Be the opposite of AI

Be the opposite of AI.

Have you seen these promos?

"No more spending hours designing slides; create visually stunning presentations with AI in just seconds!"

🙄

👉🏼 If you care about accuracy and facts...

👉🏼 If you care about authenticity and human connection...

👉🏼 If you care about being known for your own thought leadership and unique perspective...

Please be the opposite of AI.

Natalia Sanyal wrote this as one of her two top marketing trends for humanity-first businesses in 2024: "With AI-generated content taking over our feeds, humanity-first businesses seemed more motivated than ever to show their audience that their content is human-generated and anything but generic."

Creating an effective presentation requires more than just feeding some text into an AI app. And your presentation is more than just slides.

Before you can make slides, you need content. How do you create content for your presentations?

By figuring out who your audience is and what they need, want and care about so you can solve their problems using your expertise and experience.

AI is absolutely helpful in brainstorming, organizing, and even structuring a presentation.

But you still need to personalize it with your own voice and your own ideas. You need to create engagement and collaboration with the participants to help them learn and apply what you're teaching.

Otherwise, you just end up saying and doing what everyone else is already saying and doing. And sure, if you don't care about being generic, have at it. 

Jar of rocks? Starfish story? I asked ChatGPT for additional examples of overused presentation stories and it added the boiling frog story and the bamboo tree story, along with "Einstein’s Definition of Insanity," which Einstein never even said. Which somehow doesn't keep generic presenters from using it over and over.

And then, of course, you have to deliver these ideas physically, in a room or on a screen. AI certainly can't do that for you. It's up to you to bring the human touch, the emotional connection, the humor, and your one-of-a-kind point of view. 

AI is a great tool. I LOVE it. I use it all the time to help me cut short some of the brainstorming time with my presentations. And it can definitely help me round out some of my ideas, clarify and condense some of the things I want to say.

But it's no substitute for my own thought leadership, lived experience, personal examples, stories and experiments.

If you want to create a relevant, practical, useful, engaging presentation that is meaningful and memorable for your audience, AI is not gonna cut it. 

And any presentation you create "in seconds" with AI is probably gonna be junk. Like these images I made to try to illustrate this post.

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Psst! You're a windbag!

Hey you! You're a windbag. 😮‍💨

🌬️🌬️🌬️

Sure, you're an esteemed expert and authority in your field.

You're sought out for the value you bring to conferences.

You have knowlege and experience that's not easy to find in a speaker.

But...

🟢 You looooove to hear yourself talk.

🟣 Your ratio of lecture to engagement is wayyyy off.

🟡 You're so verbose that your audience can't even breathe.

🔵 Your language is anything but plain, and way over their heads.

You've been doing this so long, that you've forgotten the most basic concepts about giving a presentation:

🟣You can't expect bored attendees to learn or retain your material.

🟠You can't just pour information into people like they're empty vessels.

🟢You have to tailor your content so it's relevant, practical and useful to them.

🔴You have to balance what you need and want with what they need and want.

Some of my "windiest" and driest clients have been academics, CEOs, healthcare professionals, financial advisors, and lawyers, who realized that the piece missing from their presentations was engagement.

✅They know their stuff.

✅They're highly experienced.

✅They're not nervous about speaking.

But they're missing that critical element that creates a complete experience for their audiences—and by the way, the element that creates a more fun experience for themselves!

Are you missing the audience engagement piece? Reach out and let's talk!

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Do your slides advance and enhance your message?

Me: Introduces the Van Gogh of slides.
Audience: So, about those quarterly reports.

When you're using slides, you have to balance visual engagement and relevant information. ⚖️

A slide that's beautiful but doesn't advance your message is just as pointless as a slide with 12 bullets and a title that says, "Why Bother? No Choice Soon = Science (testing) Advances, Media 'Instant Messaging' Globally, Risk Management, Sustainability No Longer Altruistic." (Yes, a real slide from a conference I attended.) 😕

I'm a huge fan of slides, and I use them in most of my presentations.

