How to give world-class presentations. Keys to great keynotes. How to communicate better and win audiences over. Expert coaching for CEOs, Executives, keynote speakers

How to give world-class presentations. Keys to great keynotes. How to communicate better and win audiences over. Expert coaching for CEOs, Executives, keynote speakers – via Zoom or face to face

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Leadership, Strategy, Business Ethics - Keynotes

Giving an important presentation? Need tips on your next keynote? Preparing a lecture / keynote is often one of the most stressful things any senior executive has to do, whether for a team meeting, staff conference or client event.

PERSUADE YOUR AUDIENCE

What’s the point of a great idea if you can’t persuade an audience?

Being able to present effectively to an audience is a Number One business skill yet most people can’t do it. Here are simple steps for keynote success.

Get your keynote right, and your reputation will soar – you may even win promotion. Get your keynote wrong in an important event – and your career in that company will soon be over.

I am a professional keynote speaker, a Futurist author of 18 books – ranging from "How AI Will Change Your Life" to "The Future of (Almost) Everything".

Several million people have heard me speak at major corporate events - over 800,000 people during a single webinar for example. I really enjoy being on large platforms, and I get a huge buzz out of engaging audiences from every nation and industry.

I often share the platform with CEOs of the largest corporations in the world, and I have been ranked in the past as one of the 20 most influential business thinkers in the world. I have coached many senior business leaders on public speaking, right up to CEOs of really large companies ($2bn a year or more turnover).

So what do I tell them about how to communicate better? Here are some of the secrets of all global keynote speakers. How to give world-class, superb, engaging, entertaining, life-changing keynotes or lectures or seminars.

PASSION

Focus on what really matters to you. The rest is easy.

When you share stories that matter, people are touched and energised.

I learned this over 30 years ago as a cancer physician looking after people at home who were dying, and as the founder of an international Charity. ACET now has programmes in 15 nations, working with many of the poorest and most vulnerable people. *

I had no vision to start any organisation, but what came into being from sharing my story at a few speaking engagements was a global people movement which rose up at astonishing speed and has lasted over 35 years.

Passion is one of the major things I work on when coaching people who have important presentations to give, helping them connect with their own motivation, taking them to another level.

Think about times you have been on the edge of your seat, listening to someone else speak on stage.

PERSONAL

The more personal and gripping their story is, the more you are compelled to listen to every word of that presentation, even if they stumble a bit in telling it.

The truth is that the more passionate they are, the less they need notes, slides or anything else. And the clearer their vision of a better future, the more likely you will be too follow.

I recently sat and listened to a keynote on health and safety – given by someone who recently had the very upsetting task of telling a young family that their dad had been severely injured in an accident at work, and had died before reaching hospital.

That speaker needed no slides to get his message across about taking safety more seriously. Did he need a major rehearsal, or to prepare for weeks on end? No way.

I guarantee the more a story like that is rehearsed, the worse the “performance” will become, because it will start to feel polished, instead of raw.

Yes, once he had told the story, which did not take long, a few shocking statistics on a couple of slides really shook that audience to the core. But it was the story, or rather the person telling the story, their heartache, anguish, distress, that the audience will always remember. And the audience was changed by it. I will always remember what he said.

Yes, you may say, but I’m only talking about a product launch or our new strategy.

You may say that your company is metrics / data driven and doesn’t “do” passion.

But I promise you that the same rule applies for every audience. 100%. Every time.

Presentations without passion can be given by robots, and robots are boring presenters.

I don’t care if you are an astrophysicist talking about how to calculate trajectories to Mars more accurately, or a Finance Director talking about economies to ensure the company survives.

Passion is infectious. Your own passion is what counts.

FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS

Focus on what really matters most in your view. On what you feel most strongly about.

Focus on your customer or your staff or your mission or your values, on what it’s all about, the difference you are making, why this has been such an issue.

Here is the truth: if you can’t summon any passion for what you are talking about, or about your job or your team – do yourself a favour, don’t do that presentation and leave as soon as you can!

Life is far too short to spend time doing things that you don’t believe in.

Life is far too short to waste an hour with an audience on trivia.

If you don’t care about the points you are making, why on earth will your audience? You will just make them annoyed or send them asleep in the first 60 seconds – or even worse drive them into their smartphones.

