Sep 01 2001
Secrets Of a Successful Presenter
by Pat Wagner
More than 100 times each year, I stand in front of a group of library personnel and present information that I hope will improve their lives and their workplace. Some people think I have a dream job: no boss except myself, decent pay, interesting work, lots of travel and you get to leave before they find out what you don’t know! The truth is that I have dozens of bosses (my customers). In addition, I have to spend many hours behind the scenes finding customers, researching new material and arranging for travel. Sometimes I am asked to do the same program three times in one day. Sometimes, the programs I really want to do, none of my customers want. And, as for leaving town before they find out what I don’t know, most of my customers know all my worst flaws by the end of the first hour and are not shy about challenging me in front of an audience of curious strangers.
Nevertheless, I love my work. Here are some tips — based on over 20 years’ working with libraries — on how to build your career as a library consultant or trainer, whether as part of your current job or as a self-employed consultant. I have arranged them around what I think are the major components of becoming a successful presenter.
1. Presentation Skills
Although some people consider me fearless, I suffered from physically debilitating stage fright the first seven years that I presented in public as a poet and actress. What cured me was relentless practice and enough theater training to teach me that (and this is one of those big secrets of actors and teachers): No one cares. You can make lots of mistakes as a speaker, and if you ignore them and keep going, so does your audience. And, if you keep practicing and apply the specific feedback you receive about your performance, you make fewer mistakes every year.
What is the best training you can receive? I strongly suggest that theater training, even if it means making a fool of yourself in a community college class on improvisation, will help you become more confident and comfortable on stage better than any formal “speaker’s” program can.
2. Adult Education Skills
Most of us draw our main impressions of adult education from classrooms. We forget that high school and college teachers have captive audiences, who learn quickly that they have to put up with terrible teaching in order to get a decent grade. Adults in the workplace are mostly very polite, but it doesn’t mean that they are getting what they want from most presenters.
The three hallmarks of a great presentation are: interaction, participation and collaboration. You interact with your audience, which means you create a dialogue, not a monologue.
You elicit participation from everyone, which means you create a variety of exercises, from written, to small group discussion, to pairing people off for role playing, to hands-on experiments with the material, to large group discussion. You ask questions and be quiet long enough to listen to the answers. You ask for more feedback and you seek out the people who haven’t expressed themselves.
And you collaborate with your audience, which means you see them as your peers and equals. You ask their advice about content. When a participant asks a question, you turn to the audience and ask them to share their insights. Your remember that everyone in your audience knows more than you do about some aspect of your topic. They are adults, with education and experience to contribute. If you remember this, you will automatically be better than 90% of the other presenters in the workplace.
3. Content Skills
The biggest mistake that the librarian-trainer makes is providing too much theory and not enough practical advice. Workplace presentations, for the most part, are not an extension of the academic atmosphere of library school. Your participants want something they can do as soon as they get back to the library. I tell lots of stories about life in libraryland, so that the audience can see and hear what the information means in the real world. I ask them for stories as well.
It is not that I never provide theories. I look for information that can be organized in models with not more than five or six components (my average is three). I usually can find books to recommend in class for further reading. I also often refer to the key words that allow participants to search for more information, such as the name of a field of human behavior. However, my goal is that my audiences can apply the ideas immediately AND teach it to someone else.
4. Tools Of the Trade
I am the last trainer in America who uses only a flipchart and handouts to present. The question I keep asking myself is, “If I can send the audience a PowerPoint presentation via e-mail, why do they need a human being in the room?” The answer, to me, is that I have to be there to encourage the participants to try new things, to adapt the information to the realities of their lives and to model the behaviors I talk about. I need the lights up and the attention on me and the other people in the room, not just on a back-lighted slide. I use a flipchart so that I can write what the participants say so everyone can see and think about them. I provide handouts to supplement the material, so the people who don’t want to take notes and just listen still have a record of the main points, and so that everyone has something to share when they get back to work.
5. Marketing Skills
95% of my work is repeat business; some libraries and library organizations use me yearly! This means that I have to be constantly researching new presentations and tweaking the old ones.
How did I reach this stage in my career? First, I have discovered that clients want presenters who are flexible and nice to work with. I try to answer requests for information promptly. I am polite and good-humored with everyone. I listen and provide the programs that my customers want, not necessarily what I think they ought to have. Second, I encourage my customers to help sell me to their colleagues, I am not shy at telling current customers I am always looking for work, and I send “old” customers information about new programs. I don’t wait for someone to remember me; I send them a postcard so they won’t forget me.
Pat Wagner presents over 120 programs each year, most to libraries and library organizations. She has presented to libraries in over 25 states and is a frequent presenter at ALA, SLA, AALL, ARMA and other state, regional and national library organizations. She has a BA in liberal arts with an emphasis in written communication and performance.