Episode #33: Hints For Women Presenters

The presentations world is still a male bastion in Nippon. Here are some tips and what I have seen work well for businesswomen when speaking in public in Japan.

1. Confidence is the overwhelming positive first impression.The voice is strong and clear. Even relatively soft female voices can become powerful enough, through using the microphone technology available today, so there is no excuse for letting a weak voice derail the presentation.

Also, consider a lapel microphone or a hand microphone, as good options for mobility during your presentation. If you are using a hand microphone and you discover your hands are shaking furiously through nervousness, then simply hold it to your chest, so it can’t fly around.

2. Eye contact is another powerful tool of skilled female speakers. Looking at our audience allows us to connect with them.The successful women I have seen in action, pick out individual members of the audience, look straight at them and speak directly to them. They are constantly doing this throughout their entire talk. Importantly, they are only holding the gaze for about 6 seconds, so it is neither too short nor too intrusive.

We need to see whether the audience are buying what we are selling or not.

3. The successful presenters want to use all of their body language to assist their communication, so they are not trapped behind the podium.Podiums can sometimes be a challenge for shorter ladies. Trust me, having seen this a number of times, your carefully arranged coiffure bobbing just above the waterline of the top of the podium is not the best look.

If the podium is too high, ask for small platform to stand on, to give yourself some air space. Don’t apply a vice like grip to the podium, this looks nervous and negates your ability to use gestures to emphasis key points you want to make.

Standing apart from the podium, to the side or in front of it, also works very well.

Freeing ourselves from the podium is good however, powerful female presenters don’t then pace across the stage, left and right, showing possible stress and anxiety. They usually stand to the left side of the screen, so that the audience will look at their face, listen to their voice and then read the screen from left to right.

4. What they put up on the screen follows the “less is more principle”.Think Zen garden here rather than Times Square neon heaven. They see the value in having more images than text. They have one graph per screen not four and they don’t go crazy with more than two colours.

They make themselves the centerpiece of the presentation, not what is put up on the screen.

5. Persuasive women demonstrate their confidence by NEVER EVER apologizing for their state of health, degree of nervousness, lack of preparation, jet lag or any other excuses.I doubt very many men care about the speaker’s health status or any other excuses from any presenter. They don’t seek sympathy by telling us: “I am sorry, I have a cold today” or “I didn’t have enough time to put this together”. In my experience, men don’t care all that much for that type of detail and there is no particular empathy for these types of excuses. So don’t do it.

If these successful women presenters are ever feeling anxious, they make sure not to show it. Consequently, they are taken at face value by the men in the audience and get full credit for being a business expert in their area of expertise.

Generally, we men are not that smart or sensitive, so we will never know you are nervous unless you tell us.

Action Steps

1. Know who will be your audience and prepare accordingly
2. Master the microphone technology before the audience arrives
3. Speak to your audience while looking at them, make eye contact
4. Free yourself from the podium trap by standing apart from it
5. Dominate the screen, don’t let it dominate you
6. Apply “less is more” to the on-screen content
7. Never make excuses for your presentation
8. Never show us you are nervous