Boring to Bravo: Proven Presentation Techniques to Engage, Involve, and Inspire Your Audience to Action [Hardcover]

Kristin Arnold (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2010

This book shows experienced presenters how to transform boring monologues into scintillating dialogues by employing simple yet powerful presentation techniques. It features 90-plus practical techniques for engaging and interacting with an audience. Drawing from her extensive experience as a nationally recognised speaker, the author gives readers tips that apply to any presenter. Readers will be amazed at their ability to attract, involve, and inspire by incorporating just a few of the author's suggestions. It offers a proven methodology for upgrading any presentation. By taking a collaborative approach to the communication process, the author shows the reader how to care, connect, and converse with the members of any audience. Incoming NSA president with strong promotional platform: as the incoming president of the National Speakers Association, the author will promote the book on a nation-wide tour. An experienced team facilitator and military veteran, the author has a large platform of clients, including the Coast Guard, NASA, and the IRS.

''To say that this book is packed with powerful ideas is an understatement. Whether you re a neophyte or professional communicator, Boring to Bravo will help you get better. I highly recommend it.'' --Mark Sanborn, President, Sanborn & Associates, Inc., Author, The Fred Factor, You Don't Need a Title to be a Leader, and The Encore Effect

''The author's qualifications are important for a book on public speaking (where authorial experience in practicing what is being preached is crucial). Arnold's background as a facilitator and speaker is extensive, capped by her new role as the incoming president of the National Speakers Association. Her focus is on presentations in the workplace, but the fluidly presented and dynamically toned pages soon make it obvious that her techniques and methods can be used by all who are required to give presentations, whether it be in their public or private lives. Her ideas are underscored by the basic premise that a dull, sleep-inducing program is intolerable, not to say detrimental, to the effectiveness of the presentation. How to engage your audience is the key to speaker success, and the author presents a series of increasingly sophisticated techniques to involve the audience, from employing the right tone of voice to breaking the audience out into smaller discussion groups. Hers are not pat responses to the issue of good programming but are well-thought-out, robustly tested, and greatly practical techniques.'' --Brad Hooper, Booklist magazine

Top Ten Low Risk Techniques to Easily Engage Your Audiences
Amazon-exclusive content from author Kristin Arnold

1. Arrange the room to be more friendly and engaging even before your presentation starts.
2. Prepare an interesting and appealing handout or takeaway that enhances your speech.
3. Mingle with the audience before your presentation so you ll have some new friends out there!
4. Before you begin to speak, establish rapport by making eye contact with as many people as you can.
5. Smile. They ll smile back!
6. Use lists, headlines or highlights to help the audience know where you are going and so that they can follow along.
7. Ask an engaging questions.
8. Tell a story with vivid words that capture their imaginations.
9. Have fun. When your audience sees that you are having a good time, they will too!
10. Finish with a strong, compelling call to action

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The author’s qualifications are important for a book on public speaking (where authorial experience in practicing what is being preached is crucial). Arnold’s background as a facilitator and speaker is extensive, capped by her new role as the incoming president of the National Speakers Association. Her focus is on presentations in the workplace, but the fluidly presented and dynamically toned pages soon make it obvious that her techniques and methods can be used by all who are required to give presentations, whether it be in their public or private lives. Her ideas are underscored by the basic premise that a dull, sleep-inducing program is intolerable, not to say detrimental, to the effectiveness of the presentation. How to engage your audience is the key to speaker success, and the author presents a series of increasingly sophisticated techniques to involve the audience, from employing the right tone of voice to breaking the audience out into smaller discussion groups. Hers are not pat responses to the issue of good programming but are well-thought-out, robustly tested, and greatly practical techniques. --Brad Hooper

Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press; 1 edition (August 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608320367
• ISBN-13: 978-1608320363
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #654,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Presentations That SING!, August 17, 2010

By 

Rebel E. Brown (Santa Cruz, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Boring to Bravo: Proven Presentation Techniques to Engage, Involve, and Inspire Your Audience to Action (Hardcover)

Whether you're giving a presentation to your peers, or are thinking about becoming a professional speaker or are already on that path - Kristin's new book, Boring to Bravo, is a must read. It's an innovative guide to ditching the gravity wrapped around the way we've always done presentations - helping you to take your presentation from ho hum to high-velocity!

The whole concept of speaking is changing so dramatically these days. Think about it. Twenty years ago we were using flat slides and lecturing to folks in a didactic (and often boring) way. That was what we all expected.

