Do you have something to share? Are you interested in adding extra income to your studio outside of taking clients? Maybe you’d like to travel and teach in other locations and get paid? Perhaps it’s all of the above! Great. Now what? How do you organize your thoughts and deliver your expertise in a dynamic and captivating way to keep attendees engaged, excited and fulfilled with the content you’ve provided? Read on and incorporate these simple tips and tricks to help propel your presenting prowess!
Organize
Think long and hard about the content you would like to deliver and then begin to draw up an outline. Make it very simple at first. Format your outline into segments and align a timeframe or timestamp to each segment to help keep you on track for the hours associated with your workshop. Be prepared to always run a bit short OR long so within the outline, know where you can pull back to help with time and also keep in mind having extra content in your “back pocket” to stretch your content out.
Develop
Once you have your general outline prepared, begin to bulk it up by developing it into a session handout / takeaway. This is your opportunity to send attendees home with the “cliff notes” of your workshop. Be sure to include room for attendees to add notes and consider making it interactive by having fill in the blank questions. If you are teaching material which would benefit from having visuals, be sure to include photos for referencing. Finally, always include your business contact information so that people can find you for questions or additional resources at a later date.
Rehearse
One of the best ways to prepare for your “big day” is to shoot video of yourself. Quick clips of your introduction, conclusion and the meat of the material will help you critique many aspects of your delivery before you have to deliver. Although it can be a cringe worthy thing to watch yourself on video, it will help you practice your tone and pace of voice, work out any extra words which don’t need to be included and pair down / hopefully eliminate body language quirks you perhaps didn’t realize you have.
Deliver
Get to the room early, (or even preview it before), and set-up at least 15-30 minutes in advance, if you have this luxury. Create an inviting space to welcome your attendees by adding music or changing the lighting. As an ice breaker, interact and greet the attendees as they come in. Get to know a little bit about them such as where they’re from, they’re background and what they do. Nerves on the day of can help you not hinder you, but beware they will also make you want to speed up, so go into your introduction speaking slower than you think. Make sure you start strong with your introduction and finish strong with your conclusion. During the meat of your material engage and empower your audience, get them involved, and allow time for experience and questions. Finally, BE YOU! Don’t be anyone else. Speak authentically and don’t be afraid of feedback. As a presenter you always want to keep an open mind and benefit from learning from each experience to help make you stronger, calmer and more comfortable the next time you take the stage!
