The Magic of the Power Presenter

October 23, 2009 by Gerhard

Welcome Guest Blogger, Gerhard Gschwandtner

What happens when people ask you to address a group of people to persuade them to take action on an idea? Chances are that you suddenly become aware of your heartbeat, your throat may become dry, you nervously take a sip of water, stand up, and then notice that all eyeballs in the room are focused on you. In one short moment you may have experienced a surge of anxiety that you are trying to mask with a smile that has a hard time sticking to your face.

How should you prepare for a speech
In the past five years I have learned more about giving presentations than I learned in the 20 years before that. Each year I conduct three sales leadership conferences and three Sales 2.0 conferences that attract a total of more than 1,800 people. In the beginning I wrote my own speeches word for word. A 45-minute speech translates into about 4,000 words, or about 10 pages of type. I would spend the entire weekend writing the speech, editing it through the night, and changing it again the next morning. After a couple of practice rounds, I would find a better way to express my ideas and edit the speech again. I found that there is an inevitable struggle between expressing an idea in your head and translating the idea into words on paper.

When I was on stage, I found myself looking at my notes very infrequently. Why? I wanted to connect with my audience. But as I focused on the audience, I found myself wanting to get back to my speech. This was a different struggle. On one hand I wanted to read my speech; on the other, I wanted to address the audience.

Finding the courage to speak what’s on your mind

Over time I discovered that it was helpful to create a pictorial road map for my speech. Instead of stringing together words and sentences, I strung together 10 to 20 key ideas. I would create a PowerPoint slide to illustrate each idea. I found arresting images for each idea and used very little text on each slide. This method immediately solved the problem with the structure of my presentation. The slides reminded me of the subjects, and I could pay more attention to the audience.

The first time around I still wrote a complete speech using the new structure. But when I started my talk, I realized that I didn’t look at my notes. I left the script at the podium and never lost eye contact with my audience. I felt at ease, and I felt a true connection with the audience.

About Gerhard Gschwandtner

Gerhard Gschwandtner is the founder and CEO of Personal Selling Power, Inc., a magazine and book publishing company located in Fredericksburg, VA. After seven years as an international sales and marketing executive in Austria, France, and the United States, he started a sales training consulting company and trained over 10,000 salespeople in Europe and the United States. In 1981, he started Selling Power magazine on a shoestring budget and turned it into the leading sales management magazine, with a circulation of 98,000 subscribers in 67 countries.

Today, in addition to Selling Power magazine, Personal Selling Power, Inc. has a book-publishing division, an online video division, a Sales Leadership Conference series, and the leading website in the sales industry, www.sellingpower.com, with over 100,000 individual visitors a month. Gschwandtner is also a Co-Host of the Sales 2.0 Conference series. He is an avid blogger, and has created 14 books on selling and management and two books on photography.

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