The key to a great presentation is in the preparation, if you spend the time and energy on getting ready to deliver by the time you come to making your speech it will be the way you want it and need it to be.

Here are five simple ways to make sure you’ve laid the groundwork for a talk that leaves a lasting positive impression on your audience.

Practice Your Delivery

It’s time to rope in some friends or colleagues and use them as guinea pigs. If you want to know how people will receive what you say there’s no better way to find out than to talk to some people. When you do this get feedback, and more importantly act on that feedback.

You can also video yourself, but don’t try and evaluate your performance by yourself. We tend to be too tough or too easy on ourselves, and videos can make us extremely self conscious. So ask someone else to go through it with you.

Focus on: Content and Style

Check the Venue

Spend some time in the place (if you can) where you will be delivering, look at the set up particularly where the audience will sit in relation to you. Look at how you will get to the space in which you present and keep an eye out for obstacles, there’s nothing worse than tripping over a cable prior to a big speech.

Focus on: Access and Comfort

Don’t Over Do It

If you over prepare you can end up with a formula but no magic. It can leave you stilted and robotic and people will perceive you as “going through the motions”. Trust in yourself and rely on the principle that once you feel 90% ready, you’re ready. The other 10% isn’t big enough to worry about and is almost certainly tiny detail that no-one else notices.

Focus on: Maintaining the flow and keeping it natural

Check the Tech

Look at the projector; make sure you’re familiar and comfortable with it. Practice with any controls and ideally learn to use them without looking. Make sure your PowerPoint keeps within style guidelines and isn’t full of annoying animations and swoosh effects.

Focus on: Avoiding distractions on the day

Visual Aids

Keep words to a minimum and use your visuals to enhance and maintain your talk. You’re the source of the speech not the slides. So graphics that illustrate and improve the content are great, thousands of type written notes – are not.

Focus on: Complementing not replacing your speech

First, in the beginning, negotiators always focus on the relationship, realizing that even if they cannot reach agreement in this specific meeting, there will always be future opportunities. They prepare and plan for a positive environment, how will they manage the conflict, who is in the room and how can they show respect to each person in the meeting.

Common ground is a key behavior that great negotiators know can overcome conflicting issues and build trust into the process. People like to deal with others when they feel they have something in common.

Good negotiators seek to create a positive working climate with the other party. “A critical element in any negotiation – and one that frequently causes the most anxiety – is the quality of the working relationship we have with the other party. A good working relationship enables us to handle our differences efficiently.” (Fisher and Ertel, 1995)

A clear agenda needs to be created including date, time, issues to be covered, etc. as well as the names of all negotiators. This agenda should be created in consultation with the other party. (Fuller, 1991) They want to make sure that everyone has a voice in the meeting who wants one.

Effective negotiators take much more time discussing areas of common interest and the attractiveness of reaching agreement than poorer negotiators. (Pruit and Rubin,)

Secondly, great negotiators always know what they want and are willing to ask for it. They use assertive language that shows clarity and purpose. “Here is what we want…”This is what we are looking for…My suggestion is that we do it like this.”

Effective negotiators state a clear opening need and stick to it until they sense the other party clearly understands it.

And thirdly, great negotiators ask more questions. Researchers tell us that they ask three times more questions than ordinary negotiators.

Good negotiators ask “problem-solving questions” to understand the other’s position and underlying needs (Ury, 1991) and look for possible ways to reach agreement. ” There will almost certainly be some shared interests on which it may be possible to build. There will also almost certainly be features of the conflict where we can satisfy some interest of the other side without causing damage to any significant interest of our own.” (Fisher, Kopelman, Schneider, 1994)

After they ask these questions they display by listening and paraphrasing skills to check understanding. Successful negotiators more frequently paraphrase and check for understanding than the average negotiators. They also ask significantly more questions. (Rackham, 1976)

Follow these 3 tips and not only will you be a better negotiator but you will build your reputation as someone who is great to negotiate with, strong, clear and respectful.

Conducting a seminar either that’s free or fee-based is a fantastic way to build your brand, your reputation and your expertise. Once you are known as the expert in your field via your seminars, you’ll be better able to build your client base and your referrals. You’ll also be able to capture new subscribers for your newsletter and gain testimonials you can post on your website as well as in your marketing materials. And if you have books to sell that align with your seminar topic, seminars are the perfect avenue to have “back of the room” sales so participants can purchase your book. So let’s get started!

Coming up with a good topic

All great seminars start with a topic. How can you help people? How can you solve a problem? What in your industry causes customers confusion? Your seminar topic’s title should also be specific and compelling. For example,”All about Today’s Real Estate Market” is too broad. Instead, you should title your seminar,”The Ins And Outs of Selling Green Homes to Today’s Savvy Homebuyer.” Coming up with a topic requires you to listen, take notes when someone mentions a problem their having and research blogs and papers in your field.

Planning and more

o Where

First, you need to figure out where you’ll have your workshop. When you’re first starting out, try finding free places such as the local library, community centers or friends’ businesses that have adequate office space. Once you’re more established, negotiate with agencies and business owners who will take a cut of your participant fees.

You’ll need to consider having enough tables and chairs. Also consider if your chosen location has available parking, and is handicapped accessible.

o Fees

Will your workshop be fee-based or free? If it is fee-based, is the agency who is hosting it taking a certain percentage of your fees or is it a flat fee? How many participants do you need to cover the fee? You also need to know what is your minimum number of participants to make it worth your while.

o Publicity, Marketing

How will you publicize your event? Will you use flyers in key locations that would attract your ideal customer, social media, traditional print advertising, community bulletin boards, press releases, or email marketing? Also remember to use the signature block of your email to publicize your event. If you have partnered with an agency such as a community college, continuing ed program, or store, they will help you (since it will help them, too) through their brochure, website and email blasts and newsletter.

It’s the day of your seminar!

Before the day of your seminar, you’ve made enough copies of your handouts, you’ve prepared your PowerPoint presentation if you have one and you’ve made sure your laptop and projector are compatible. You also have made sure you have enough business cards, brochures, books to sell and you’ve created a sign-up list to capture email addresses for your future mail-outs.

Purchase name tags for your participants along with a marker. Show up to your seminar an hour early if you have computer equipment, and a half-hour early if you only have handouts. Adjust the chairs, tables and room temperature. Set up a separate table for your marketing materials and the participant name tags. It’s also a good idea to place your participants’ handouts on their chairs or on their spot at their table so they have everything they need. Along with the seminar handout, you should also prepare an evaluation and a video release if you are videotaping the seminar or if you want to capture your participants’ video testimonials.

And remember to

o Delegate someone to handle registrations, payments or to check participants off of the pre-paid list. This person shouldn’t be you since you need to greet everyone by shaking their hands and welcoming them to your seminar.

o Start on time, even if you know people are running late – don’t penalize the folks who got there on time!

o Who will be doing your introduction? Will you introduce yourself or be introduced? If the latter, give that person your bio sheet in advance.

Once you’ve started the workshop

o Use voice modulation; don’t look at your PowerPoint slides. Remember to talk slowly and clearly.

o Don’t rush through your points, maintain eye contact, SMILE and relax!

o Don’t overload your audience with information; make your material fit the timeframe.

After the workshop

o Read all of the evaluations (even if you’re scared to – it won’t be that bad, I promise)

o Follow up with participants via email or snail mail and welcome them to your e-newsletter or email subscription list.

When you’ve organized your materials, figure out what worked and what didn’t so you can start planning your next successful seminar!