Saturday, March 9, 2013

Say it with Success: Foolproof Ways to Improve Your Presentation by Shannon Alter CPM

Say It with Success: Foolproof Ways to Improve Your PresentationTitle:  Say it With Success:  Foolproof Ways 
to Improve Your Presentation
Author: Shannon Alter, CPM
Publisher: Infinity Publishing (PA)
Published: May 21, 2010
Format: Paperback
Pages: 90
Source: Won Through Goodreads First Reads
Read:  November 8-9 2012
In A Few Words: Short and to the Point
My Rating: 3 Stars

Goodreads Synopsis:
Even if public speaking isn't your day job, fear can get the better of you. Approximately 75% of Americans fear public speaking over just about anything else. Whatever your goals are, you too can learn to become calm and relaxed in front of any audience. No matter whether you are a business professional, association executive or a college student, this book will give you the skills you'll need to become comfortable delivering any type of meeting, talk, speech or presentation to any size group. It's true that there is an art to making presentations-and you can master it!

Melissa's Musings:

This review will be short and to the point just like this book was. 

This was a valuable resource for someone who is relatively new to public speaking. There are a lot of different aspects of tips and tricks that are explored. This covers everything from the amount of time you should put into presentations, to body language, to speaking engagements in foreign countries.

The book is broken down in easy to read sections. They all have clear, concise information, including well noted statistics.  The most valuable section to me seemed to be the section that talked about how to go about presenting/speaking when in a foreign country. There are a lot of useful ideas about the small details that help presentations run smoothly.

The one thing I was disappointed about has to do with one of the authors' main points. She states a few times that presenters should weave examples and anecdotes from their own lives into their presentations, but I found that the book was lacking this very thing. She gave a few really general examples, but I was hoping for something more personal or something I could more easily relate to.

I wouldn't say that I learned anything mind bending by reading this but a  lot of ideas from past experiences were reinforced like the method of organizing a speech to : Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.

If you have a presentation to do you could pick this book up for some quick ideas on how to organize it.

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