Today's audiences - from our peers to a platform audience - expect so much more than PowerPoint slides and a lecture. The advent of interactive media, conversational discussions on social media and a just plain less formal society have dramatically changed the way we engage audiences. And engage we must if we want to be effective!

Boring to Bravo is the guide we all need to make our presentations sing! The book isn't the traditional 'how-to' book with a step by step (and repetitive) approach. It's a thinkers guide - stuffed with tips that can be mixed and matched so you can apply just the right ideas to make your presentation come alive.

Kristin offers 90+ practical, proven tips to improve your speaking in a format that lets you look for just the tips that are best for you and your needs. From chapters including "You are your number one visual" to "Let your natural humor shine through," Boring to Bravo offers practical ideas that will help any speaker get out of that traditional box and take their presentation -and their audiences - to the next level. Kristin also includes inputs and advice from a wide range of professional speakers and coaches, adding even more value for her readers.

She also includes a chapter on how to "Use PowerPoint with Purpose" -which shares great ideas on how to re-energize those PowerPoint slides that have grown a bit stale. If you read nothing else in the book - this chapter will change the way you build presentations, helping you to create interactive slides and visuals that power your message and engage your audience!

This book is now my one-stop-guide for improving my own platform skills and thinking. if you're planning on speaking - to your PTA, your peers or to a paying audience - this book should be your guide as well!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a Typical Presentations Book -- This Book Will Turn Managers & Executives Into Powerful Speakers, April 18, 2011

By 

Brett Clay "Author, Selling Change and Forcef... (Seattle, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boring to Bravo: Proven Presentation Techniques to Engage, Involve, and Inspire Your Audience to Action (Hardcover)

There are many books on presentation techniques, which usually focus on how to overcome the fear of speaking in public. "Boring to Bravo" is not one of them. Author, Kristin Arnold, has written a manual that will help managers and executives, not just simply speak up in meetings, but to step onto the stage and shine in the spotlight.

The book has several outstanding characteristics. First, the focus of the book is on how to engage audiences: hooking their attention, making them think, and leaving them with messages they remember. Second, Arnold uses a variety of techniques, such as cartoon illustrations, lists, tables, fill-in-the-blank exercises, recaps, and action plans, to communicate her ideas, making them easy to understand, remember, and implement. Third, Arnold has included ideas and best practices from some of the most renowned speakers in the world. Arnold is well-positioned to collect the best practices from the best speakers--she is the 2010-2011 president of the National Speakers Association, a society of professional speakers. Fourth, although the book literally contains hundreds of ideas, it is well-organized. So, the reader is inspired, rather than overwhelmed. One of the many ideas I will personally implement is a spreadsheet format that Arnold provides for organizing a speech.

There is no doubt that "Boring to Bravo" will enable even the most polished corporate executive to take his/her presentations and speeches to new levels of excellence, especially in front of large audiences.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dynamic tips from an experienced speaker, August 4, 2010

By 

Ian D. Griffin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boring to Bravo: Proven Presentation Techniques to Engage, Involve, and Inspire Your Audience to Action (Hardcover)

This is not the usual basic presentation skills book. Far from it. Arnold encourages readers to step outside the role of the speaker as an authority figure who controls the audience from the front of the room, to someone who passionately participates in an event that is enjoyed by the audience as a collaborative experience. Rather than speaking at an audience you should have a conversation that engages and connects with them. This tracks the move from Web 1.0 (carefully controlled content delivered in a one-way stream for mass consumption) to Web 2.0 (a social media dialog or conversation with mostly user-generated content).

Dynamic tips

In this book Arnold gives us a smorgasbord of techniques we can start using today. It is filled with nuggets of wisdom based on her years of experience as a professional facilitator. She also features guest content from an A-list of contacts she's cultivated as the current President of the National Speakers Association. Tips range from straightforward suggestions on how to deliver a well-crafted introduction to more subtle hints about which side of the stage to enter (stage right, from the left side of the room).

She lists a range of ways to break the mold of the "boring" presenter and become someone who will elicit "bravos". Refreshingly, she does not attempt to bake all the references you need into the book. Instead, in current social media style, she links to her dynamically maintained website where references are continually updated and readers comment on their experiences using the book in her lively blog.

You just know from how she writes that she has first-hand experience of all of the techniques she suggests. Checklists and chapter recaps provide an easy way to move from reading to implementation.

So, if you are curious about the ways a presenter might use a contractors measuring tape; when it's appropriate to bribe audience members; how to make eye contact with an audience of thousands; who to contact to license copyrighted music or movies for your event; how to conduct pre-event surveys on the web; or eight ways to conduct an audience poll; and much, much more...read the book.