Do You Want To Receive Standing Ovations After Your Speech, Too? Listen To Nancy Duarte.

Hiya SCG,

Who the heck is Nancy Duarte? Why should you listen to her? Let me ask you few questions: “Are you nervous when you have to deliver a speech? Are you not sure how you are going to perform? Are your palms sweating and your slide-deck is far from having “make up” on? Do you wonder how does it feel to get standing ovations from audience you speak to?” Yes? Then this shipment is a must read for you.

So, who is Nancy Duarte?

Nancy Duarte is wonderfully creative world-known presentation design guru, she is author of Slide:ology and she has just published her new book Resonate.

Why should you listen to Nancy?

Not only because, Inspiring Shipments said so!;-)  But, if you are longing to overcome your fear from presenting and public speaking, you will be amazed how simple 7 questions will change your speaking experience. Answering these 7 questions will enable you to connect with your audience on totally new level. Sounds interesting? Curious about seven questions you need to ask when composing your slide-deck and speech? Here they are:

Answer These: 7 Questions to Knowing Your Audience

#1 What Are They Like?

#2 Why Are They Here?

#3 What Keeps Them Up At Night?

#4 How Can You Solve Their Problem?

#5 What Do You Want Them To Do?

#6 How Might They Resist?

#7 How Can You Best Reach Them?

Does it also work in real life or is it just a nice theory?

You bet it works!

As you know,  Inspiring Shipments is blog for do-ers not talkers, so let me share with you a true story about how passionately designed speech and slide-deck, can bring hundreds of people up on their feet in less than 15 minutes.

3 days ago (6th Nov 2010), I have been part of facilitation team for leadership track on national conference of AIESEC Slovakia. Apart from delivering a workshop session about “Future Concept”, I had a privilege to speak in front of 300+ delegates during a gala night with a keynote speech. I did work on slide-deck (see bellow) for 2 weeks nonstop plus time when, I was composing whole AIESEC concept in my head for over a month.

I trust you can spot in the content of the slides,  answers for first 6 questions for Nancy’s KYA  = Know Your Audience. Seventh question was answered by including 5 minutes video – NGLS movie into speech, which was supported by slides with current pictures of AEISEC Slovakia members. (Gosh, I was hacking Facebook profiles of guys, who are in AIESEC Slovakia and was looking for pictures, which would connect with story and guys themselves for weeks…)

Result? Watch yourself.

Please, excuse low quality of video, but I think you will get an idea of what impact this speech had if you will watch last one minute of it.

Was It Worth to Work Over a Month on Preparation of This Talk?

Absolutely, YES! Every second was worth it. And cherry on the cake arrived last night into my inbox, when I have received Facebook message from Super Cool Gang-er : Eva Janostikova (who was present on conference) telling me, that she would like to print AIESEC concept on T – shirts, give it to her team and quote me on it… How super cool is that?

Thank you, Nancy!

Thank you for your art and for inspiring me.

Bottom Line:

Care! Work your butt off. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse…Have fun. World needs you! And you too can make a difference with your speech and presentation! Believe me, you can!

SCG,

What tips and tricks do you apply when you are delivering a speech? How do you connect with an audience? Which speaker did truly influence you? Why do you think was the reason for such impact?

Back to you now.

cheers.

i.