Fearless Presentations

Latest Episodes:

How to Present a Proposal to Management Apr 11, 2022

Show notes

You have identified a problem or opportunity for your company. Now you need to get approval. So, how do you present a proposal to management that will get approved? The process is actually pretty simple. The method of how to present a proposal to management that we use works about 100% of the time. Just follow the simple steps below, and your project will easily get funded.

By the way, if you are presenting a proposal to a customer or potential client, see this post. The technique below is mainly for elevator speech types of presentations (short and to the point.) If you are presenting a proposal to someone outside of your own company, you want to be more detailed.
For full show notes, see How to Present a Proposal to Management in Three Simple Steps
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-present-a-proposal-to-management/

How to Present a Proposal-Create a Business Proposal Presentation Apr 04, 2022

Show notes

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you present a proposal to a client. Here is the scenario… You have done your homework. A team at your company painstakingly created the perfect sales proposal. In fact, the potential client was so impressed, that they moved you to their “shortlist.” Now, though, they want you to present a bid proposal to the purchasing committee.

Your team is one of just six to eight other companies competing for this contract. How do you make sure that the committee picks your team? Well, not to brag, but over the years, groups that I have coached have received over 80% of these contracts. Just follow this simple sales presentation outline, and your team will have a better shot at winning as well.

Don’t Get Hung Up on the Terms Proposal, Bid Proposal, Shortlist Presentation or Sales Presentation

By the way, don’t get hung up on the terms that I am using. People will often respond with something like, “We don’t present ‘bids’ to our potential clients.” In other cases, professional people may say, “But I’m not a salesperson. This isn’t a sales presentation.” My point is, don’t get hung up on the terms.

The process that I’m covering will help anyone who is presenting a solution to a person or group who will exchange money for this solution. The terms “Bid” and “Proposal” are standard procurement terms, which is why we are using them here.

I have heard this type of presentation called each of the following over the years.

Bid Proposal
RFP Presentation
Shortlist Presentation
Sales Presentation
Present a Quote

Regardless of what your industry calls this speech, the process will still work.
For full show notes, visit How to Present a Proposal
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/present-a-bid-proposal-great-sales-presentation-outline/

How to Write an Effective Persuasive Speech Mar 28, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, Doug Staneart of Fearless Presentations walks us through a simple three-step process to persuade others.
Want to learn how to write a persuasive speech? Want to make sure that you persuade your audience without raising resentment? Well, if you use the techniques that you likely learned in school, you will often fail at both of these goals. In high school, you most likely learned that to write a good persuasive presentation, you have to do research, list the pros and cons, and then use lots of data to win over your audience. This technique is a terrible way to persuade people.

Most often, it actually causes the other person to want to play “Devil’s advocate” and argue with you. In this article, we are going to show you a simple way to win people to your way of thinking without raising resentment. If you use this technique, your audience will actually WANT to agree with you! The process starts with putting yourself in the shoes of your listener and looking at things from their point of view.
For full show notes visit How to Write an Effective Persuasive Speech
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/persuasive-speech-how-to-write-a-persuasive-speech/

Remember Stories from Your Life to Insert into Presentations Mar 21, 2022

Show notes

This “remember stories from your life” post is part three of a three-part series about how to tell stories in your speech. In the first two posts, we talked about the value of stories. If you recall, statistics and data are forgotten quickly and lead your audience to play “Devil’s advocate.” However, stories build rapport with your audience and reduce public speaking fear. They also make the data you are delivering more memorable.

Once you understand the value of inserting stories into your presentation, many people want to know how to do it. So, we also covered a few specific steps in storytelling to make the process easier.

My audience members will often come up to me after a presentation asking, “How do you remember all your stories?” Actually remembering stories from your life is pretty easy. It’s keeping track of all of them and being able to recall the perfect story at the perfect time. That is the hard part. In this post, I’ll give you a few of my secrets. I’ll give you a few simple ways to remember great stories as well as how to recognize when a success will make a great story.
For the full show notes, visit Remember Stories from Your Life to Insert into Presentations
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/remember-stories-from-your-life-to-insert-into-presentations/

Storytelling in Speeches-How to Reduce Presentation Fear Quickly Mar 14, 2022

Show notes

Feel nervous about speaking in public? Tell a personal story in your speech (early), and you can reduce public speaking fear dramatically. One of the first public speaking secrets that we share in our public speaking training classes is that stories are your friend.

When you tell a story, you reduce presentation jitters and build rapport with your audience. Don’t believe me? Watch any professional motivational speaker on YouTube. You will find that their entire speech is composed of a series of individual stories that they link together. In this post, we will cover some of the major benefits of telling stories as well as the best way to do it.

Major Benefits of Telling Stories in a Presentation

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, when you tell a story in your speech, you are presenting a series of pictures. These pictures magically appear in the minds of the audience. This is where true communication occurs. The human mind thinks in pictures. So, when a speaker is able to create this series of images in the audience’s mind that is similar to the picture in the presenter’s head, the speaker has communicated effectively. Stories are a powerful tool to capture and hold the audience’s attention.

