I attended to a workshop of the Club de Creativos (a creative’s club in Spain), there was only one other Accounts woman, it surprised me, because the workshop was called Theatre to sell ideas, and most of our job is selling creative’s ideas.
This workshop was about creativity and also about working in a range of skills, gestures and nonverbal communications that can be useful in our presentations to communicate the creative idea in the best possible way, because “when we sell ideas, we are selling ourselves”, our teacher Luis Cao said to us, so we have to care about how we are acting.
The basic rules:
– Breathing: breathe normally, relax your body and you will look calm, this will be more comfortable to your audience and bring you security and confidence.
– Be clear about your goal and follow it: feel yourself like an actress, and it would be as the role of the character you have previously worked in and you should not get away.
– Show interest instead of being interesting: it was fun, to prove the difference, Luis play two situations, first pointed to the ladder and shouted “Look!” Hardly anyone looked, it was an order, he was interesting himself. In the second play he stared at the stairs and whispered “Wow”, we were dying to turn our heads to look, he was interested.
– Listen, listen and listen: is critical to be aware of your surroundings, of the people in front of you, to empathize. Listen to find out what the needs of the audience can be so you can give it to them. Listen because it is better to answer based on what they are asking than to answer what you have prepared alone.
Luis also give us some tips for public speaking:
– What to do with your hands while you are talking: try to connect them to your brain, to support or emphasize what you’re saying, if you don’t get that: do yourself a script (as you do with your words, you can do with your gestures), and if this is not a solution, put the in your pockets.
– How to use the silences: breaks generate excitement, but you have to finish them at the right time or they may despair of your audience. It also creates expectations, making an announcement in the middle of the presentation, to wake up your listeners to the end.
So the lesson can be summarized in three words: relax, breathe and listen. And one very important issue: transmit power, excitement and passion for the ideas you are selling, because that is why you arrange a meeting, if you are not doing it better send an email.