However, I don't use bullets or more than two lines of text. Rather, I focus on one simple idea per slide, illustrated with a relevant image (sometimes humorous, and always something that enhances the point I'm making).

There is no opportunity for the participants to:

🔸read ahead and plan their arguments or disagreements

🔸read ahead and start Googling the point

🔸get distracted by something at the bottom of the slide they don't understand

🔸not follow what I'm saying because they're so busy reading

🔸strain their eyes trying to read miniscule text

I love slides, and at the same time, I only love them when they're relevant, practical and useful to the participants - and enhance and advance the message I'm trying to convey.

Do your slides advance and enhance your message? Or are they actually a hindrance to your message?

P.S. How do you like my meme? 😆 

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Time, flow, engagement: Top three presentation challenges

You're a business leader in the cutthroat corporate world, and presentations are one of your battlegrounds.

You may or may not love giving presentations, but they're a critical part of getting your message in front of the people who need to hear it.

So what's getting in the way of you delivering your most compelling, concise and powerful message? There are probably more, but let's just focus on these three...

1. No time

You're busier than ever, juggling countless tasks and projects, and barely coming up for air. So when it comes to prepping your next presentation, let's just say you wing it. 

You rush through the process, your ideas are all over the place, and the final result falls flat. 

Deadlines, meetings, and daily chaos leave little space for dedicated preparation, so your presentations never get the time priority they deserve.

2. No flow

Ever sat through a presentation that made you go, "Wait, what just happened?" We've all been there. 

Lack of a clear and logical structure that actually leads your audience to a desired result is one of the biggest issues I see. Especially when your main presentation prep involves opening a PowerPoint and typing in a bunch of bullets... (yes, I'm looking at you). 

Without a clear navigational flow, the audience is left scratching their heads, missing out your core points. It's like trying to follow a treasure map without any landmarks - a confusing journey that goes in circles.

3. No engagement

Effective presentations - the ones that actually get results - are all about engaging and connecting with your audience on a human level, but honestly, this is one of the biggest struggles for business presenters.

You fill your presentations with jargon-filled monologues, acronyms, charts, graphs and data that leave your participants nodding off. Too much information crammed into too little time can turn a potentially amazing presentation into a snoozefest.

When you spend so much of your time trying to impress your attendees, you don't connect, they don't relate, and you've just wasted a bunch of your - and their - time. Engagement is required to move people into action.

How to get on top of these three issues without spending a ton of time or money?

Brace yourselves, my friend: the Presentation Prep Reset Package is here to get you EXCITED about your next presentation in a compact format that is easy and fast!

With its step-by-step guidance and 12 powerful prompts, you can kiss chaos goodbye and say hello to presentations that flow and connect.

The Presentation Prep Reset Package puts the spotlight on clarity, simplicity, and audience-centered design. It facilitates making the most of your time and creating presentations that actually make an impact.

Tackle your time troubles, messy structure, and engagement issues with this easy and quick workbook, video guide and written transcript (for those who hate taking the time to watch videos, like me!).

Check it out here: https://coachlisab.com/prep

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Monitor the chat... or don't use it

I was in a workshop on cybersecurity while attendees flooded the chat with links to random "cybersecurity" products.

Oh, the irony.🙄

It was literally impossible to determine if any of these links were safe (I certainly was not going to click one to find out), and yet, the hosts of the workshop were not paying any attention...

👇🏼

…even as they were explaining safety measures for our businesses, including avoiding malware.

On top of that, there were SO MANY comments and questions in the chat, it was difficult to identify and reply to the legitimate posts.😵‍💫

So I gave up and hoped for a recording.

🙏🏼🙏🏽🙏🏾Peeps, if you're hosting a remote training on Zoom, please have someone monitor your chat. You don't have to spend money on a professional producer; a friend or colleague who's familiar with Zoom will be fine.

If you can't, and especially if you expect a lot of attendees, then ❌DON'T❌ USE❌CHAT.

Set up your training as a webinar instead of a meeting and use the Q&A feature instead.

It's frustrating and off-putting for your audience to be spammed during your presentation and for you to do nothing about it!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Do not assume your message makes sense

Do 🚫NOT🚫 assume that your message makes sense.

