Five Prevalent Errors Working with PowerPoint

You are psyched about your upcoming speech and intend on preparing a sequence of PowerPoint slides for the speech. PowerPoint has grown into a very popular application; quite a few students learn to use it as early as middle school. Regrettably, this does not indicate that PowerPoint is fool-proof. Before you get started planning for your talk, get to know 5 prevalent mistakes regularly made by PowerPoint users. Read more

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Review: The 9 Biggest Sales Presentation Mistakes & How to Avoid Them

Whatever your speaking level, here’s 46 minutes you’ll enjoy and benefit from. Recorded from a live presentation, Terri Sjodin presents New Sales Speak: The 9 Biggest Sales Presentation Mistakes & How to Avoid Them. This highly-rated presentation by top speaking pro Terri Sjodin is both a blinding flash of the obvious (which we all need sometimes) as well as an insightful look at the essential elements of a good, persuasive presentation, along with the dreaded nine most common mistakes, why they happen, and how to prevent them. Read more

The Most Important Slide in Your Presentation is No Slide at All

Imagine yourself in the audience as the speaker leads you through his colorful PowerPoint presentation. Midway through his presentation, the screen fades to black, and the speaker is momentarily silent. Where do your eyes go? To the speaker, of course. Silence sweeps over the room as all eyes focus on the speaker and all ears anticipate the next words. You’ve just experienced one of the most important techniques to keep your audience engaged. Read more

PDF: A Better Way to Distribute & Share Your PowerPoint Presentation

There are many reasons for sharing and distributing your PowerPoint presentation. I’ve found that in most cases, distributing your slides in PDF format has some important advantages, both for you and your presentation’s recipients. Read more

Review: Monster Outlets To Go Powerstrip

In the era of what was supposed to be flying cars and interstellar travel, I spend way too much time on my hands and knees groping in the dark and dust for a free electrical outlet under conference room tables, in presentation halls, and hotel rooms. Now, for less than 20 bucks I’ve got an ingenious compact power strip that is actually designed for the real world. Read more

Review: Logitech 2.4 GHz Cordless Presenter

What are two of the most important pieces of advice a speaker gets? At the top of my list: Timing. Staying within your time budget will certainly please the audience and conference organizer. Additionally, knowing you don’t have to rush through your talk helps keep you stress-free, allowing you to deliver a relaxed, well-paced speech. Also high on the advice list: Get out from behind the podium. Be free and move about! Even if you’re presenting visuals, you’re part of the show, too — a rather important part. Read more

Welcome to Public Speaking Hacks!

Welcome to PublicSpeakingHacks.com, bringing you tools, tricks and advice so you can deliver your next speech with impact, confidence and ease. Public speaking has been critically important to my career and has gone from something I would dread to something I now cherish. Read more

PowerPoint Fonts – How to Font-Proof Your Next Presentation

I recently remarked to a colleague that I’ve seen a PowerPoint presentation malfunction of one sort or another at virtually every conference or meeting I have attended. Too often a simple step could have prevented a disastrous result, and this couldn’t be more true for PowerPoint fonts. If you’ve ever spent hours preparing a presentation with thoughtfully selected fonts only to see many of your fonts suddenly change at the moment of truth — when you’re on stage and presenting — then you’ve encountered the PowerPoint font trap. Read more