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intro to presentations

I offer

• courses in re-thinking presentations.
 • one-to-one coaching in presentation preparation (often in emergencies!

Instead of just doing “presentations”- hiding behind the equipment, the software and drowning the audience with information - you can learn to have a real and easier connection with the people in front of you.


We are here to serve and influence the audience, not make them suffer. Get your head around being a natural presenter and see the benefits immediately.  Develop your own natural style and learn to break your over-dependence on slideware and how to remove the barriers between you and your audience. Its important to see presentations not as performances but as conversations - albeit enlarged conversations with an audience.


standard business presentation practice can stifle excellent communication

"too often presentations given with the help of multimedia suffer because the presenter puts too much energy and emphasis on technology... and not enough on making meaningful connections with the audience."
Garr Reynolds

How many times have you been bored when you've been in the audience. Powerpoint has its place but its place should be as tool rather than to dominate the process. You and I know both know that the audience deserve something better. Far too many presentations fail because of overloading the audience, lack of connection and lack of simplicity.

Your connection with the audience should take priority. Its not you who is important - its the audience. So we need to learn how to connect and be the centre of attention with ease and then get on with all the other parts of presenting. Thats what you will learn if you come on a course with me. Once you have the fundamentals of being in front of people you can be relaxed and the rest will follow. Of course you have to do some work on the structure of a presentation but CONNECTION, authencity and presence are the keys to unlocking the power of a presentation.

Audiences crave a real person to connect with. Not an over-slick presenter.
My approach is about stepping away from the norm and to re-examine long-held beliefs that presentations just equals doing a powerpoint.

Audiences respond well to a conversational style and they feel included rather than delivered to. That means you have to work on being able to be relaxed and being present rather working on how many bullett points you should have on each powerpoint slide.

So you move from a “performance” to really connecting with the audience, inspiring them while feeling at ease. To move from delivering to an audience to serving the audience. From a notion of trying too hard to be slick and perfect to a real relationship with real people. Bringing the audience what they crave for - a real person, their passion and authenticity. And for them to feel included.

So rather than trying to overload you, what I’m trying to do is to encourage you to do less! But to get to that simplicity means sometimes unlearning stuff that gets in the way. The speaking circles approach is a powerful way to simplify. And guess what? When you look after an audience in this way you get whole lot of response. You will connect far more with ease and people will respond to you. Once you have got the fundamentals of being at ease - you have to understand the other disciplines of presentations.

‘’Facing the rather daunting prospect of delivering a series of key presentations to several large groups which I was quite apprehensive about, my immediate reaction was to talk to John having previously attended one of his excellent public speaking courses.
John listened very carefully to my concerns and was enormously helpful in reinforcing the key messages from the course and provided an amazing insight into the situation I will be managing. He encouraged me to plan my approach in a very different way and has transformed my trepidation into actual enthusiasm! ‘’
A senior Executive in a large international organisation

presentation courses • re-thinking presentations

courses for 2012

This course is run in Bristol and London as a two day course or NEW for 2012 six evening course in March

10-11th February 2012  Friday - Saturday - Bristol

only three places left for this course as of 17/1/12

Re-thinking presentations:
Beyond the fundamentals

The course

Do you want develop your skills to be a confident presenter with or without powerpoint?
Do you want to work with what the audience really wants?
There are 40 million powerpoint presentations done every working day around the world: how many of those are simply reading out slides?
What would it mean to re-think presentations and bring them fully alive?

The course will help you re-think presenting.
Bring simplicity, integrity, and passion to your presentations and learn about the best ways to connect with the audience.

Can we be ourselves and be conversational in a presentation?
The course is not anti powerpoint - its about finding new and better ways of presenting.


The course includes working with presence, simplifying the presentation process, powerful beginnings, the importance of stories, audience interaction and more presence. The course teaches you to be conversational, authentic and connected to the audience. If you can get a sense of ease and presence and connectedness then you will be a good presenter.

Limited to 6 places 
Requirements - Its best to have done a fundamentals course but if you are reasonably confident about being in front of people then have a chat with me.
You need to bring a 5 minute presentation to work on. 

