LIVE ONLINE COURSE
ON MASTERING THE ART
OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
21 FEBRUARY - 16 MARCH 2023
Duration:
4 WEEKS
TUESDAYS & THURSDAYS
5 PM PST / 8 PM EST
Do you struggle with Public Speaking?
Let Microsoft’s Senior Director, Monique Hayward, help you find your voice and develop your own unique presentation style.
DO YOU SEE YOURSELF BELOW? THEN THIS COURSE IS FOR YOU.
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YOU’RE STRUGGLING TO FILL YOUR SHOES AS A LEADER
You’ve got your management style nailed but what about having to make presentations and be the public face when it comes to getting leadership buy-in? What if you just don’t have these skills? Learn to speak confidently on any business topic, support your presentations with great visuals, and defend your vision in front of any audience.
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YOU’RE EAGER FOR THAT NEXT PROMOTION
What do all great leaders have in common? They’re all great communicators. Monique will teach you the critical audience analysis, tone of voice, and executive communication skills you need to get noticed by senior leadership!
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YOU WANT TO BECOME A BETTER SPEAKER
Whether you’re in a job interview or on stage, when it comes down to it, it’s all public speaking. Learn the art of storytelling and nail down your “elevator pitch”, control your body language, and get expert feedback on your live presentation. Master the art of Public Speaking and see how far these skills take you!
Why these skills?
Well, it’s quite simple - when it comes to predicting career growth, public speaking and presentation are always at the top of every recruiter’s list.
In this course you’ll find your own presentation style, and own it! Learn to speak on any topic, in front of any audience.
This course isn’t all talk
This isn’t one of those motivational courses that will leave you with a couple of inspirational quotes and no idea what to do. Get into the science behind making an impactful and effective presentation.
Monique will teach you everything from developing a logical speech structure, to the art of boardroom persuasion.
HAYWARD LinkedIn Profile
- Senior Director, Business Applications Ecosystem Marketing at Microsoft
- Over 25 years of experience in marketing, communications, public relations, business development, and entrepreneurship
- High-profile, high-energy speaker at corporate events, colleges and universities, industry conferences, professional associations, and non-profit organizations
- Published author of 2 books on career strategy and success
- Co-Founder & CEO of her own business; former partner in mobile apps software company and former owner of award-winning restaurant
Start by learning the fundamentals of what makes an effective, impactful presentation. Use this to make an assessment of your current skills.
- Importance of Public Speaking as a skill
- Monique’s experience and credible background on the subject
- What makes an effective presentation: examples + discussion in groups
- Videos of presentations – one good, one bad
- Discussion in group to assess observations
- Where are you now: how to assess your skills + develop goals
- Self-assessment worksheet with questions to answer about where you are now
- Introduce the process for becoming an effective public speaker
- Lay out the steps that we’ll go through over the course of the class
Assignment #1: Read “How to Give a Killer Presentation” HBR article and pick a business topic you want to talk about (if you can’t come up with one, think of a personal topic you’re passionate about). Develop an outline of a five-minute speech on that topic.
+ Record yourself presenting the outline (this will help you track the progress from the beginning of this class).
When it comes to public speaking, you are always speaking to and for your audience; in this class, you will learn to research and analyze your audience. You’ll build on your analysis to tailor your presentation to a specific audience.
- Approaches to Audience Analysis
- Determining the Purpose and Outcome of the Presentation and Aligning it with your Audience
- Importance of Research in Speech Preparation
- Practice in Groups
- Share speech topics in groups and get feedback from peers on audience analysis
Assignment #2: Complete an audience analysis using a template and, if you’d like to, share it with your peers through Discord.
Failing to plan is planning to fail. In this class you will learn to create a strong outline for your speech.
- How to Write a Great Speech: Is There a Formula?
- Share Monique’s creative process for outlining a presentation
- It Starts with an Outline: Developing Persuasive and Logical Structure
- Deciding Which Topics to Include
- Importance of Strong Beginning and Ending (But Don’t Lose the Middle)
Assignment #3:
Build on the high-level outline for your speech. How would you create a strong beginning?
