Maybe you heard that horses sweat, men perspire and women glow. But in the boardroom everyone who presents sweats ? some more than others. If you are in management or want to be, you will need to present in the boardroom. This is the worst place to present. First understand why it is that way. Then use these techniques to be more successful when you present in the boardroom.

Usually the emphasis on making an effective speech is what you do in preparation before the presentation begins.? But if you speak very much, what you do after the speech can help you become a more effective speaker. ?

As the meeting began, the project manager of the buying committee told me that the key decision-maker would miss the first 20 minutes or so of my presentation. This was a very competitive sale that I was working on at the time. There were about a dozen or so business-people from the prospect company that I was selling to in this meeting. The presentation was scheduled to last about 90 minutes.

Conventional wisdom is that the more choices customers have, the more likely they will buy. That may be true when customers have very specific wants or needs, and they know what those wants or needs are. However, often having lots of choices just confuses customers and they don't buy anything.

THE LITTLE-KNOWN SPEECHWRITING SECRETS THAT WON GEORGE W. BUSH THE US ELECTION

He's been accused of "mangling the language, destroying its meaning by avoiding the use of verbs, twisting nouns into verbs, and endlessly repeating phrases until they become zombified" (Source:'Bush and Blair accused of mangling English' by Kate Kelland, Reuters.com.uk, Mon 15 November, 2004 12:50).

Appealing to emotions is the most powerful way to transfer learning in an information cluttered training or presentation. A compelling story woven with a lot of information in the telling with a conclusion that appeals to the emotion can permanently etch the learning in an otherwise unresponsive training or meeting fatigued audience.

Audiences around the world are all different. Cultural, social and religious differences impact on how people learn, take in information and interact with presenters.

After delivering 3 presentations to 1,200 Managers and Franchisees from the largest fast food company in the Philippines, these are my thoughts on how to make an impact with culturally diverse audiences.

Believe it or not, preparation is a better determinant of presentation success than knowledge, experience, or even talent. The best presenter is almost always the presenter who is the most prepared. Even so, there are a lot of conflicting ideas about what constitutes thorough presentation preparation.

So what exactly is thorough preparation?

Cattiness is something no one ever wants to be accused of doing. But the reality is, at one time or another you?ve probably engaged in it, and most likely, you?ll do it again. This trait can include any number of unfortunate behaviors from not saying what we really intend to say, to saying things in a harsh tone of voice.

Flip charts are so common that we all think we can use them. But how often have you sat in presentations wondering what all the scribble was really about? Like many people you have probably seen flip charts that make no sense, that you can?t read from the back of the room and that look like a spider has crawled over them. You don?t want your flip charts to look like that, do you?