Tell your audience how you and your team are making the world a better place.

If a Powerpoint or Keynote slide in your pack fails to make your own heart beat a little more strongly every time you look at it, delete now, or find a better way to get that point across.

ENERGY

People often tell me that I am the most “on-fire” or energetic speaker they have ever heard.

That’s partly because most keynote speakers and presenters are so awful!

Even when a message is strong, full of conviction, and authenticity, I have seen many speakers fail in really embarrassing ways, because they did not project enough energy.

Here’s a fact: 85% of all your personality is lost in the air in the first 4 metres between you and the first two rows of your audience, and another 10% is lost for the rest.

That’s why so many panel discussions are deadly boring. It’s really hard to push up the energy levels when you are slouched in a leather chair.

Here is a shocking test. Next time you listen to a speaker, or turn up an event before speaking, sit in the back row and hold up your thumb at arms length.

Look at how much of the speaker’s face or entire body disappears behind your thumbnail. Hardly surprising that it’s so easy to switch off when listening to a keynote.

Video screens don’t transmit energy. In any case, who wants to watch TV for hours on end?

INTENSITY

If you go to the theatre to watch a play or a musical, you will find maybe 2000 people on the edge of their seats, transfixed by what is happening, without video relays, gripped by the intensity and energy of those on stage.

Most keynote speakers I work with are afraid of looking stupid. They don’t give keynotes every day and find it stressful. They are nervous, tend to stay close to the lectern, constantly look round at their slides behind them.

They are usually rather shocked to learn how much they can increase their own energy levels without looking or sounding strange.

It’s not about speed of speaking. Listen to David Attenborough narrating a global documentary – his pace is measured, but he has intensity, passion and conviction in every word.

A large platform is a stage to be used. All the world’s most effective communicators use the space fully – move around, go towards one part of their audience and then another.

As you move, you will find natural release. You start to breathe properly, your projection energy rises, your voice is fuller, and what is more, you are forced to look into the eyes of your audience rather than at the screen or your notes.

Use everything you have got. Hold nothing back. You should feel shattered (buzzing but exhausted) after walking off that stage.

Your audience is not the slightest bit interested in all the energy you pour into emails and Zoom calls in the hours before your keynote, nor will they impressed by your busy diary this evening.

All that matters to them is your actual performance: from your first moment on stage until your final word. So then, your attitude should be to compress an entire day or two of effort into 30 minutes of fireworks.

ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE

Most speakers have no idea how to read an audience.

Eye contact is everything – keep scanning the room.

I can read the minds of 1000 people at the speed of light.

It’s astonishing how much an audience “talks” back to you.

Take them on a journey, respond to what your gut feeling is about what they are thinking and feeling.

“I know some of you may be puzzled by this – but here is why we know it’s true…”

Use “straw polling” – a hundred times faster than polling using an App. You can see audience opinion instantly and work with it.

“Put your hands up if you think X will happen by Y date.”

“Put your hands up if you have tried to use X feature on a product like this and found it very frustrating.”

If you watch a stand-up comedian, most rely on reactions from their front row audience to trigger wider reactions. The people nearest to the platform will help set the tone, and you need them on-board. If you are going on stage after a coffee or lunch break, walk up to them and say hello with your microphone visible, ask them about themselves, welcome them.

Their friendly faces, smiling back, hanging on your every word, will help draw the very best from you when on stage.

DUMP THE SCRIPT

Even professional actors refuse to use auto-cues. Audiences can smell deception and auto-cue is a deception.

Be your true, authentic self. Speak from your heart, be sensitive to your audience.

If you are just reading a page of words, let them read all that stuff in an email in a fraction of the time. Please don’t inflict it on a live audience.

They have come to hear you speak, not have a ‘bed-time story” read to them.

The only exception to this is with market sensitive presentations or compliance / regulatory statements where you have to be “word perfect”.

Yes of course, have a very detailed message mapped out.

Keep yourself on that message – not with bullet points, but with well-illustrated slides with only one major point on each. Or no words at all.

Use the images as triggers for the one point you know you need to make.

But what if I can’t remember that point? Keep going. If it really matters you can pick it up later in questions and answers, especially with a helpful prompt from a member of you team.

