I am your big fan Alex. I am a professional Communication trainer and coach myself and I just love your content which I find to be super structured, easy to understand, and very interesting too with relevant examples to compliment each point. Thank you for sharing your valuable knowledge.
Great job, Alex! Like you, I teach public speaking and speech Communication at the college level. You combine the right amount of useful content + humor to keep your audience wanting more. Keep up the good work.
I have learned a lot from your teachings. I have an online oral presentation in 2 hours from now and I believe I have got useful tools that can help me deliver a great presentation. Thank you very much for your direction.
What you are expressing here sounds like a good essay too.. Only the presentation has a voice and intonation that can add an enormous value to the final piece... Give me a good speaker any time... It would reach more people these days than a writer. Great to hear your tips as always!
Very good information . I’m giving my very firs t personal story to our church senior youth group soon . So I’m studying articles like yours . To learn how to better give it . Thank you , I intend to watch this article of yours , several. more times , n take notes . Prayers appreciated 🙏. My subject Gods. Hand on my life leading to salvation n baptism of the Holy Ghost .🙏
Hello Mr. Lyon, I am enjoying learning quality business and leadership skills from you in your videos. You are helping me for my today and future. Thank you...God Bless
Thanks, Cathy. It's an older video but I think the actual content is still helpful. I wish the production quality was better but I'm still learning! I'm planning on remaking and updating this one later this year.
Hiii Alex, your channel is the best!! Can you make a video on how to conduct an informational interview. I am not referring to a job interview. Just a conversation with someone. So for example, if you ask someone a question, they respond, what do you respond back with? “ good to know, my next question is …”. How do you transition from one question to the next. Thanks!
Thanks so much for all your tips. I have a presentation coming up soon and I am already freaking out. I know the material but nervousness always gets the best of m.
You'll be okay if you know your stuff. Most people feel nervous but it doesn't show through as much as you think it will. If you practice a lot (like 10 times), then 95% of it will work out the way you practiced. Good luck!
This is great! Love the examples, especially pulling things from a bag and then saying what you’d like to put back in it. Might just try that one myself! Your discussion of call-backs was really helpful, too, so thanks for putting this together. Another technique is to use a “call to emotion” as your grabber, like in these 3 ideas: bit.ly/2jlKhdF
+Communication Coach....Hi Alex - I really liked your video and you have some very useful tips. However, I would like to make a couple of points. Firstly, in the opening I like to very quickly tell my audiences how long the presentation will take - and also invite them to ask questions as we go along. This has three really good benefits: 1. the audience immediately knows how much of their time I am going to take. [and this is absolutely vital nowadays!] 2. It encourages interaction and prompts the audience to think more about my messages [and how they relate to the audience's expectations] 3. You won't over-run having to deal with any questions at the end or prohibit people from asking questions. [audiences don't want to be at a presentation any longer than they need to!] Secondly your suggestions for the closing statements - I have to disagree. The moment you say those ubiquitous phrases - ''So, in conclusion....''. ''To sum up....''' etc - your audience will be putting on their coats and packing their stuff away! [ie; they won't be listening!] Yet this is arguably THE most important part of your talk and satisfies the 'recency' element of how we remember. The closing needs to be powerful, memorable and a call to action. For example, you might ask the audience what it is that they found most useful about your talk [by relating this to your opening 'impact statement']. Or you can ask them what they will do differently after listening to you. [which also serves as a job aid]. I hope my comments help but I will definitely subscribe to your channel! Cheers!
Thank you for the great tips, it is so useful and entertaining that i did not feel the time passed by. One thing i used to close my speech by saying "this is my take into the subject, i do not have to be 100% correct, it is ok, u do not have to agree with it. if you have any question or comment about the topic of my presentation, please let me hear it. I will try to answer it to my best ability." What do u think?
You could say that at the end. If it were me, I just end with a really strong clincher and then use that response you mentioned in Q&A if I had somebody ask a hostile question.
Thank you Alex. This is very useful. In case we have a group presentation, how can we make sure to introduce every team members and then start the introduction of the presentation interestingly?
Hi, Tracy. I actually do not recommend introducing the group members first like that. I always recommend starting with a strong attention getter without anything before it, not even introductions. Instead, you can mention names in passing within the rest of the presentation. One way to do it is long the way as you transition to somebody else in the group, you can say their name. For example, I'd say, "Now, Tracy is going to give an example of how this would work." That's a much more natural way to do it. However, if you really, really want to do it in the introduction, then do it somewhere between the attention grabber and the preview of main points. I would recommend against doing it as the first part of the introduction. I hope this helps.
