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Brenda C. Smith: Posted on Monday, January 23, 2012 9:07 AM
 Presenters using Power Point need to realize that this is a performance, and definitely not just some slide show.The solution is to keep your audience entertained and informed so they leave with vital content and are entertained. Today, since Power Point presentations have become the norm, you need to distinguish your show. I’ve noticed a need for some of my professional clients who have gone back to school requires them to do a power point presentation.Three simple steps will add punch to wake-up your listener!3 Wake-up Steps: 1. Organize and Know your Content: You need to have your content organized clearly and learn it. A successful blueprint to follow consists of three main points that you want your listener to gain. Under each of these three main points you must have a story, or data to provide examples and evidence. Your examples must connect to the listener because this will keep them awake. Once you’ve got the meat of the content done; then create a dynamic opening using a question or a game. This is their alarm clock beeping them to wake-up. You need to tease the listener with key tips that you are about to tell them. The end of your content must not be ignored because the listener will drift off. Recharge your three points so your audience still wants more. Do this by including a quotation, a closing exercise, or an excited possibility. Subsequently, learn your content so you sound confident and organized. How do you learn this? Ask yourself: What are my 3 main points? Be able to answer this without any hesitation. Thenrelate your examples using the same template. Learn one point and those examples; then, repeat the process with the other two points. 2. Rehearse, Rehearse, and Rehearse: Rehearse by speaking it out loud! Nothing is more effective than this. Do not memorize every word, it is better to rehearse in a passionate way so your audience will not fall asleep. The order of rehearsal is to start in small chunks. Here's an effective path: - Main content: ask and answer with examples - What are my 3 main points?
- Opening: infuse the listener with anticipation so he wants to stay awake.
- Closing: use the same zeal that you started with to come across as genuine.
- Entire content as one presentation: get feedback on any visual distractions such as, shifting from foot to foot, excessive arm movements, or other body gestures.Check for your facial expressions and eye contact being inviting and inclusive.Check for any vocal distractions: um,like, ah, coughs, etc.
- Technical rehearsal: rehearse the entire presentation with your power point equipment. This is crucial!
3. Warm-up your voice: The final step is a must “to do” for voice power. Warm-up with a few arm and leg stretches; release tension in the neck; loosen facial muscles and jaw; and say a tongue twister. Take three deep breaths with the diaphragm, located below your rib cage. Repeat your opening lines. Now you are geared up to keep your audience awake as you juggle from point to screen to point again – no more bored expressions, just excitement and applause! |
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Brenda C. Smith: Posted on Monday, July 11, 2011 10:10 AM
Are you looking for activities to engage your audience? One of the major transferable skills that works for teachers, trainers, and presenters is the ability to engage participants in activities that connect with their learning. Drama teachers have used the techniques of learning by“doing” as they apply it to their subject of dramatic arts and their theatrical productions. So, it’s interesting to note that trainers now embrace this method as a strategy to boost their own presentations. As a drama coach, teacher, and director I have always found that my participants at all ages and all academic levels have embraced drama activities to experience a deeper level of understanding about themselves and the relationships that surround them. These techniques are also appropriate at the business, post-secondary, and corporate level for adult learners during their training process. Improvisation, role-playing, group physical activities, and problem- solving activities are strategies that really work to reinforce your key message. Do you have some favourite activities that you would like to share with us? Or do you want a list of activities that work with groups live or online? If so, please leave a comment below or contact us today so we can share our list with you. |
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Brenda C.Smith,Speech & Drama Coach: Posted on Thursday, May 26, 2011 9:02 PM
Hey, Just thought I would share my recent article with you so you can have the opportunity to try out a few exercises if you think your voice needs a boost- especially when you're trying to achieve your message but your voice falls apart on you. Does your voice match your inner personal message to the world? Indeed, you may have a truthful message that you deliver with passion to effectively mesmerize your audience to action. However, does the passion of your story match the sound of your voice or is it out-of-whack with your inner zeal? For example, do you speak with energy to lead the listener into the pivotal moment of the story – when suddenly your voice cracks, or your pitch level sounds too timid, or too high, that it sounds like a total disparity to the intended robust message that you wished to convey. The audience becomes distracted by this. To remedy this situation you could take some tips from actors who train their voices daily as part of their artistic skills. Actors during their vocal training develop strong foundational steps to express their character’s personality, such as a king commanding his court or troops, in an authoritative loud voice, not the voice of a shy young actor who cannot project his sound or resonant a full tone. The three key areas of strengthening your voice encompass extending breath support, improving diction, and increasing the range