This fundraising email I received makes a couple of assumptions:

1️⃣ I know what GOTV and EOQ mean. And no, these acronyms were not explained elsewhere in the email.

2️⃣ I've read previous emails which might clarify these acronyms, so it's not necessary to do it this time.

I cannot emphasize enough that it is ALWAYS your responsibility—as a communicator, writer, marketer, content creator or presenter—to make your message as clear and simple as possible for your audience. Every time.

If they don't get it, it's not their fault.

👉🏼Reminder: Adults have big fragile egos.

People often won't raise their hand in your presentation to ask you to explain something, because they don't want to look foolish.

As unfortunate as that is, YOU (the communicator) must understand that if you don't make things clear, and your audience doesn't ask (or Google), you've lost them.

Funny story: A friend of mine contacted me a few years ago, perplexed about an email she had received from her local Toastmasters club. She'd been thinking of joining and had contacted a club with questions.

"...I wrote to them asking what the requirements are, and the guy wrote back that it's open to Toastmasters who've earned a CC. Really helpful. Not. What's a CC? Does it mean anything to you?"

When I explained the acronym, she wrote back:

"How 'competent' is a 'communicator' who answers a query from an interested newbie with an abbreviation that means nothing to them (me) without explaining it in English?"

How competent, indeed?

I'm picking on NAACP and Toastmasters here, but everyone is doing this (ESPECIALLY nonprofits), assuming your audience understands your words, acronyms, jargon and lingo.

They don't.

And they feel stupid asking.

So just👏🏼keep👏🏼it👏🏼simple👏🏼.

(Also... acronyms, jargon and lingo are BORING. 🤷🏻)

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Why you should do podcast interviews... and it's not why you think

I just had the most amazing conversation with Karen LaMarsh for her Real Life Startup podcast, and it made me realize why I enjoy being interviewed so much.

Sure, we all want to build our credibility and visibility through sharing our ideas and intellectual property via speaking and interviews.

But here's the REAL reason you should be doing podcasts (and speaking, and creating video, and writing...): Every time you open your mouth to talk about your ideas, they get better.

Especially when you have a host asking you questions and restating your ideas. At least three times today during my conversation with Karen, I had an aha moment about my own message and my own marketing.

She rephrased things I said and reiterated my ideas in a way that helped me gain even deeper insight into what I want my message to be!

When we explain, interpret and clarify our ideas via speaking or writing, our ideas often become more clear to ourselves.

Maybe you'll get more clients and customers if you get interviewed on podcasts or speak in front of an audience. But also, maybe you'll get more clarity on your message, continuing to improve and refine it as you go! 

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Why is it okay to not know some things, but not okay to not know other things? 🤔

It never occurred to me until about 10 days ago that I could put a shower cap on and keep my hairdo for an extra day!

Is anyone going to think I'm an idiot for not having thought of this before? And if they do, do I really care? I don't know everything. 🤷🏻

So now let me ask you this... Why are you embarrassed to admit you don't know everything about public speaking and presentations?

SOOOO many people are embarrassed about asking for help on things they aren't experts in. Guess what: you can't be an expert on everything!

You're an expert in some areas, and it's your job to know about those areas.

But you don't have to know everything about accounting, marketing, sales, coaching, speaking, or other things that are outside your area of expertise, right?

If you take your car to a repair shop, are you embarrassed that you don't know how to repair your car? If you have somebody do alterations to a pair of pants, are you embarrassed that you don't know how to sew?

I actually have clients who don't want their names on my website, even though they'll give me testimonials. Because they don't want anyone to know they went to a speaking coach.

Look, I just figured out that a shower cap is my new best friend. I'm 56 years old and I never thought of using a shower cap. Big fucking deal!

Do you need help with your speaking? There's nothing to be embarrassed about! I study this every day. It's my life's work. It's not yours. It's perfectly okay not to know stuff.

So how about reaching out and getting some support?

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Successful speakers stay curious

Are you a curious person? Do you always need to know WHY? WHAT? WHO? WHEN? WHERE?

