Episode #344: The Excellence Of One-On-One Presentation Coaching

The vast majority of the time in our company we are teaching presentation training to groups of fourteen. We have two instructors and we video everything. We provide an enormous amount of one-on-one coaching during the training and the results are spectacular. All good. From time to time, we provide one-on-one coaching to company Presidents. Usually, they have a special talk coming up and they need to really nail it.

Being able to customise the training exclusively for them is a joy for the instructors, because we can go so much deeper. Having more time with them makes an enormous difference. The power of repetition comes into play and that completely changes their results. Doing their talk once is the usual experience for most businesspeople. Most don’t rehearse. Well that isn’t quite true – sadly, they rehearse on their live audience. Not the greatest idea in the world and to top it off, they only ever deliver that talk once. This ensures there is no real growth associated with the activity.

When we do one-on-one coaching, we help with the design of the talk and the crafting of the delivery. This is where the expertise of the trainer really comes into play. If the trainer is also an experienced public speaker, that is even more ideal. Getting the design right for the occasion is critical. As trainers and public speakers, we have a broad range of ideas to draw upon to help with the design phase. Most businesspeople don’t get that much practice to design their talks in a year, so they are always struggling to create the excellence the talk deserves. As trainers, we have heard thousands of talks and have found areas where we can coach and transform them into something special. Being able to see possibilities the client cannot see ensures we can add real value. Also, because we are outside of the system, we can challenge what is being offered. A subordinate will probably conclude they should not make any waves around the boss, but we are presentation professionals and we can offer our insights and perspectives freely.

The individual time with the speaker is simply gold. We can have extended hours running continuously and really work on every aspect of the talk, from the design right through to the delivery. Getting the visuals right is always a big point of improvement in the added sophistication of the presentation. Most senior executives in my experience still get this wrong. The most common issue is too much confusion on the screen. There are too many competing pieces of visual stimulation distracting the audience. Being able to clean up the visuals on the spot is so valuable because the speaker can see the difference immediately and it makes their job of presenting the information much easier.

Sometimes the logic of the flow can be improved to make the points clearer and more compelling. The author of the design can sometimes be too close to their material and everything makes sense to them, but to the uninitiated, it can lead to gaps in understanding which make the content hard to absorb. Having that unbiased coach there to challenge the presenter’s assumptions is an excellent opportunity to catch any problems before the audience hears the talk. There is often the problem of too much information for the time to present it and it is very hard to eliminate slides you have fallen in love with. The coach has no such restrictions and can help to slim it down to fit the time slot. Often the President’s’ speech is created for them by their staff. This can often lead to some pretty ordinary content being created, because the staff are not presentation experts. The coach can weigh in at this point and work on improving the content coverage to further increase the professionalism of the presentation.

The delivery piece is where the real magic occurs. There is so much power in doing the same presentation over and over and over again, polishing every small aspect of the talk to make it perfect or as close to perfect as possible. This is where you need time, because if it is forty-minute speech for example, doing a few repetitions really burns through the clock very quickly. The ability to recast a part of the speech and then elevate the next rendition makes the progress tangible and permanent. Usually the engagement of the audience part is neglected because the speaker is concentrating on the content rather than the delivery. This is a big mistake which the coach can work on getting the balance right. The audience won’t remember the details on the slides, but they will remember the presenter and how they felt during their presentation.

It is what we say and how we say it that is key. Small changes in cadence, word emphasis, pauses, gestures, posture and facial expression can have a dynamic impact on the way the audience receives the talk. Voice modulation is how we keep the audience with us and how we don’t allow them to escape through distraction. The repetition component is what we need to make this complex construct really work for the speaker.

If you ever have an important talk to give, don’t try to work it out by yourself – get a professional to work with you. Never forget, every time we speak in public, we are putting our personal and professional brands out on display. This is not something we can afford to get wrong, nor an opportunity to squander the chance to build both of those brands.