It's better to be concise. I'd say a 1 min. hook is okay in a long presentation of say 30 min or more. But, a 2 min hook might drag unless it is simply amazing. Probably the #1 complaint about speakers is that they are long-winded. So, it's better to be concise.
Could you explain why you would want to address audience relevance before providing a thesis statement? In my mind it seems like the thesis statement would be necessary to provide the needed context for why your topic is relevant to the audience.
You raise a great question. There's certainly wiggle room on this order if your message calls for it. On the one hand, your attention grabber/opening should reveal what you're talking about as should the audience relevance. So, let's say you're talking using study skills to get As in class. The attention-grabber should naturally connect to school, studying, and getting good grades. Your audience relevance should do that, too. By the time you get to your thesis, you should have provided the context for your specific argument. If an introduction is done this way, all of the necessary context is provided before you give your claim and preview statement. On the other hand, however, every presentation is different and some times people will use a rather creative and powerful attention grabber that may not be obviously connected to the specific topic they'll talk about. In cases like those, then I think you are quite right at the thesis should come earlier so they can follow you and then you can explain the relevance once the topic has been clearly communicated. My default approach in all of my presentations is to use the order in the video and I just build it in a way that my topic is obvious in my attention getter. So, I say, "Be sure to reveal the topic in your attention getter so people know what you're going to be speaking about." But, that's different than a specific thesis statement.
Just saw your Q. Quotes and Questions are not the only things you use as attention grabbers. There are plenty of ways to start your presentation.. For example.. You can start with some current news story/event relevant to your topic. Or some story.. Or some fun fact. You need to make the decision and be as creative as possible in starting your topic. Hope this helps.
Yes, I think so. There's room for creativity but any opening should connect naturally to your thesis in some ways. It should be a long stretch to make the point.
Hi Rahul. The tips at the end of the video above can be used for a class presentation. I also have a video on just on ending a presentation that might be helpful. Here's the link to that one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fBO0riisOzU.html I hope these tips help.
You mean the very end when you say, "Thank you?" I recommend to keep that very brief. When you're done with your content, just pause, say thank you, and smile and walk off after about 1-2 seconds. Is that what you mean? if not, let me know what specifically you need help with and I'll do my best to answer.
Yeah I meant the very end. But just a "thank you" is enough??? Its a class presentation, Isn't it good to specifically acknowledge the teacher???. Is it a bad idea??? Please reply with your opinion.
Yes, just say thank you to everybody at the end. I wouldn't specifically thank the teacher unless that is an expectation that is clear. You can, if you'd like, look directly at the teacher with warm eye contact as you say thank you. That might be a nice touch.
Yes, I have two channels and that is the other one. It's call the Organizational Communication Channel. It has videos that are mainly about various theories and research. It doesn't so much get in the hands-on practical side of communication skills.
Can you give any tips on how to do a group presentation online when all four students are in different locations? We will be doing this live in a webex meeting with our class. Thanks.
Sounds like a challenge. I have literally never coached anybody on that. So, I'll fall back on advice for any new situation. Practice. Of course, practice your individual parts but also practice together on screen to run through it and keep it smooth. The practicing will help reveal what needs the most work.
For beginning speakers, there's a tendency to not know how to end. So, they end up saying things like "That's it." or "That's the end." Or even worse, they try to end but they don't pause long enough and when nobody claps, they panic and start repeating themselves. To prevent beginners from doing that, I always recommend that when they are finished, they say thank you, nod, and zip their mouth. That prevents all of the most common mistakes beginners usually make right at the end. More advanced speakers don't typically need that advice, but beginners do. Having said all that, it's never wrong to say thank you at the end. Even CEOs and numerous Presidents of the US say it at the end of some of their speeches. Having a strict rule against saying "thank you" at the end sounds to me like it needs additional explanation. To me, that sounds like a specific speaker/teacher didn't like the way "thank you" sounded for their own personal reasons and then tried to make it into a rule. I doubt, in other words, that is based on any sort of research.
Liked the video overall, and the one thing why I disliked his video. Because, he didn`t show the magic trick that he wanna to secret to us in the ending.
Could I consult a grammar question? Thanks! Which of the following sentences is INCORRECT? A．Twenty miles seems like a long walk to him． B．No one except his supporters agree with him． C．Neither Julia nor I were going to the party． D．Few students in my class are really lazy.
