Posts

Motivation is what keeps you going. If you lack it, you’ll end up hanging and struggling to move forward. Hiring a motivational speaker is one of the best ways to unleash the leader in you. Keep in mind, however, that even the most trusted speakers like Brad Montgomery believe that motivation starts with the listeners.

The speaker’s role is to share tips and experiences to inspire. It’s your responsibility to motivate yourself after. Here is a list to help you gain a better understanding of yourself and the things that keep you from motivating yourself.Distech.whatMakesHappy

Fear of Losing or Failing

Fear keeps you from doing things that may benefit your business and your team. You’re afraid to take risks, to fail, or to lose. Don’t let your fear become a hindrance to success. Brad Montgomery can help you discover ways to overcome fear and stay on track.

Lack of Self Confidence

With fear comes anxiety and low self-esteem. You can’t make good decisions when you’re afraid of the possible outcome. Every motivational speaker suggests that you believe in yourself and your team. Remember that you’re a leader, so act like one. Your people will be inspired if you show them how confident you are.

Pride

Be confident, but not too confident. You can’t get better if you think you’re the best. Always recognize your weaknesses and find ways to turn them into strengths. The aspiration to learn more and get better will keep you going.

Inability to Set Goals Properly

Goals, combined with patience and hard work, will guide you towards success. Identify all your business objectives and always remind yourself how important they are. This is a good form of motivation.

Brad Montgomery provides educational, inspirational, and engaging presentations. He can customize an event to suit you and your people’s needs. Call 303-691-0726 today to book an appointment with the National Speakers Association’s CPAE Speaker Hall of Famer.

It’s horrible… but you can save it.

As a professional keynote comedian motivational speaker for over a quarter of a century, I have strong opinions about the use of PowerPoint. And to point out the obvious…my perspective is as a presenter…not as an audience member.

Distech.2012_0257

In my opinion is that 95% of you… No, make that 99% of you… abuse this powerful tool. And by abuse I mean absolutely, totally, and wildly fail.

But the good news is that I have two very specific tips and techniques that you can use to make your PowerPoint presentations not only better but quite good.

The first technique is to use fewer words. And by fewer words I mean you need to eliminate 90 to 95% of the words on your current slides. Your audience, whoever they are, is there to see YOU. Not your slides. They are not interested in JUST the information. They want some information and YOU.

If they needed JUST the information you could hand them an article. Or they could read the book. But they are there to see you and to get a sense of how you think. If you are having them read your slides – or heaven forbid if you are reading your slides for them – you are absolutely screwing up. You’re delivering information only. They could have saved a headache and just read your info at home

Answer: Put one or two words on the slide. (Yes you heard me right. One word. Maybe 3 or 4. That’s it.)

This means that if you’re talking about your mission statement you are not going to include your entire mission statement on a slide. There will be no bullets. No paragraphs. Instead you’re going to put the word “Mission.” Then the audience will turn from the screen and look at YOU, listen to YOU, and learn from YOU. And all of that is very good.

One word on a slide is a powerful technique for you to let the Farm-bureau-201271audience know exactly where you are in the program. They have a placeholder in your presentation to help them understand. But by only having one word they are forced to look at you and to listen to you; and of course that’s the purpose. You are the presenter. You are the star. If you make PowerPoint is the star just mail you might as well mail them your presentation, and stay home drinking hot chocolate in the privacy of your own jamies. (Coincidentally, that’s what I’m doing right now. Just sayin’…)

By the way, if you have bullets on your slide you have too many words. (I know that half of you reading this article just fainted. You’re ok. Get up. Shake it off. You’re fine.) Instead of the bullets put your headline with ONE word and then you’ll give the details — the stuff that would have been in the bullets — using the spoken word. You’re a presenter right? You can talk. And you should.

Trust me: you’ll put the focus back on you.

The second concrete technique you can use to improve your PowerPoint presentations is by eliminating most of your slides. Just like the number of words per slide, the number of slides per presentation has to be drastically reduced. Don’t cut out one or two slides. I’m asking you to cut out 70 or 80% of your sites. In my hour and a half motivational presentation I have exactly 20 slides. 90 minutes; 20 slides. Why? Because I’m a professional speaker; not a professional PowerPoint demonstrator. My clients hire me for me and my take on their world; they hire me because I have a unique voice and some great information; not for having a ton of slides.

Because my slides are rare they are very powerful. The audience remembers them, comments upon them, and they each add value to my presentation. My slides are good partly because there are so few of them. It’s a little like chocolate: one or two pieces is heavenly. A truckload of chocolate just makes it cheap. Over kill. (Though who among us wouldn’t like to know for sure?)

If you have so many slides that you are audience is just looking at your slides and not at you than you have clearly missed the point. Clearly your slides are more important than you are, and for my money that’s a huge mistake.

Don’t forget that people want to see you. They want your personality, your uniqueness, and your ideas. They do not want to see endless bullets and long paragraphs on your slides; they want to see you.

The main thing to remember as a presenter is to be reminded that our audiences don’t want us just for our knowledge or our information. They want us! If they want just our information they can read our website, read the article, or they can just read the stupid PowerPoint slides that we can email them.

But audiences are too hip and sophisticated now for this type of junk. It’s time to step up, put on your Big Boy Pants, and trim the number of words and slides in your presentation. (Replacing them with you and your voice and your words. I know you’re scared. Don’t be shy, be strong! You can do it.)

PowerPoint is a terrific tool. It can illustrate points, help your audience to understand where they are in your presentation, and even communicate information that is very difficult to communicate with just words. But it is nearly always used poorly. Horribly. Tragically.

But not by you.  Right?  If you use it correctly… Which means don’t over use it… You’ll be well on your way to being a master presenter.

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Powerpoint Presenter, Funny Speaker
=====

Read another article by Brad about his ideas for Powerpoint success here:

===========

Brad Montgomery is a funny motivational speaker who speaks about happiness at work and how happiness can be used as a tool to increase profitability. (Oh, and he’s laugh-out-loud funny.) To learn more about Brad please visit his website https://www.bradmontgomery.com// Or you can visit his blog https://www.bradmontgomery.com///blog.