Storytelling skills are easy to master as well. After you identify the important concepts you want to cover in your speech, recall instances from your own experiences where that concept was true. Just play the mental movie in your head of that memory. To tell the story to your audience, just describe this movie in enough detail that your movie also plays for the audience as well.
For full show notes, visit Storytelling in Speeches-How to Reduce Presentation Fear Quickly
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/tell-a-story-in-your-speech-and-reduce-public-speaking-fear/

The 5 Steps of Storytelling–How to Tell a Great Story in a Presentation Mar 07, 2022

Show notes

Great speakers know how to tell a great story. This post will give you the five key steps of storytelling that these great speakers know. This is a continuation of the post about how inserting stories into your presentations reduces public speaking fear. I mentioned a recent class member who told me that he just wasn’t a good storyteller. If you feel the same way, then these steps of storytelling can be very helpful for you. Just between you and I, though… Whether you follow these steps exactly or not, just the fact that you are inserting stories into your speeches is a big advantage. Most presenters in the business world give very BORING speeches. A well-placed story is a powerful tool that makes your message much more interesting and entertaining.

Want to Know How to Tell a Great Story in a Presentation? The Steps of Storytelling Are Not as Important as the Story Itself.
Storytelling in our personal lives is very normal. When we get together with friends or family, we build rapport by sharing good stories about ourselves. I went to my High School reunion a few years ago. I was visiting with friends that I haven’t seen for a long time. One of the funniest things, though, was that I expected that it would be a bunch of old people reminiscing about stories from our teenage years. However, the opposite occurred. It was really interesting to hear about what my friends had done since High School. We spent hours catching up. And the way that we caught up was by telling great stories to each other about our experiences. Many of my friends had accomplished some pretty impressive things. However, none of them sounded like they were bragging.

The biggest public speaking secret that I know is that you can do the exact same thing in your speeches. When you share stories of your successes, your audience lives vicariously through your stories. I remember growing up hearing the phrase, “Experience is the best teacher.” After being a business owner for 20 plus years now, I realize how dumb that statement is. Experience is NOT the best teacher. Someone else’s experience is the best teacher. When I hear a story about how someone else accomplished a goal that I want to accomplish, I can learn from it. I don’t have to experience all the turmoil that he or she went through.

So, follow the steps of storytelling below. However, just realize that the steps, in and of themselves, are not as important as the actual stories. Pick a good story to tell, the steps don’t matter.
For the full show notes, visit How to Tell a Great Story in a Presentation
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/the-5-steps-of-storytelling-how-to-tell-a-great-story/

The Train-the-Trainer Model-How to Create a Train-the-Trainer Course Feb 14, 2022

Show notes

The Train-the-Trainer Model is very common in the business world. However, many Train-the-Trainer programs have big flaws. A good analogy of what happens during this process is the old “telephone game.”

Put ten people in a room. Whisper a phrase with more than 10 words into the ear of the first person. The second person then relays the message to the third person. This process continues over and over until the phrase reaches the final person. When you compare the first message with the last message, they will be totally different.

This is what often happens when organizations try to implement a train-the-trainer model of employee development.

However, this doesn’t have to occur. If you put the right steps and processes in place, your employee development can be phenomenal. (It is also the best way to cut your training costs dramatically as well.)
For full show notes, visit How to Create a Train-the-Trainer Course
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/train-the-trainer-model-how-to-create-a-train-the-trainer-course/

How to Introduce Yourself in a Presentation (with Examples) Feb 07, 2022

Show notes

One of the more challenging parts of any presentation is the very first part. If you are wondering how to introduce yourself before starting your presentation, you are in good company. For most of us, once we get the first few sentences out, our nervousness will diminish pretty significantly. So, this initial self-introduction is really important. If we struggle here, our nervousness will increase. In addition, the old adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is very true.

In this post, we are going to cover the best way, a very simple three-step process that will help you introduce yourself in a presentation. A summary of the steps is below.

Start with your name and company (or organization or school).
Tell your audience what problem you can solve for them.
Share some type of proof (social proof works best) that you can solve this problem.

I will break down each step into a simple-to-follow process. By the way, if you are designing an introduction for a school speech, make sure to view the show notes for a very simple way to do this!
For full show notes and a fill-in-the-blank introduction creator, go to How to Introduce Yourself in a Presentation (with Examples)
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-introduce-yourself-before-starting-any-presentation/

How to End Your Presentation with a Bang Jan 31, 2022

Show notes

For the last couple of weeks, I covered how to start a presentation and also how to design a great presentation. This week, I'm going to show you a few ways that you can end your presentation with a bang.
We start with a few "show stoppers." These are things to absolutely avoid when you end your presentation. Then, we cover seven very effective ways to end a presentation.
By the way, I also designed a handout for this session since there are so many options. Just follow the link below to access the free handout or just type "How to End Your Presentation with a Bang" into Google and look for the post on fearlesspresentations.com.
For full show notes and the free download, visit 7 Ways to End Your Presentation
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-end-your-presentation-with-a-bang/

How to Write a Speech in 3 Simple Steps Jan 25, 2022

Show notes

Welcome back to the Fearless Presentations podcast. When most of you first started listening to this podcast, it was because you wanted to feel less nervous when you have to stand up and speak before a group. So, most people start listening to try to create a different feeling.
An important thing that we often overlook, though, is that the way that we design a speech will either add to your nervousness or reduce your nervousness. For instance, if you try to write out your presentation word-for-word and memorize it when you stand up to deliver that speech, you will be nervous. The way you prepared for the presentation and the way you created the presentation caused you to be more nervous.
So, on this episode, I'm going to cover an unbelievable simple process to go through to create a presentation from scratch that will reduce your nervousness and cause you to be seen as an exceptional presenter. I'm going to give you the steps in a cursory fashion, so you can use them right away. But if you want more details on any o the steps, I will put a link in the show notes to a blog post that will cover more details.
By the way, Make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a session. Also, make sure to leave a comment or review if you like the podcast.
For full show notes, see How to Write a Speech in 3 Simple Steps
https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-write-a-speech-just-few-simple-steps/

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