The Power of Presentation: How are you Presenting Yourself?
Presentation is a very broad term. In essence, it is a form of communication. It’s how you present yourself and how you communicate to others.
Presentation is crucial to driving business success and attracting clients. It plays a vital role in how others perceive you. It can take seconds for someone to form a snap judgement of you based on your body language alone, before you’ve even had a chance to open your mouth and speak.
This is why first impressions are crucial. Once they form they can be hard to shift. Consider what messages you are communicating to your business audience and how is your presentation being perceived by people in the audience?
Presentation can be seen as being a collection of sub-terms consisting of clarity, communication, confidence, charisma, congruence and credibility – which I refer to as being the 6C’s of presentation.
Clarity: how clear is your mind, what are you thinking moment to moment? Great insights can arise from a clear, lucid mind, solutions to problems or a tremendous shift in how you think and feel which can lead to major personal and professional transformations.
Communication: Communication is the platform in which you deliver a message to an audience. This is how you speak, how you use your voice, the words you choose, your stance, postures, gestures, how you look at others. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The vehicles you choose in which to communicate can be in person, on the phone or through the use of other audio aids, or simply through the written word. Honing your communication can make a tremendous difference in how you are received and perceived.
Confidence: what thoughts and feelings do you have around yourself? How well do you think you perform in whatever tasks you undertake? Are your beliefs helpful and supportive or do they drag you down? Confidence is something that is innate. It’s just our thinking that clouds our judgement in how we perceive our own self-worth and abilities. Changing how you feel about yourself will create huge change how you deal with opportunities that are presented to you and also how you go about creating opportunities.
Charisma: what is charisma? It’s that elusive ‘X-Factor’, something that is intangible, that mysterious magnetism that some people seem to so effortlessly exude. It’s that ‘je ne sais quoi’ that somebody else may have that you just can’t put your finger on. It’s how you carry yourself, how you walk in a room, how you greet others, the allure of your voice, your smile, how you make others feel. The good news is that charisma can be learned.
Congruence: “What does that mean?” Some clients ask. Just to give you an example, in psychological terms, one day I was speaking with a client and I asked them if they were willing and committed to wanting to grow their business. Do you know what happened? They said “yes!” but while shaking their head. They didn’t even realise that they did that. It happened subconsciously. Lots of things were bubbling beneath the surface. But that was incongruence. Their body language and what they said didn’t match. It basically means a mismatch. If you are giving a presentation to an audience promoting a product but which you don’t believe in, you are being incongruent. If you are a personal trainer or a nutritionist but eat an unhealthy diet and don’t exercise and not in good shape, you are being incongruent. It’s also about not practising what you are preaching. You get the idea.
Credibility: how credible are you? Are you seen as an authority in your field? The more confident you are the more credible you will appear. The better you communicate the more credible you will appear. The more congruent you are the more credible you will appear. The greater your clarity of mind, the more credible you will appear. Enough said!
Presentation is key and it is where the concept of people buy people really comes into its own.
You are always presenting yourself, whether you are speaking to an audience of one in a meeting, one hundred people or at a networking event.
Presentation is by definition anything that is presented to others, and in this instance, to prospective clients – be it in person, through audio/visual virtual platforms or through the written word; these are all forms of presentation. It is the platform you choose in order to communicate a particular message to your chosen audience.
For many business people, public speaking – which is a powerful form of presenting to audience – can cause dreadful fear and anxiety which can in turn hinder performance or even create avoidance. This avoidance tactic creates a potential loss of revenue.
Presenting to business audiences is a great way to publicise and sell your products and services. Is it important to you to attract more clients, close more sales and drive your business results towards an upward trend? If yes, then begin to consider the presentation concepts more closely – they are vital, especially in client-facing work. It forms the basis of your PR machine!
Importantly, presenting yourself in an effective way is very closely linked to clarity of mind and quality of thought which we touched on in Article 2. Clarity is key in driving results, gaining insights and business solutions, devising strategies and delivering powerful presentations to drive sales.
Article 5: Clarity: Your Quality of Thought and State of Mind will examine this in more detail. Here’s to the next instalment!
In the meantime, feel free to peruse around our website: www.desichristou.com
The book Win Clients with Ease: Discover the Powerful Mindset Behind the Scenes, on which this blog series is based,is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=win+clients+with+ease