When a car starts up at 11:30 p.m. in my neighborhood and drives away, I wonder why.

The other day I stood beneath a tree for a good 5 minutes trying to find the bird that was singing! (It was the ever-elusive Hooded Oriole!)

My Google search history is full of questions like "Are most serial killers white?" "How to pronounce Aix," "Can Supreme Court justices be impeached?" 😉 And "Did Gerald Coffee write a poem about eating half a bug?"

I literally consider every experience I have to be a potential metaphor for public speaking. Everything I see, hear, and learn is something that I can turn into an unexpected lesson for my clients and my audiences.

If you're a speaker, you can't be telling the same stories in the same way for years. You can't be using the same examples, same images, and same analogies for years.

Sure, sometimes you have a really great example that stands the test of time. We all do. But I've also pulled out stories that happened so long ago that they're just not current anymore. And I know there are more current examples I can use.

Your presentation still needs constant refreshing, because new things are happening in the world all the time.

When you can use new, fresh examples and stories that people can resonate with NOW you're going to make a better connection. Your audience will learn and retain more of your content and be more inclined to take action.

And if that's not the purpose of presenting, then I don't know what is!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Gardening, not architecture

This is a quote from a card in the Oblique Strategies deck created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. The deck was created with a variety of prompts and constraints to help artists and musicians break through creative blocks.

This is also a great tip for anyone creating a presentation, and especially as I delivered my micro-presentations training four times on Monday and Tuesday - in a micro-presentations format - I'm going to be sharing this concept further in my trainings and coaching!

Architecture implies that you first design a structure, and then you build the structure as designed.

Gardening, however, is a process. You may design the garden in a particular way, but the garden will not always grow as you envision it.

You'll have weeds. You'll have some plants that take over and kill other plants. You'll have some plants that just don't thrive. You'll have others that thrive during part of the year, but are dormant at other times of the year. And you'll have plants that only thrive when they're pruned and trimmed.

All of these things are true of your presentation.

You can design the "perfect" presentation, down to the last detail of every slide and the exact perfect wording.

But you'll get in front of your participants and guess what: Your technology will fail. Your story will go too long. You'll lose your place. Your humor will fall flat. You'll mess up your transitions. Your participants will interrupt or take too long with their questions. You'll run out of time, leaving your best example on the cutting room floor.

Your presentation is a LIVING THING. It only comes to life when you bring it to an audience, and every time you deliver it, you're facing a new set of circumstances.

Every audience is different. Every situation is different. Sometimes you'll present hours after a school shooting. Sometimes you'll present the day after a national election. Sometimes you'll present on two hours of sleep.

This week, I delivered my micro-presentations training on one day to Canadian professional speakers and on one day to an LGBTQIA audience. And then I went back to scripting the same workshop into micro-segments for a professionally filmed course that will likely go out to corporate audiences.

Your presentation is not architecture. It's a garden, and it continues to grow, shrink, die back and thrive again with the constraints/pruning required of each new situation and audience. 

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Five free and low-cost ways to learn about public speaking!

Tag and share with your peeps!

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Free ebook

Presenting for Humans

Interviews/podcasts

YouTube Channel

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Three options for when you have to speak after "that guy"

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Don't sweat the platitudes... and they're all platitudes

I need to have a chat with you about platitudes.

"Don't sweat the small stuff... and it's all small stuff."

Who decides what's small in YOUR life? What might seem small to someone else might seem huge to you. It is certainly NOT all small stuff.

Or "What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger."

What doesn't kill you can often make you sicker, weaker, or otherwise impaired (hello long-haul COVID). Not everyone comes away stronger from adversity.

How about "Good things take time?" I saw that on a greeting card at Trader Joe's and picked it up because I liked the phrase and the colors, and I thought it related well to something I wanted to teach about speaking.

But you know what? Sometimes good things take practically NO time! I mean, a quick summer salad of ripe tomatoes, fresh burrata cheese, and a drizzle of olive oil takes about five minutes, but it's delicious.

