About this Newsletter Warm Up a Cold Audience
Throw another log on the fire and heat up the cocoa! This winter, Point Taken is working on ways to heat up every presentation you make. You'll learn ways to engage your audience and give your presentations more sizzle. What better way to start the year?

Meeting Pointers: Keep Your Cool
To be viewed as an outstanding presenter by any audience, you must master both sides of the equation: content and delivery. If you tend to get nervous before giving a presentation, try these tips:

• practice your physical delivery skills: eye contact, voice, gestures and posture
• master your content: organized, focused and credible

You will not only be more prepared, but you will also be more comfortable in front of your audience. Point Taken's Powerful Presentations workshop addresses both of these areas, allowing participants to master content development and organization while conducting a thorough review of effective delivery skills. This workshop is the most content-focused of Point Taken's seminar offerings.

My Point Exactly: Icebreakers
The impression you leave on your audience begins to form the moment you start your presentation. That's why it's important to "melt the ice" quickly. If you can get your audience to relate to you personally during your presentation, they are more likely to leave with a favorable impression. Below are a few tried-and-true methods to catch your audience's attention and warm them to your topic.

• Questions, Questions, Questions: By asking questions you will not only capture the audience's attention, but you also will be better able to tailor your information to their interests.
• Fascinating Factoids: If you are introducing a new topic to an audience, you can grab their interest by offering up a surprising or relatively unknown fact or statistic to elicit thought and discussion.
• Personal Anecdotes: Get your audience involved by giving them a glimpse into your world. Personalize your topic by offering an anecdote from your personal or business experience.
• Quotable Quotes: If you have a quote that pertains to your topic and - most importantly - offers a quirky or humorous viewpoint, use it to set the stage for the information that follows.

Point of Interest: Executive Presentation Skills/Facilitation and Moderation
This workshop is designed for the experienced presenter. It not only covers how to facilitate and moderate within a professional presentation, but also explores how to deliver a message, how to organize materials and handouts and how to conduct a question and answer session. Learn more about how to take your presentation skills to the next level.

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