of resonation with the presenter’s body. Here are some simple exercises to get you started on strengthening your voice to empower your passionate message. Breath-Support Exercise 1: Make your breath more effective using your diaphragm to repeat aloud your vowel sounds and extend them for a longer duration. Read aloud lines of your speech or some poetry, gradually including more words on one breath so you can do it easily, and not run out of air. Imagine what would happen if a trumpet player suddenly ran out of air, there would be no sound; so that is why musicians also increase the strength of their breath. Clear Diction Exercise 2: Practise changing your word emphasis, stress, and clear articulation of specific words. Repeat one key line from your speech that is important to your audience’s take-away. Ask yourself: how many different meanings can I put on that one line of my speech? This exercise shows you how delivery of one word could alter the entire essence of your line. If you are sloppy with your diction, particularly slurring the end sounds or rushing words together, the audience only hears bits and pieces, not the entire content clearly. Take the time to focus on clear enunciation to enhance your meaning and nuances. Full Resonation Exercise 3: Move your tone from resonating too much in your head, nasal, and throat areas down to your chest area. Place your hand on your chest and repeat aloud “low” extending the vowel sound so that you can physically feel the vibration of the sound being resonated. This requires mind-directed focus supported by your breath. Finding your best voice will necessitate you to practise a range of sounds from high to low until you feel the point where it resonates fully, and is most comfortable for you. Wow! This is your inner personal voice that will impact the audience and be free of any tension or disconnection with your passion. As a presenter take the time to discover and free your vocal sound to find your true or optimal voice that will enhance and definitely match your inner message, so the audience can experience and share your passion. Let your audience truly hear the inner essence of your powerful voice. |
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Brenda C. Smith: Posted on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 11:45 AM
So many public speakers and business speakers do not understand how the voice actually works. If you have the opportunity to take actor's vocal training, then you will realize how valuable this training is. The fundamentals of breathing, tone production, and enunciation are honed to perfection after much time and rehearsal. From the actor you will learn fundamental skills in using breathing techniques to empower your message without running out of breath, or not being heard at the back of the room. A myriad of muscles to support the diaphragm and ribs are the framework that will give you a medical boost to understanding your own body and how it works. Next, perfecting tone quality takes many hours of rehearsal time to allow the body to produce your sound, and discover which cavities of chest, pharynx, mouth, and nose will achieve a rich resonated and dynamic tone. Finally, from the actor's training you will become masters ot enunciation with practice of consonant and vowel sounds on every word, keeping the speech muscles in shape constantly to achieve clarity of expression and meaning. The combination of these foundational techniques will add to any prevous training of the public speaker, toastmaster speaker, business speaker, or trainer to produce a higher level of charismatic speech that creates ovations, emotions, and movement. If you are in the speaking business why do you not upgrade your business tool: your voice? |
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Brenda C. Smith: Posted on Saturday, April 09, 2011 9:58 PM
Does your presentation drag or do you have the audience on their feet applauding at the end of it? Are you creating action from your speeches to amplify your sales,authority, and repeat business? If not, then you need a system that will impact your audience to do all of the above. There are 3 key elements that will get you started that you can implement immediately. 1. Content Precision: If your content is vague or all-inclusive, audiences are challenged as to what action to take, so they leave with only thinking about it; but never taking any action to go to the next step. Your content must focus on only two to three key benefits. Each of these major points must be backed up with a compelling example to clarify the information that you are presenting.Your story must tell how your service or product changed a business so it moved forward. 2. Speech Power: Your speech must include a variety of tones: one moment friendly,another moment energetic, then calm and thoughtful, and even a must-do-now tone. Good diction enhances the clarity of your content; good projection enhances your confidence and authority. A speech coach can pinpoint what works and what needs fixing, and be a great help with getting your system set up and rehearsed. 3. Drama Performance: Your presentation is indeed a performance. You draw the audience in right from the start with your sincerity and passion for what it is you are about to tell them. You build them up with your stories showing your own emotional connection which is emphasized with role-playing moments. You use your pauses to make your climax and your endings memorable. You give your audience the live-action scene so they identify fully. It is the combination of all three of the above key elements that will create a performance with power and the action that you dream about. The nuances of an actor, orator, and narrator are subtly mixed with strategy, energy, and emotion to bring your audiences to their feet in amazement; then they take action to buy your service. Impacting your audience with your speech is a skill and an art that is developed from a system and then rehearsed for many upcoming performances. |
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