Sometimes a work of art or a book takes years to complete. Other times, the creativity just flows and the work is finished in weeks.

So how long are you willing to wait for that "good thing?" How long is TOO long?

And therein lies one issue with platitudes. Not only are they trite, shallow, and unoriginal, but they're not even true. Or maybe true some of the time but not enough of the time.

On top of that, platitudes can make us feel like we're not doing life right.

Like "I know it's all small stuff, so why can't I move on?"

Or "I know I should live and let live, but how can I turn a blind eye to injustice and oppression?"

Or "I know they say it will all be worth it in the end, but I'm not sure I can go on like this."

Nathan J. Robinson says, "If we accept suffering, for example, as natural and inevitable, then it is easier to be comfortable with the existence of large amounts of it. If it simply 'is what it is,' then getting enraged by it is futile and irrational. But to me, that’s monstrous.

We have to examine things critically rather than passively accepting tautological justifications for them. To do otherwise is to be both morally and intellectually lazy."

Robinson also points out that some platitudes ARE true and also profound, like "Be the change you wish to see in the world." That's a worthy goal, to be sure.

If you're going to be on stage (or use social media as a platform for your cause or message) at least share your own ideas, as much as any of our ideas can be new again.

There are absolutely fresh ways to express timeless ideas that keep you from melting into the masses posting tired cliches.

Do we really need someone to tell us AGAIN: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care???"

Raise your hand if you roll your eyes 39 times a day at motivational platitudes. 🙋🏻‍♀️🙄

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Does Tom Brady even eat bread?

Have you seen the new Subway commercial featuring Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady?

The dialogue goes like this:

Brady: This new turkey Cali Fresh is incredible
Stephen Curry: You even eat bread?
Brady: Steph, it's a commercial.

I don't follow Tom Brady, so I wasn't aware of his dietary choices and lifestyle. But Curry's question, "You even eat bread?" made me look it up.

Turns out Tom Brady has his own diet plan called the TB12 Method, that came out in a book in 2017.

Summarized on the Healthline website, "The Tom Brady Diet encourages eating minimally processed, whole foods and restricting processed ones. It recommends avoiding foods deemed inflammatory or acidifying and includes a few additional rules."

One of the rules is avoiding gluten.🍞🥖🥪

Hence Steph Curry's question.

Whether or not you find this endorsement hypocritical, there's something you can take away from this commercial to improve your presentations.

👉🏼Always anticipate objections.👈🏼

When you give a presentation, there will likely ALWAYS be someone in your audience who is critical of your message, who doesn't believe you, who has some concern about your topic.

Most of the time, the people who object to your message or ideas won't speak up. This means they're stewing, resistant, or at least distracted by their own objections... and they're not fully engaged with you.

Sometimes they will speak up, and you can plan in advance to have answers to their questions.

Or, you can build the objection into your presentation, by saying something like "I know some of you are probably thinking 'this won't work' or 'I've already tried it,' and let me address that."

When you KNOW there are objections, don't wait for the audience to bring them up. Build them into your presentation; acknowledge the audience's concerns and show them you've done your homework.

Brady's response to Curry's question about eating bread, "it's a commercial," doesn't really answer the question "Why is Brady endorsing something he doesn't eat?" He might as well have said, "I got paid." I'm going to go out on a limb and say his critics were not satisfied by that answer.

But the point I want to make here is that Subway built in the objection by having Steph Curry ask the question. It's the question on the minds of everyone who sees the commercial and knows about Brady's restrictive eating habits.

At least in a presentation, you have time with your audience to address objections. This commercial clearly doesn't say enough, and Brady is being called out all over for this endorsement.

Just remember: There will always be someone who objects to your message, your ideas and your methods, so don't be caught off guard.

At minimum, be prepared to address objections from audience questions, and ideally, 🛠build🛠 objections into your presentation so your audience knows you get them.

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Can your audience identify themselves?

