I was recently leading an in-house, 5 session workshop for a construction company. After our first workshop, I gave the participants an assignment to prepare for a one-on-one session with me the following week. A couple of the guys came to that individual meeting with excuses for why they were not prepared.
I didn’t hound them. I did however mention that growth can only occur if they take personal responsibility in the process. If you don’t practice, you don’t know how many times you need to rehearse in order for you to do a good job vs. how many times you need to practice to do a GREAT job. I told them that part of our process was to uncover their personal recipe for presentation success-to uncover what ingredients they need to ensure the highest likelihood of delivering a great presentation.
Here are a few things they discovered:
* One fellow learned through our process that he should not eat a heavy meal before giving a presentation.
* Another student learned that he has to get a good night’s sleep the night before a presentation.
* Taking time to do some run-throughs an hour before the presentation helped one presenter get focused while another learned he needed to only do one rehearsal the day of the presentation.
Every student I coach is different. Part of my job is to help them uncover what each needs to be successful. There is no formula that works for everybody. Let me help you discover what YOU need to be a successful presenter.