Content about Laura Stack

March 6, 2012
Supercompetent Speaking: Tips for Visuals

A picture really is worth a thousand words. So when it comes to professional presentations, good visuals not only help personalize your talk, they save time and more easily transmit your ideas. They also can help the audience remember and integrate your message better. But always remember that too much visual information presented too quickly can be confusing.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

While the information we gather with all our senses can be vitally important, we human beings prefer the visual medium over all others. Our brains just work that way: We possess the ability to differentiate and process subtle differences in light intensity, color, and movement almost instantly, even though images tend to contain much more information than other sensory inputs.

February 9, 2012
Supercompetent Speaking: Top 10 Dress-for-Speaking-Success Tips

When you step onto a stage or behind a podium, you need to immediately make a positive first impression based on your appearance alone. Like it or not, how you dress communicates your image, personality, and even your identity to your listeners. If you make a clothing misstep, you may find yourself swimming upstream during the course of your presentation—and you might not make the kind of impact you intended.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

Nature has programmed human beings to assess strangers almost instantly for threat or value. While this capacity is less important today than it was a few thousand years ago, our biology hasn’t yet caught up to our culture. In a very real sense, then, style often trumps substance—especially in environments where people only have a few minutes to get to know you.

January 10, 2012
Supercompetent Speaking: Reading Your Audience

Your audience members will send you plenty of clues when their attention starts to wander, so take their collective pulse every few minutes. At the very least, survey the room after every major point. Stay attuned to body language, facial expression, extraneous sounds—and too much silence.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

A good speech adapts to meet an audience’s needs. Good speakers maintain awareness of the audience throughout the entire presentation and make adjustments as necessary. How do you know if your audience is “with” you? What is your audience thinking and feeling? How do you read them? This doesn’t require telepathy, just a type of sensory intelligence derived from careful attention and experience.

December 8, 2011
Supercompetent Speaking: Breaking the Ice

Properly used, ice breakers will help you as a presenter convey a personal touch that shapes how your listeners feel about you; this, in turn, determines how they listen. The right opening remarks improve the group dynamic, encouraging a sense of trust that fosters a welcome, participatory audience.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

Connecting with your listeners can be the hardest part of presenting, especially if they don’t already know you. They might come into your presentation thinking, “Oh, boy, another dull speech.” Or they may feel alone, out of place, or unprepared for the experience. Worse, if your session is mandatory, and they have “better” things to do, they might even feel a little hostility toward you.

November 10, 2011
Supercompetent Speaking: Pre-Presentation Preparations

Good presenters spend time preparing for speeches, both in the long and short terms. Earlier columns have reviewed long-term preparation; here we’ll discuss the practical steps you can take immediately before an event to maximize impact and value for the audience.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, NSA President

Good presenters spend time preparing for speeches, both in the long and short terms. Earlier columns have reviewed long-term preparation; in this article, let’s discuss the practical steps you can take immediately before an event to maximize impact and value for the audience. As your presentation comes down to the wire, keep these tips in mind:

October 13, 2011
Supercompetent Speaking: The Value of Rehearsal

Off-the-cuff presentations aren’t impossible, but they’re hard to get just right; and that can limit their effectiveness. Rehearsal can boost the success of even the most casual presentations, and it’s essential for the big ones. Indeed, the more important the presentation, the longer and more often you should rehearse.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

As a business professional, would you ever send the first draft of a report to your boss or client? Probably not; no doubt you’d want to smooth out the rough patches and check it over for typos first. Most of us don’t even let e-mails go without making sure we’ve done our best to communicate both cleanly and efficiently. Polishing our written work is accepted as a necessary part of doing business.

September 13, 2011
Supercompetent Speaking: Using Stories in Presentations

Stories help us process, visualize, and remember facts and raw data, giving complex information meaning. This makes them an invaluable part of any professional presentation, since all the bullet points and graphs might otherwise overwhelm the listener. Furthermore, because we all love to hear stories, they help us connect with people.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

August 11, 2011
Supercompetent Speaking: 4 Tips to Maximize Vocal Skills

Your voice creates an immediate impression—and needless to say, that impression must be a good one. Among other things, it’s a powerful indicator of your emotional state, including how you feel about your topic and the people you deliver it to. It follows, then, that you must learn to use your voice as a musician would use an instrument, to deliver your message with precise, positive emphasis.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

As a speaker, you communicate your message through your spoken words and your body language. However, the characteristics of your vocal delivery will have a tremendous impact on whether your message lands. The most brilliant message can come across as dry and boring if delivered insipidly, whereas a dull message can come alive if delivered with enthusiasm and energy.

July 14, 2011
Supercompetent Speaking: How to Cram Lots of Information into Limited Time

One of the biggest constraints you face when making any presentation is a limited amount of time to get your point across. Your goal isn’t to make listeners instant experts on the subject but to include as much information as they can effectivelyprocess. Some pointers to keep in mind, both during your preparation phase and while you’re speaking.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

One of the biggest constraints you face when making any presentation is a limited amount of time to get your point across. This is true whether you’re the keynote speaker for a convention and have a solid hour to speak, or you’re pitching your proposed budget to the board of directors and are lucky to get 10 minutes.

June 14, 2011
Supercompetent Speaking: Using Body Language During Presentations

When you’re giving a presentation, youare your most important visual. Therefore, your body language has power: You can use it to bring life to your material and to indicate how you want your listeners to react to what you’re telling them. That being the case, you need to remain constantly aware of the image you portray, from the moment you stand up, until after your presentation is complete.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

When you’re trying to get a point across, howyou say it can be just as important as whatyou say—sometimes even more so. There are two forms of language in play here: verbal language, which can be manipulated through inflection, volume, word use, and emphasis; and body language, which can be even more important.

May 12, 2011
Supercompetent Speaking: Tips to Ease Presenter Nerves

Presentation skills often are needed, even among those who don’t speak from the stage for a living. So it’s critical to learn how to rein in your nerves and make smooth, engaging presentations whenever necessary. You may never get rid of your presenter nerves entirely, but you canreduce them. Here are a few ways to do that.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

In survey after survey, people put the prospect of speaking in front of an audience near the top of their list of anxieties—often ahead of big worries such as death and divorce. It’s a universal fear: Even seasoned presenters often experience the gut-twisting fight-or-flight reflex that pressure to perform can trigger.

April 12, 2011
Supercompetent Speaking: Capturing and Retaining Attention

If you really want to get a point across to an audience, then it’s critical that you capture their attention from the moment you begin speaking, and retain it until the last echoes of your presentation have faded. Ideally, you want your message to stick with them and influence their subsequent actions after the event is over. Here are a few ways to grab hold of an audience’s interest from the word GO, and keep them riveted until the very end—and beyond.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

If you really want to get a point across to an audience, then it’s critical that you capture their attention from the moment you begin speaking, and retain it until the last echoes of your presentation have faded. Ideally, you want to keep their attention at some level after the event is over, at least in the sense that you want your message to stick with them and influence their subsequent actions.