Happy New Year everyone!

New hopes, spirits, and wishes to kick off 2016. Does anyone need any inspiration for a new year resolution? Or even just a goal to achieve this year, to make 2016 one of your greatest years on record. Well here are 10 of the most common resolutions made this week…

1. Losing weight
2. Becoming more organised
3. Spend less and Save more
4. Enjoy life to the fullest
5. Stay fit and healthy
6. Pay down debts
7. Quit smoking
8. Getting rid of Stress
9. Eat less chocolate
10. Leave work on time more often, and spend more time with family

However, (according to statisticsbrain.com), less than 10% of these resolutions are actually seen through to completion. That’s a pretty low success rate!

So if you are one of the 90% that will make and break your resolution this year, I’d like to suggest a different resolution for you this year. Become a brilliant presenter! I don’t mean on the world stage (unless you want to of course), but just in your everyday interactions with friends, colleagues, and in business. Not only will this yield enormous benefits to your career, it’s a goal that is a lot easier to achieve than losing and keeping off those extra kilos, putting out that last cigarette butt forever, or getting rid of stress in a world climate that is only getting more stressed out.

Here are 5 steps to become a better presenter in 2016. If you do all of these for every presentation you give, you will get better results with the messages you convey. And that’s pretty awesome.

1. Make your presentation about your audience, not yourself. Talk to your audience about what they want to know. Put words and ideas in terms that they can relate to. Leave them with a call to action that inspires them.
2. Draw an outline for your presentation, before you write down any detail. Make sure you understand the end to end flow of your presentation, and start and finish strongly.
3. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Commit yourself to reducing the number of points you will make in your presentation. Three is good. Five should be the maximum. Less is More.
4. Practice, practice, practice. Rehearse your presentation out loud, at least 3 times. This will not only iron out any kinks in your content and delivery, it will boost your confidence when it’s time to stand and deliver in front of your audience. If you can record on video your practices, even better. Play back to yourself, and see where the greatest opportunities lie.
5. Learn from others. When you are in the audience listening to a presenter, observe what they do well and what they could do better. Don’t be afraid of approaching the presenter afterwards and ask them for advice. Or why not get someone else to review your preparation and ask for feedback. All of us have the opportunity to take learnings from others.

Now I’m sure you will agree there is nothing overly complicated about these 5 steps. Yet if do these, I can tell you from personal experience that you will become a better presenter in 2016. And the real prize comes with the numerous opportunities that then get created for you by being an excellent speaker and presenter.

If you want more assistance to make this New Year’s Resolution come true for you, signup below. Or for some specific presenting advice, contact me here.

Wishing you the very best success in 2016.

And feel free to leave a comment with what your resolution for the new year is.