The Power Presenter: Technique, Style, and Strategy from America's Top Speaking Coach: Summary
Jerry Weissman, the coach behind hundreds of IPO roadshows, argues that the best presentations are person-to-person conversations rather than performances. The book is about delivery: how to use your body, voice and words so the ease you have with one person survives in front of a room, built around his ERA of Eye Connect, Reach Out and Animation.
- Jerry Weissman
- 2009
- 8 min read
- 8 key takeaways
- 8 ways to apply it
Key takeaways from The Power Presenter: Technique, Style, and Strategy from America's Top Speaking Coach
The ideas readers on HourLife upvote the most, in order.
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1
A presentation works best as a series of one-to-one conversations.
The ease you have across a table is the style to aim for in front of a room. Talk to one person at a time, and nerves have far less to grab on to.
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2
Eye Connect: hold one person's gaze until you feel them look back.
A sweep of the room connects with no one. Speak a thought to one person, feel the click of them looking back, then move on to someone else.
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3
Reach Out: move and gesture toward people, not across them.
Step toward one side of the room to talk to someone there, and gesture outward as if offering a handshake. It turns a speech into a conversation.
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4
Animation is Eye Connect plus Reach Out, scaled up for the moment that matters.
Pick the story or line you most want remembered and give it your body, voice and stance. It takes nerve, and it is what people carry out of the room.
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5
Adrenaline speeds you up; the pause slows you down.
Under pressure almost everyone rushes. A deliberate pause lets you breathe, find the next person and let the last point land.
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6
Speak only when you are looking at a person.
Glance at the slide or your notes, then turn back and talk to someone. Talking to the screen hands the audience your back and your attention.
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7
A filler word is the sound of the mind searching; silence does the same job better.
"Um" and "you know" fill the gap while you find the next words. Close your mouth and pause instead, and you look calm rather than lost.
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8
Your natural conversational style is the one to bring on stage.
Most people become stiff and formal the moment they present. Weissman's method works by keeping the behaviour everyone already has: talking to another person.
How to apply The Power Presenter: Technique, Style, and Strategy from America's Top Speaking Coach
Turn the ideas into something you can do this week.
Film a two-minute run
Record yourself presenting on your phone, then watch it with the sound off, looking only at where your eyes go.
Mark your thoughts
Break your script into single thoughts, one per line, with a slash where you will pause and pick a new person.
Choose your animation moment
Pick the one story or line that deserves your biggest movement, and rehearse it three times.
Rehearse to people
Set three chairs, objects or friends around the room, and practise holding each one for a full thought.
Plan the first ten seconds
Write your opening line and decide which person in the room you will say it to.
Look, then speak
In every meeting this week, start each point only after your eyes have landed on someone.
Swap one um for silence
Each time you catch a filler word, stop, close your mouth and let a pause carry you to the next words.
Rehearse out loud
Before any talk, run it aloud at full voice at least twice; reading it silently does not count.
Talk to one person, then the next. A room is only ever a set of conversations.
