Caroline Halford

A wise person once told me to look at failure as just another data point in your life analysis. Meaning that it’s valuable information to help you learn more and find correct answers. With this in mind, try to analyse the failure. What happened? What did you learn? What went well? What didn’t? What will you do differently next time? This way, you’re always evolving and using the failure as a stepping stone to the next point in your journey.

It's really helpful to start by interacting with the audience. Ask a question, share a factoid, and encourage feedback. This should ensure that they are 'engaged' and invested from the beginning. Try to repeat this through the presentation. Polling questions, encourage live questions.... if you are presenting on a virtual call, pause at regular points to check in with the audience and get them to react to you. e.g. Ask them to type into the chat, responding to part of your presentation. Then engage in dialogue.

Stand with good posture with your shoulders back. Look around the room and try to make brief eye contact with different people in different areas of the room as you speak. Open body language using your hands as necessary. Try to vary your body language energy. Sometimes stand still and be quieter for impact. Other times be more energetic.

It’s always good to ask your manager: “What would success look like for me in this role”? Or “What do you expect from me over this year?” Try to get measurable targets and information that you can action. This will give you goals that you can work towards reporting on to your manager in regular catch ups. Be prepared to be agile and pivot when needed. But it’s really important to show that you’re eager to know what goals your boss expects from you, and that you’re working towards them.

In my experience, before you start taking steps towards your strategic goals, you need to ask yourself “What would success look like in 6 months/1 year/2 years?” Etc Paint a vivid picture with lots of details. What are you doing? Where are you working? Who are you speaking to? What skills do you have? What does your environment look like? Once you’ve defined this, think about what steps you can take to move you towards any of these visions. They don’t have to be big. Just chip away at them. You’ll be surprised at how far you can go by taking lots of little steps.

Keep slide content simple and visual. Audiences can't always follow a voice and read text at the same time. Since you'll be speaking to the audience, perhaps lead with simple visuals. The title of the slide can be the "take home message. And the content should be clear, simple, and focuses on demonstrating the point that you're trying to make