I had a revelation a couple of years ago. The people I was trying to reach with my public speaking coaching services didn't know they were speakers! 😂

Turns out that a lot of people who give presentations to promote their work and grow their businesses don't see themselves as speakers. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤯

Sure, they record online courses, webinars and masterclasses, and shoot FB lives, TikToks, Reels, and YouTube videos, and get in front of groups to give various types and lengths of presentations... but the word "speaker" doesn't resonate with them!

So over time, I reframed the people I work with as business leaders, nonprofit leaders, and entrepreneurs—who use speaking to build visibility, credibility, and awareness for their work. And THAT makes sense to my clients. They now see themselves in my marketing and on my website.

Language is tricky, whether you're writing or speaking. You may not be reaching the people you want to reach with your message, because your message fits your understanding of what you do, but not your potential clients' understanding of who they are.

If you want to deliver a more meaningful and memorable message to your audiences—however you choose to speak it—reach out and let's schedule a time to chat about your needs!

And yes, I used to sell these mugs and magnets from a CafePress store years ago. You like? 😁⠀⠀

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Adjust your expectations of virtual presenting

One of the things that presenters love so much about being in front of a live audience is the instant gratification of your audience's responses.

We're in direct contact with the emotional impact of our words and delivery. The audience smiles, they laugh, their body language changes and shifts. They murmur to their neighbors. They raise their hands. They frown and grimace. We can immediately see and hear their reactions; their reactions feed into what we do next. We respond to their responses. We give them energy, and they give it back.

Virtual presenting lacks immediacy. It lacks instant gratification. And a lot of speakers are freaking out right now because they can't get immediate gratification from their audiences.

As speakers, we have to shift our expectations of what we can receive from the audience. But that doesn't mean that the audience isn't receiving anything from us. Just because we don't see them laugh or smile, clap or gasp at something shocking, or turn to their neighbor with a comment, it doesn't mean they're not receiving our energy, our humor, or our message.

When we present virtually, everything is delayed. The time it takes for people to respond, whether they're on webcams and smiling, laughing, and clapping, or muted, off-camera and typing into the chat, is slower.

If you're using the chat box to take questions, comments, or responses to your own questions (like yes and no), you have to sit and wait. When you ask a question and your participants are self-muted, they have to unmute. Sometimes they begin speaking without unmuting themselves, and you have to wait for them to figure it out. And then unmute!

It's uncomfortable. I get it. For those of us who've been presenting online for a long time, this is not new. We don't love it, but we understand it, and we expect it.

If online presenting is new to you, you're learning a completely new skill. You're learning patience and delayed gratification.

I'm seeing a lot of comments and concerns from presenters that they fear their audiences aren't receiving value, because the speakers aren't seeing/hearing responses to their words. I also see a lot of concern that humor isn't landing, because speakers can't see or hear the audience's laughter or smiles.

So I want to ask you two questions.

1. Are you truly concerned that the audience isn't receiving value?

2. Or are you uncomfortable with a lack of instant gratification?

These are two very different things.

It's difficult to present when we're not getting audience feedback in the form of verbal or nonverbal communication, but that doesn't mean that the audience isn't receiving value.

The more you incorporate interaction into your virtual presentations, whether it's polling, asking for comments in the chat, asking them to click the buttons for yes and no, or asking them to unmute themselves and make a comment, the more you'll see that your audience is indeed finding value in your presentation.

And by the way, there is no way that they will ever give you 100% of their attention during an online presentation. They don't even give you 100% of their attention in a live presentation. So you need to get past that unrealistic expectation and continue to give value and provide opportunities for interaction. You just have to continue bringing their attention back into the session.

If the problem is that you're craving instant gratification, then I invite you to think about what that means.

The desire for instant gratification, from the audience giving you feedback and attention through immediate emotional response, is more about you than it is about them and their needs.

As I said above, patience is a new skill to be learned. You have to be patient and trust the process. You have to trust that your humor is landing, that your audience is responding, and that your content is sticking.

Sure, the laugh track on a comedy show, or the live audience on a late night talk show make the comedy land better. There's a reason comedians like to pack their rooms full—shared laughter is contagious. But it's still funny, even without the live response. Have you watched any of your favorite talk show hosts lately? Aren't they still funny? Aren't you still reacting?