What are the key points you want to communicate in the main body of your speech?
What about a powerful ending?
Optional: Add the high-level outline to your speech from Assignment #1 & record yourself presenting it.
Getting your story across is extremely important in public speaking. In this class, you will learn all of the tricks and techniques that go into creating a purposeful story.
- Your Story Delivers Value to Your Audience
- Tell a Purposeful Story
- Elements of Good Storytelling
- Stories We Like to Hear
- Telling a Story in 60 Seconds
- Interacting with the Audience
- Preplanned Questions: Topical, Rhetorical, Group, Targeted
- How to Deal with Reluctant, Uncommitted, and Inactive Audiences
Assignment #4: Read “The Four Truths of the Storyteller” HBR article and incorporate the stories that you’re going to tell into your outline.
To be turned in: The updated and revised high-level outline for your speech. Monique will review it and provide feedback.
"A picture is worth a thousand words". This class focuses on building clear and impactful visuals for your presentation.
- Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words: examples + discussion in groups
- Common Pitfalls When Using Visuals in Presentations
- Building Clear and Impactful Visuals
- Using Storyboards and Mind Maps to Determine the Right Structure
- Vertical Logic
- Simplifying Complex Data with Graphics
- Less is More
- Making Text, Color, and Graphics Work Together
Assignment #5: Create a presentation in Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint to support your speech.
Confidence is half the battle. This class focuses on verbal presentation delivery and confidently using your voice and body language to get your message across.
Pt. 1 – Your Stage Presence
- Finding your own Voice and projecting confidence and connecting with the audience
- Articulation
- Voice Pitch
- Rate
- Volume and its effect on retention
- Making pauses
- Planning ahead for your audience’s attention span
- Examples + Discussion in Groups
- Practice in Groups
Pt. 2 – Body Language
- Importance of non-verbal communication
- Stage presence
- Audience’s natural eye movement
- Moving dynamically
- Eye contact
- Using gestures that align to the verbal message
- Examples + Discussion in Groups
- Practice in Groups
Assignment #6: (not graded) Practice presenting your speech (you can record yourself to analyze it afterwards). Use different techniques to enhance the message with your voice.
In this class, you will learn what it takes to master remote presentations over Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and any other virtual channel.
- How remote presentations are different from in-person presentations
- Camera-ready (e.g., lighting, background, sound)
- Tips on delivering remote presentations
- Encouraging real-time feedback
- How to read a remote audience
- Monitoring the chat
We’ve all been there - you’re about to present but nerves take over. This class will help you deal with nerves and boost your confidence before presenting.
- Effective Rehearsal Techniques
- Staying Within the Time Limit
- Evaluating Other Speakers to Improve your Skills
- Integrating Audience Feedback to Fine-tune your Delivery
- How Emotions Affect our Performance
- Strategies to Address Anxiety
- Overcome Public Speaking Nerves
- Dealing with Fear
- Boosting Confidence
- Determining your Signature Presentation Style and Using it to Your Advantage
- Discussion/Practice in Groups
Assignment #7: Prepare your final speech, record yourself delivering it. Compare your very first video (from assignment #1) and reflect on the progress. Monique will give you feedback on the last video.
To be turned in: The recording of your final speech (5 min max).
What our students say
"I absolutely love the format! Working through real life scenarios makes it super applicable and easy to translate the learning into practical takeaways. I also enjoy that the assignments are straightforward enough to get through but you can make them more complex to get more learning out of the course. It really is a format where you get out what you put in."
"The group activities, they allow us to interact and exchange ideas, plus the way it is structured is challenging and mind twisting as we collaborate in different parts of the ideation."
"Overall I'm impressed with the level of detail and explanation around particular topics and subjects. There's a real depth to each module which for learning allows the information to stay in your brain."
"I really enjoy the format of the course. Lectures with real life examples and an ongoing case study. Also built in 20 minutes at the end of each class for questions is helpful."
"I enjoyed the structure of the class. I like how we learned about a topic and practiced it in the workshops. It’s helped me to apply what I learned!"