Talk to me for more information.
£330 or £275 if booked by January 20th.

 

March 6th - Evening Course re-thinking presentations 6 weeks

 

May 11-12th May 2012  Friday - Saturday London

Re-thinking presentations:
Beyond the fundamentals

The course

Do you want develop your skills to be a confident presenter with or without powerpoint?
Do you want to work with what the audience really wants?
There are 40 million powerpoint presentations done every working day around the world: how many of those are simply reading out slides?
What would it mean to re-think presentations and bring them fully alive?

The course will help you re-think presenting.
Bring simplicity, integrity, and passion to your presentations and learn about the best ways to connect with the audience.

Can we be ourselves and be conversational in a presentation?
The course is not anti powerpoint - its about finding new and better ways of presenting.


The course includes working with presence, simplyfying the presenation process, powerful beginings, the importance of stories, audience interaction and more presence. The course teaches you to be conversational, authentic and connected to the audience. If you can get a sense of ease and presence and connectedness then you will be a good presenter.

Limited to 6 places 
Requirements - Its best to have done a fundamentals course but if you are reasonably confident about being in front of people then have a chat with me.
You need to bring a 5 minute presentation to work on. 

Talk to me for more information.
£400 or £300 if booked by April 10th.

 

12-13th October 2012  Friday - Saturday - Bristol

Re-thinking presentations:
Beyond the fundamentals

The course

Do you want develop your skills to be a confident presenter with or without powerpoint?
Do you want to work with what the audience really wants?
There are 40 million powerpoint presentations done every working day around the world: how many of those are simply reading out slides?
What would it mean to re-think presentations and bring them fully alive?

The course will help you re-think presenting.
Bring simplicity, integrity, and passion to your presentations and learn about the best ways to connect with the audience.

Can we be ourselves and be conversational in a presentation?
The course is not anti powerpoint - its about finding new and better ways of presenting.


The course includes working with presence, simplyfying the presenation process, powerful beginings, the importance of stories, audience interaction and more presence. The course teaches you to be conversational, authentic and connected to the audience. If you can get a sense of ease and presence and connectedness then you will be a good presenter.

Limited to 6 places 
Requirements - Its best to have done a fundamentals course but if you are reasonably confident about being in front of people then have a chat with me.
You need to bring a 5 minute presentation to work on. 

Talk to me for more information.
£330 or £275 if booked by September 20th.

 

November 10-11th November 2012  Friday - Saturday London

Re-thinking presentations:
Beyond the fundamentals

The course

Do you want develop your skills to be a confident presenter with or without powerpoint?
Do you want to work with what the audience really wants?
There are 40 million powerpoint presentations done every working day around the world: how many of those are simply reading out slides?
What would it mean to re-think presentations and bring them fully alive?

The course will help you re-think presenting.
Bring simplicity, integrity, and passion to your presentations and learn about the best ways to connect with the audience.

Can we be ourselves and be conversational in a presentation?
The course is not anti powerpoint - its about finding new and better ways of presenting.


The course includes working with presence, simplyfying the presenation process, powerful beginings, the importance of stories, audience interaction and more presence. The course teaches you to be conversational, authentic and connected to the audience. If you can get a sense of ease and presence and connectedness then you will be a good presenter.

Limited to 6 places 
Requirements - Its best to have done a fundamentals course but if you are reasonably confident about being in front of people then have a chat with me.
You need to bring a 5 minute presentation to work on. 

Talk to me for more information.
£400 or £300 if booked by October 10th.

 

stop performing •  start connecting

"thought provoking and very useful and enjoyable course - led in your inevitable relaxed and authentic and skilled way".
Jo

 "I really enjoyed the course, You are a great facilitator - no question!"
Chris

"I wanted to feel amazingly at ease in all speaking situations and Yes I got it. Profound."
Reg

I thought the facilitation was excellent. John is very skilled in making complex ideas seem quite simple and manageable but at the same time he challenges you to be bold and to get out of your comfort zone. I felt and feel really inspired to be much more bold in my presentations. I felt the course opened a door in my imagination and a figure on the other side is now beckoning me to be bold and step through to a whole new world of expression. Nice one – really great.
Clare