Tag Archive for 'Presentation Skills'

Individual Coaching Offer

Special Offer
Individual Coaching

Have you been considering polishing your presentation skills? But maybe your company doesn’t offer it right now, and you fear that hiring individual coaching on your own will be too expensive.

Effective presentation skills are more important than ever in today’s tough economy.  Whether you’re selling a product, a service or yourself, you want to come across confidently and credibly.

So I’m making a recession-busting offer on individual coaching in presentation skills.  I have revamped my pricing structure so any individual can afford to improve their presence. Normally a $1,000 to $1,500 value in the corporate marketplace, I’ve restructured my offering so that I can convert my fee to an hourly charge, and my rate is no different than a lot of counselors, accountants—even plumbers!

For $100 an hour (there is a $250 minimum + plus the materials charge, below), you can receive specific, customized coaching on your skills, learning where you rock and how you can get even better.

You will receive my Compelling Speaker audio CD/notebook set, plus my Compelling Speaker Audio CDsbook Stand Out When You Stand Up.  That’s a $50 value that I’ll discount to $35. You will use these materials to prepare for our session. Then we’ll get together and fine tune your delivery skills, your content and even your PowerPoint slides.  You can choose how much time you want to spend, but the average coaching time is between two and four hours. By the way, some of this coaching can be done remotely if you want me to tweak your content or PowerPoint.  And I’m also experimenting with “virtual coaching.”  If you’re not located in Charlotte but have a video of yourself making a presentation, I can offer some critiquing of that. Of course, real time coaching is the most valuable.  I do videotaping and offer extensive feedback and coaching on your skills with actionable tips to help you get even better. You will walk away with improved competence and confidence!

Here’s what some people have said about my coaching:

“Barbara Busey understands what it takes to give a Dynamic Presentation.  As a personal coach, she assisted me with my presentation delivery, increased my level of confidence and worked with me on how to immediately create a “hook.”  Barbara’s coaching style is really as easy as reciting the alphabet as outlined in her phenomenal book, Stand Out When You Stand Up.”

“Barbara has a gift of not only her skill, but her heart that shines through. She cares about helping you improve so you can add value to others.”

“Barbara is wonderful! She offered constructive ideas on how I could improve.”

“Barbara is a great coach. Patient, knowledgeable, funny and gave me a sound critique for improvement.”

Please contact me for more information and to schedule your Charlotte-area session.  Or, let’s talk about “virtual coaching”!

704-527-8210

bbusey@presentationdynamics.net

Published on Wednesday February 10, 2010 in Presentation Skills and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

What to Do When the Butterflies Turn into Barracudas

There’s a lot you can do to minimize the anxiety that comes with speaking in public. (See “Would You Rather Die Than Speak in Public? Minimize the Nerves.”) But even after all your preparation, there may still be that dreaded moment right before or, worst, during your talk when the anxiety attacks you in the worst way. The butterflies turn into barracudas, and between a racing heartbeat, sweaty palms, shaking muscles, quivering vocals, and a mind that goes totally blank, you despair of ever recovering your cool. But it can be done. I have identified two categories of remedies for mastering the anxiety when you’re actually experiencing it:

Physical Techniques:

  • Move! Make big purposeful gestures, project strong vocals, stride across the front of the room. You have to release that nervous energy, otherwise it’ll eat a hole in your stomach.
  • Breathe. Think about all the nervous symptoms I just mentioned. Every one of them is a direct result of lack of oxygen. When we’re nervous, most of us breathe too shallowly. But the one thing our body craves under stress is oxygen. So take deep breaths right before you speak. And during your talk, if you feel on the edge of panic, pause and breathe. You’ll be amazed at what the gift of a little extra oxygen can do to mitigate those nervous symptoms.
  • Pause.  This is a vastly underutilized but powerful speaking technique. It’s very effective to stop and collect your thoughts when they’ve suddenly evaporated. It also makes the audience anticipate what you’re going to say next. It keeps your rate from getting too fast. And it gives you the opportunity to breathe.

Mental Techniques:

  • Adjust your attitude. Instead of being me-focused—Oh no, I’m so nervous. I’m going to do awful. No one will listen to me.”—try to be genuinely audience focused. Think about what you can do for them, not what this is doing to you.
  • Believe in your success. If you’ve prepared well and practiced enough, you should easily be able to visualize a positive and successful outcome. Use that visualization to make it more likely to happen.
  • Lighten up. Finally, try not to take yourself so seriously. Have fun. So what if it’s not perfect? Stuff happens in presentations-the projector fails, there’s no power outlet, you forget your handouts, there’s an annoying interruption… But just learn to say “So what?” That will go a long ways toward putting things into perspective. Besides, it’ll give you some great stories to tell later!

The important thing is, don’t let the anxiety master you. When you feel caught in its grips, tell yourself, “Oh, I’m nervous. Well, good. That means I’ll do a better job.”  Recognize it, acknowledge it, then work to power through it. Once you can get over the anxiety hump, you will find the rest of the presentation will go beautifully.


Published on Thursday January 11, 2007 in Anxiety and Presentation Skills. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .