| Book review - The Presentation Coach, By Tory PR Guru, Graham Davies |
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Most people hate standing up in front of a room of people and presenting. As a speaker myself I know how important it is to have your own presentational brand. My friend and fellow speaker Graham Davies, has spent the last 25 years coaching many high-profile individuals in the worlds of business, politics; as a Tory PR Guru, and entertainment, and has used this experience to create his own presentational method described in his book The Presentation Coach. Graham Davies’s book is like it’s author and delivers in both a punchy and amusing way what he calls his “Bare Knuckle Technique” of presenting, because as he says it is a battle to keep the audience’s attention. As an ex president of the Cambridge Union and later a criminal barrister Graham Davies is a master with words. He methodically takes you through the process of planning, writing and delivering your presentation with anecdotes from his coaching and past life as a barrister, - some of which will have you laughing out loud - to create your “preparation pipeline”. His technique is based around really understanding your audience and creating what he calls the “Micro-Statement”, a sequence of words which quickly and compellingly captures the essence of your presentation. And this is where understanding the audience comes in, because the Micro-Statement should be specific to the needs of that audience at that time. Graham says the Micro-Statement should be the one piece of information that the audience will remember and be able to quote back at a later date, summing up the presentation. If you like having a step by step plan to follow, that is straight forward, to the point and contains no frills, you will like this book. Graham’s style is direct and he encourages you to present in the same way claiming that the biggest crime you can commit is to waste an audience’s time. This book will help you get great at presenting authentically, Graham describes presenting as performance but you should be yourself not an actor. And as one of the testimonials on the back of the book says “Required reading for anyone who wants to enthuse rather than euthanize their audience.” Read Graham Davies’s blog or get more details on the book here. |