Living the Lesson
Two of the public speaking tips I give my clients are:
Always have a Plan B. Something can always go wrong. Planning and practicing how you’ll react and having a backup plan can help with nerves and make your presentations go much more smoothly.
Turn weakness into strength. Something that may feel like a weakness can be turned into a strength that demonstrates vulnerability and forges connection with your audience.
Little did I know as I prepared for a Presentation Masterclass last week that I’d become the case study for these techniques . . .
First, my tech didn’t work. I was on the Zoom call early to test out my PowerPoint with all the video examples I love to use, and then Zoom refused to cooperate. I could not share my screen. The organization hosting the Presentation Masterclass couldn’t share my slides either. I shared them again with the host through Dropbox. That didn’t work either.
75 people were on the call ready to go! Ready to learn how to enhance their presentations. And the presentation needed to go on.
So what did we do? The organizers tried again to share the slides during my introduction but Zoom still refused. So they shared the presentation PDF I had sent them earlier in the week, we explained what was going on to the participants, promised to send links to all the videos after the talk, and I presented without the interactive slides and videos I was prepared to use.
Because I always have lots of backup plans (we lawyers are trained in risk management!), I had my slides and notes printed out (very old school) just in case but did not need or use them.
What did I learn?
Sometimes all of your backup plans will fail and you just need to make the best of the situation and give it your all.
Don’t depend on your slides, visuals, or any included videos, ever, no matter how great those videos are at illustrating your points. You need to be able to present value without any of those tools.
Growth mindset and learning from setbacks is easy to talk about but not so easy to do.
Most importantly, I learned that if you keep your cool, try to remain confident, and really think about what your audience wants and needs in that moment, even if it means taking them along with you on a different journey than you originally intended, they will support you and be open to learning . . .
Thanks to Canopy Advisory Group and the fantastic audience online for the Presentation Masterclass for whom I got to be an unwitting case study. They contributed great questions, insights, and comments. And I hope they eventually enjoyed those videos.
