified to speak on the matter. The last line of your introduction should read, “Please help me welcome Your Name.”

Opening Statement
You have 30 seconds to make a positive first impression, maybe less. Take that time to connect with your audience by letting them know you respect their time. You can do that by demonstrating that you clearly understand their unique situation as it applies to your area of expertise. Share a statistic, give the results of your survey, share a conversation you had with one of the participants, etc. Let them know you understand.

Industry Jargon
Every field and every industry has its own jargon. You would be well advised to learn the jargon of your audience and use it in your presentation. You can find the terminology used by your audience in their job titles, product names, forms and forums, trade journals, magazines and in one-on-one conversations. Nothing tells an audience that you understand them better than using the words and phrases they use everyday.

Tell The Future
I’m amazed at the level of attention given to psychics, seers and futurists. They’re all very comfortable telling the future and people are only too willing to pay them for their insights.

Ask people where they think their industry will be five years from now and you’ll quickly develop your own opinion. Don’t keep it to yourself. Tell your audience what you think the future holds for them and then tell them how they can make it even better.

Handouts
Give everyone in your audience a professional handout at your presentation. It should include your name, photo, contact information and a Keeper. A Keeper is something of value that no one will throw away. This could include a list of resources, humourous quotes or a to do list.

Examples
Find an industry example to make your point. Real experts don’t use examples from one industry to make a point in another. If you can’t find an industry specific example to make your point, you may not need to make the point at all.

The best way to find an industry illustration is to share your generic example with people in the industry and ask them to give you an example from their industry. You’ll be amazed at how many good examples they come up with.

Humor
I once asked a professional speaker if he thought it was important to be humorous when giving a presentation. He said it was only important if you want to get paid. That was the best advice I’ve ever received.

Most every professional speaker will tell you that the best humor is personal and topical. When you tell a funny story about a situation that people in your audience have found themselves in, they’ll remember you forever. Your ability to use industry specific humor as it applies to your area of expertise will instantly position you as the expert in your field.

Associations
Experts are known by the company they keep. Make a point during your presentation to let your audience know the industry experts you affiliate with. You can easily do this by mentioning that in a recent conversation you had with so-and-so you talked about such-and-such.

Don’t be a namedropper for the sake of showing off, and don’t refer to anyone more than once, it’s pretentious. Talking about your affiliation with other well known experts in your field may only serve to position them as the expert and you as the student. Don’t do it.

Resources
As the expert in your field, you are probably very well read. You’ve reviewed dozens if not hundreds of books, websites, articles, blog posts and reports on your subject. Don’t keep these resources a secret.

Your audience will never read everything you’ve read on the subject, but they will appreciate knowing that these resources exist and that you recommend them. When you mention these resources in your presentation and list them on your handout, you position yourself as a well-read expert. It doesn’t hurt to mention your books and articles either.

Q&A
Make time for questions and answers at every presentation you give. It’s a great time to show off what you know, and a fantastic time to learn about the problems and creative solutions discovered by your audience members. These sessions will provide you with wonderful material for future presentations.

Start the session by reading one of the questions asked on your pre-program questionnaire. Choose a question that you can easily answer or one that you’ve thoroughly researched. By doing so, you will further position yourself as the expert in your field.

If someone in the audience asks a question that you don’t know the answer to, here are a few ways to handle it. You can either tell them that you will research the answer and post it to your website, or you can throw the question back to the audience to answer. When I don’t know the answer to a question I respond by saying, “That’s a great question. Would someone like to take a crack at it?”

At that point one of two things happen. Either no one replies, which is when I tell them I’ll research the question and post it on my site; or someone comes up with a great answer. Either way the audience gets what they’re looking for. As the expert, you don’t have to have all the answers. You just need to know where to find them.

Bob Sommers is the host of the Recognized Expert Marketing show http://www.RecognizedExpert.com on Maui. Listen to Bob and other marketing experts talk about the importance of public speaking, the art of persuasion, Internet marketing and more.

At first most people see PowerPoint as a simple slide show program. Most user make common mistakes such as putting too much information on a slide, using a font that is too small, and so on. With experience and training they start to create better presentations and feel that they have reached the limits of PowerPoint.

Advanced users take the experience one step further. They understand that there is more to design than sticking words on a screen. There is a creative element that is the difference between ho-hum presentations that put the audience to sleep and dynamic projects that electrify viewers.

Focus On The Audience
The key to exciting and memorable presentations is to create a personal experience. Before PowerPoint is started up, take some time to think about the people who will be watching your presentation. Trying to use the same slides on several audiences is doomed to fail. In a perfect world, a presentation should be customized differently for every audience.

It seems obvious that a seminar about art industry trends to an audience of college students shouldn’t be constructed the same as a presentation on Medicare benefits at a senior center, and yet a surprising number of people would create both projects exactly the same.

Instead, think about what makes the audience unique. One audience might want the classic presentation: black letters on white background, large fonts, maybe some bullets. Others might be drawn in by bold graphics or an emotional musical background.

Good Design Means Bigger Profits
Maybe you’re convinced of the need for this level of PowerPoint advanced design, but that doesn’t mean your boss is. A survey by Archetype Associates of 368 board members at Dow Jones companies revealed only one, Steve Jobs at Disney, with a background in design. Most executives just don’t get the need for the bells and whistles.

However that attitude shows that these executives don’t pay attention to the industry.

Peer Insight did a study of over 40 Fortune 500 companies and found the ones dedicated to customer-experience design were ten times as likely to outperform the S&P 500 as companies that didn’t.

This survey was looking at product design, but PowerPoint advanced techniques apply as well. A company committed to good design incorporates that philosophy in everything from products to web sites to the annual report.

Your audience is your “customer” whether it is a sales presentation or a meeting about your company’s new retirement benefits. When you make a strong, emotional connection the information is retained better and the viewer walks away with a better impression.

Get The Powerpoint Advanced Training You Need
Advanced design requires advanced techniques. Some people can pick up such complex practices on their own, but most do better in training courses taught by experienced instructors. Discussion with the instructor and the other students reveals a wealth of design methods that will give your presentations tremendous impact.

Take the time to learn PowerPoint design techniques to their fullest to create memorable presentations to be proud of.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Powerpoint advanced, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net