I’d also like to offer my support to Graham’s comment – feeling passionate about a subject generally leads to much more engaging delivery, as passion is hugely infectious. I believe that presenters can get away with a few of the “obvious” errors if they are personally excited about their topic.

It moves the tips in the newsletter from being just at the Behavoural and Skills levels of the Personality Map (Neuro-Logical Levels) to being at the Beliefs and Identity levels.

If you believe in what you say this comes across non-verbally and impacts your audience – if you don’t… ditto!
So that’s got to be a given – the bottom line.

Yet, even if you believe in your message, missing out on the other practical skills points makes it more difficult for your audience to buy you – and therefore more difficult for them to buy your message.

We often have a very finite time slot in which to make a good impression so let’s use everything that helps. Perhaps it’s not a matter of ‘either or’ but of ‘and and’ – i.e. walking the talk… and doing it skillfully.

There is something I would like to add, which for me was a critical turning point, and that is belief in what I was saying, at least at the time I was saying it. If you really believe in what you are saying, and you present your material in a genuine way, your audience will be on your side.
I had all the training you could find on things such as eye-contact, pacing, tonality and so on and I tried hard to use it but I never felt right. It was only when I decided to put all this know-how to one side and talk about what I really believed that it came together. And then a strange thing happened – all the know-how came back and fell into place.

I think Reg is exactly right when he says that people buy people first. I think the key to that is to be genuine and if you are seen as such then all the stumbles and stutters in your presentation will not even be noticed.