Near the end of a training last week, I commented that I wanted to end on time because we had been together for almost four hours. One of the participants typed, "This has only been almost 4 hours?" I laughed and thanked him for letting me know that the time had passed quickly. And another participant typed "Thank you, the fast pace is helping!"

After another recent online training, I received this email from one of the participants: "Just when I was beginning to give up after seeing one horrible online presentation after another, you showed it could be done and done well. Plus interactive, which is the hardest thing for an inexperienced speaker to figure out."

I'm not sharing these quotes to brag, but rather to demonstrate that you often won't know how your audience has received your presentation until it's over! But if you're getting notes and comments like these, then you know that you're hitting all the right spots, even if you can't see and hear your audience's reactions in real time.

Let go of your previous expectations of live presenting. Virtual presenting is a whole different world. A lot of what you know from live presenting does transfer over. But some things just don't. And it's okay.

Move forward with a new awareness and a new intention to serve your audience, whether or not you can see and hear them!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

How can I help?

You don't need any advice from me on hand-washing or social distancing. I'm not going to share "how The LisaB Company is responding to COVID-19." Pretty sure you don't care. 😉 I'm not a mental health expert, a scientist or a life coach, and I know you can find resources on how to cope elsewhere.

What am I good at? How can I help? Especially from afar, from my living room, from my laptop? (Which, honestly, is my favorite place to be...)

🗣 I can continue to support your speaking efforts, even (especially) if now your speaking engagements are virtual.🗣

If you have time on your hands because your engagements have canceled; if you're working remotely and your commute is now from the bedroom to the kitchen table; or if you're home with the kids and need a "business break" while they're doing an assignment, I've got some options for you.

Prices reduced:

👀 I've reduced prices 💰 or switched over to "choose your price" on my virtual programs temporarily, to make it easier for those in my community who want to use this time for some business and speaking growth.

These programs include:

Go Virtual: Take Your Training From Stage to Screen

Presentation Foundation Quickstart Kit

Create Your Own Exercises: Transform Your Audiences From Spectators to Participants

Speaking Success Checklist Bundle

Free:

I also want to remind you of my free offerings:

🌟My book, Presenting for Humans: Insights for Speakers on Ditching Perfection and Creating Connection (free temporarily)

🌟My blog, Speak Schmeak (over 1,500 posts on public speaking since 2006)

🌟Easy Speaker Proposal Template and tracking sheet

🌟Articles on LinkedIn

🌟Podcast and other interview audios

🌟Videos

I offer a wide range of free and low-cost tools for speakers to build skills and confidence, to learn how to engage and serve your audiences, and to make the greatest impact on those you serve, and I hope you find these helpful and practical!

Many entrepreneurs and business leaders are reassessing our business models right now, to make our businesses more robust and diversified, and I'm looking at my offerings as well to make sure I'm hitting the areas my community members need.

If there's something I'm not offering that would help you develop particular skills, please let me know!

And don't miss my next training on Thursday, May 7, "8 Steps to Ditching Perfection and Creating Connection." This affordable training is jam-packed with tips to help you get past the need for perfection and to set you up for success with your presentations.

Your audiences need you - now. Don't hold back! Kick perfection to the curb and release your genius!

Live speaking engagements will come back. This is a temporary setback. Make the most of your skills and experience NOW. And if you're so inclined, there is also work to be done to move forward.

Take care of yourself, my friends!

P.S. I have debated making some programs free. I'm just not in a position to do this, and as my business coach reminded me the other day, "Continuing to charge for our services is the only way we are going to stay afloat and save the economy. It's all a ripple." I honor every small business's struggle to keep going right now and I'm doing my best to support those I can. I hope you find my reduced-price options beneficial!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Put this in your pocket for later

Will you have a speaking engagement between now and April?

Will you be:

🔸Speaking to the board of your organization?

🔸Introducing your business at a networking event?

🔸Sharing your big idea at a work meeting?

🔸Reaching out to the community for donations?

🔸Engaging community members who've already donated?

🔸Orienting volunteers or new employees?

