Part Three – After the event.
So, you’ve presented or pitched? How did it go?
You’ll obviously have a sense of this, but what did others think?
Personal reflection on our past performances, good and bad, is an important step in recognising strengths and development areas when it comes to our ability to stand up and talk in front of people.
Supplementing this with the perspective of others ultimately helps improve our self-awareness in presenting and pitching.
Insights from others
Get in touch with those you spoke to and as part of your follow up, ask for specific feedback. Remember, asking ‘Have you any feedback for me?’ is lazy. It usually results in a similarly vague response.
Instead, ask thoughtful questions that both get at what you really want to know and equally convey to others that you mean business about improving.
The direction your approach to gaining feedback takes, will undoubtedly be based on your original why, what, who and who from Part 1, however building questions around the following could be useful too.
- How effective was your style of communicating to a group? Did it help convey the topic or get the points across that you wanted to?
- Did audience members feel you were able to connect with them? How long did it take to connect? If not, what was missing?
- How did people feel about your talk? What questions did it leave them with? Did it spark any other thoughts?
- Did you inject sufficient humour and personality when speaking to groups? Can you develop this further? Was there a balance of fun and professional feel?
- How did you use emotions through your talk and how did this help to engage people to what you’re saying? Did you get immediate reactions from those you presented to? Did you do enough preparation and consider how were going to tap into others’ emotions prior to pitching?
- What was your body language like when presenting? How can you support what you’re saying with physical energy and enthusiasm in future pitches?
- Did people see you as dynamic, or did they perceive you to be more one-dimensional? Did you portray enough enthusiasm, emotion, humour and seriousness to win people over?
- Importantly, which amigos can help you hone or perfect your pitches? Can you do it all alone or would guidance from specific people help?
- How can you build regular reviews and feedback into your on going development?
- Which talks, presentations or speeches have gone particularly well? Why? Which ones didn’t? Do you have a scrapbook collecting your thoughts?
We hope you’ve found this series useful. Best of luck with your next talk!
Whether you’re looking to build or develop your style of group communication, WiseAmigo could be a useful place to organise your thoughts around this aspect of your development. Sign up, see what people are talking about, put a Spotlight on your style of presentation, or even get some feedback from trusted Amigos!