Keep those slides flashing past, and your entire presentation will become more interesting.

Don’t read every word on your slides – just another version of autocue.

Your audience can read slides at 1000 words per minute or more but your maximum speaking speed is only 120 words a minute – usually less.

So when you read words on the screen you are insulting and boring your audience.

FIX TYPEFACE ON SLIDES

It is really shocking to me that at almost every event I have ever attended, at least one keynote speaker has insulted their audience by putting slides on the screen which cannot be read.

The same in most board meetings. Dense slides are awful and a complete waste of time. I sat in a presentation the other day where literally not a single word of really important data could be read by anyone present.

This is absolutely fatal in presenting – no excuse for it. It’s really annoying for audiences.

Keep your points very simple, typeface very large.

PLEASE always arrive in enough time, preferably the day before, to actually check your keynote slides on screen from the very back row.

With enough time in hand to completely reformat every slide if there is something really unexpected about the tech setup.

VIDEO YOURSELF

You will only learn how things actually feel for your audience by watching yourself speak. This is the fastest way to learn how to give better keynotes.

Even better, share the video with a Keynote Coach like myself - they will be able to tell you in less than 5 minutes how you are doing, and give you ways to improve.

Try things out, raising the pitch of your voice, projecting more, moving around more – see what it actually looks like.

Most keynote speakers have habits which they are completely unaware of and when I get them to watch their own videos, they are often shocked (as well as embarrassed).

“I had no idea that I keep making a repetitive gesture with my hands”

“I was speaking too fast and kept running out of words – “err”, “umm”, “if you will” and so on.”

“I kept looking behind me at the screen even though the slides were on the monitor in front of me – and broke my flow”

“I keep touching my nose!”

TRY TO AVOID FULL REHEARSALS

Many speakers want to practice and that’s a good thing but can be really deadly in front of a group of technicians and a nervous event organiser plus colleagues.

You can’t perform without a proper audience and your delivery will therefore feel flat, awkward and stilted. As a result it is easy to go away feeling deflated and discouraged, even less certain that your keynote will ignite the conference.

Yes of course, get onto the platform, pace the stage, make the space fully your own, practice getting on and off, make sure you are comfortable with the monitor position and sound levels, and the clicker to advance the slides.

By all means rehearse a version of your opening couple of sentences, first slide or two, but don’t be drawn into a full presentation of your keynote.

Far better is to sit yourself towards the back of the venue, clicker in hand, stepping through the keynote slides, rehearsing in your mind what you are going to say and imagining how that will actually look and feel to your audience in that venue.

And that can be a great place to check keynote messaging with the event team – with the organiser sitting beside you as you step through the slides.

The time to do a full keynote rehearsal is at home or somewhere else, entirely on your own or with coach present.

CHECK THE FLOW

Make sure the technicians show you the slides of the keynote speaker directly before, ideally others too, so you are ready to link back to major points made earlier. Be sure what is coming next.

Your keynote is part of the event narrative so make sure it fits into the whole event really well.

USE A FRIEND IN FRONT ROW FOR TIME SIGNALS

There may be a timer in the monitor but if not, ask a friend to give you simple hand signals eg 15 minutes to go, 10 minutes, 5 minutes and Stop.

Anyway it's nice to have a friend in the front row!

CONSIDER INTERVIEW FORMAT

If you are really struggling in all this, consider an interview instead of a formal keynote.

Interviews can bring the very best out, and cover mistakes (“can I just clarify that…”).

Interviews enable a more personal story to be drawn out without appearing to be overly promoting yourself or your company.

Audiences can feel they are “getting the real thing” when the keynote packaging is stripped away.

Interviews can be well prepared for – but take care not to overdo this. The more they are polished and rehearsed the less authentic and convincing they will become.

TAKE ACTION TO TRANSFORM YOUR KEYNOTE SKILLS TODAY

Many simple steps can easily be taken to completely transform your own keynote delivery, changing you from a good presenter to a totally outstanding one.

However it is really difficult to make such transformations rapidly on your own.

The good news is that even an hour on a Zoom call can be enough to revolutionise your next keynote.

And the lessons learnt could change the direction of your entire life.

• Need coaching for your next keynote: Contact Patrick Dixon now on +44 7768 511390 (mobile) or [email protected]

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