🔸Giving a speech at a special event?

🔸Delivering a presentation at a conference?

🔸Creating marketing or educational videos or webinars?

🔸Trying to persuade a group to change a belief, attitude or behavior?

🔸Running a workshop or training?

🔸Teaching your method or technique for others to deliver?

These are the kinds of things my clients hire me to help them with - and some of these may not be what you traditionally call "public speaking." But the reality is, we are speaking in public all the time, whether it's a short but critical report to five people or a formal keynote to 500!

If you're a business or nonprofit leader or entrepreneur, you will very likely be doing one of these things, or something similar, between now and April 1.

How about proactively purchasing your laser coaching session now, so it's in your back pocket when you're ready to start prepping? This session is meant to be used by March 31 - no procrastinating allowed!

And if you could still use a 2019 tax write-off, here you go!

Reserve your laser coaching spot now.

Please note: This offer expires December 30 - Monday - NOT on the 31st!

And if you're a business or nonprofit leader or entrepreneur and you won't be having one of these conversations before April 1, may I ask why not?

Speaking is the best way for your potential clients, customers, donors, volunteers, partners, and sponsors to get to know, like and trust you and your work.

What are you avoiding and missing out on by not taking the (free) opportunity to get your message out into the world?

If you don't know where to start, guess what: You can use your laser coaching session for that conversation, too!

Let's talk.

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Claim the Stage podcast interview with Angela Lussier

Listen in on my conversation with Angela Lussier about ditching perfection and creating connection as a speaker!



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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Speaking tips from "Serial"

I finally got around to finishing the original season of the podcast "Serial," in which the case of convicted murder Adnan Syed is re-evaluated in detail by investigative journalist Sarah Koenig.

I had listened to the first four episodes on a road trip last year, but never picked it up again. As I've been driving back and forth to Sacramento regularly for two months (a 6-hour drive), I decided to give investigative reporting podcasts another look, and finally finished "Serial."

Syed's defense attorney was a woman named Cristina Gutierrez (now deceased), who was known at the time as a "pitbull on the pant leg of justice." A tireless advocate for her clients, she went above and beyond to defend their cases.

This description of Gutierrez by Sarah Koenig really stood out to me.

"She did the first, or at least one of the first, DNA cases in Maryland. 

To figure out how to explain it to a jury, I heard a story that she went to a grade school and practiced. Each time a kid said he or she didn’t understand the science, she started over."

Let's be honest: How many of you work this hard to make sure your topic and concepts are understood by your audience? And when you're in the room with your audience, are you reading their reactions to see if they're with you, or do you just blow through your content, unaware of whether your audience is following along?

I work with a lot of clients who speak and train on complex topics. Over the years, my clients' topics have included companion diagnostics, affect regulation, Six Sigma certification, private capital markets, securities fraud (from the mouth of the felon himself!), the Affordable Care Act, and structured empowerment, none of which were familiar to me when I started working with the client.

One of my gifts is to help my clients make a topic I know nothing about understandable to a lay audience! However, some people hear "dumb it down" when I say "simplify." But these are two different things.

Simplifying means using plain English instead of jargon and acronyms. It means understanding where your audience is coming from and describing terms in ways that relate to what they already know about the world. It means using clear examples and analogies.

There's a reason a "pie chart" is called a "pie chart:" pretty much everyone in the world can envision cutting a pie into slices! This is not a "dumbed down" explanation of a pie chart, but rather a simplified explanation. Tweet

"Dumbing down" implies just that: your audience is dumb. It really comes from a place of disrespect. Whereas simplifying comes from a place of respecting your audience and figuring out what they need in order to navigate your possibly-complex topic.

Cristina Gutierrez practiced her explanation of DNA on children, but that doesn't mean she spoke to jurors like children! It means she boiled down the topic to its simplest components and then delivered that to intelligent adults in a way that made sense to them.

How can you simplify your concepts so that your audience really grasps what you're saying and can apply it to their own lives? If your audience is able to take action on what they've learned—and especially if they're able to explain it to someone else after hearing your presentation—then you're on the right track!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!