Take This Presentation Skills Assessment -- Discover Your Strengths And Weaknesses As A Speaker.    Do you know how your audiences perceive you as a speaker? What do they like about you? What about your presentation skills and style annoys them? Can you get in the performance zone every time, or do you struggle with stage fright and nerves? Do you give consistently solid performances, or are you erratic? Perhaps you have stress, practice, mental, staging, readiness, voice, technique, mannerism, writing or organizational issues that negatively affect your presentations. Take this quick 68-item assessment and discover what's holding you back from reaching your full platform potential.    788 words.

Take This Presentation Skills Assessment

Discover Your Strengths And Weaknesses As A Speaker

Bill Cole, MS, MA
Founder and CEO
Procoach Systems
Silicon Valley, California

This assessment is meant to quickly provide you with the big picture in your presentation skills. It will help you begin to identify your strong points as a speaker, reveal your needed development areas and provide a focus for our first coaching session. It will also serve as a launching point for understanding how the presentation coaching process will unfold. I believe that presentation training begins the moment you begin completing this assessment. Understanding how presentations work, becoming aware of possibilities, knowing yourself, seeing the big picture, and expanding and sharpening your mental game toolkit as a speaker all begin now.

If you've hired me as your presentation coach, please fax or email this back to me before our first coaching session. You may also use this form for your self-analysis, to begin working on your speaking skills.

Here's how to complete the following 68-item Presentation Skills Assessment.

1. Review this list of presentation topics and mark the number ONE in the space provided next to the items that seem MOST important and URGENT to you to be WORKED ON FIRST.

2. Mark the number TWO next to those that seem NEXT most important to work on.

3. Mark the number THREE next to those that seem to be in the THIRD TIER of importance.

4. Make NO MARK next to those which DON'T seem to be important now, or at all, or which DO NOT APPLY to you.

5. Place a QUESTION MARK next to those with which you are unfamiliar and would like clarification.

6. If there are any areas or concerns you would like to address NOT LISTED here, please write them in at the end of this form.

7. Please keep a copy for your own files. I have found that our repeated review of this assessment is quite helpful in allowing you to continue to see new presentation skills vistas. Here we go with the assessment.

Presentation Skills Assessment

Which of these 68 presentation issues would you like to know more about, get under control and master? Which ones are holding you back from reaching your full speaking potential?

1. ___ Stop Choking, Panicking, Nerves And Stage Fright
2. ___ Improve Confidence
3. ___ Better Mental Toughness
4. ___ Handle Mistakes Better
5. ___ Performance Consistency
6. ___ Remove A Self-Critical Attitude
7. ___ Reduce Frustration, Fears, Or Worries
8. ___ Fix A Negative Attitude
9. ___ Remove Mental Blocks
10. ___ Deal With Hecklers
11. ___ Deal With Slumps, Brown-Out And Burnout
12. ___ Improve Motivation
13. ___ Get Into The Zone
14. ___ Deal With Negative And Hostile Participants
15. ___ Pre-Speech Mental Preparation
16. ___ Goal Setting
17. ___ Concentration
18. ___ Stress Management
19. ___ Control Energy Levels
20. ___ Mental Stamina
21. ___ Fix The "I Perform Well In Practice, But Not In The Presentation" Syndrome
22. ___ Improve Practice Efficiency And Effectiveness
23. ___ Stay Relaxed And Focused Under Pressure
24. ___ Reduce Self-Consciousness And Shyness
25. ___ Self-Coaching Skills
26. ___ Reduce Self-Sabotage
27. ___ Minimize Perfectionism
28. ___ Stop Procrastination
29. ___ Deal Effectively With The Media
30. ___ Visualization And Mental Rehearsal
31. ___ Better Positive Thinking
32. ___ Present "On The Road" Better
33. ___ Overcome The Fear Of Failure
34. ___ Overcome The Fear Of Success
35. ___ Audience Analysis
36. ___ Room And Stage Set Up
37. ___ Audio-Visual Factors
38. ___ Handouts And Other Audience Materials
39. ___ Question And Answer Sessions
40. ___ Speech Title Selection
41. ___ Speech Research
42. ___ Speech Organization
43. ___ Speech Writing
44. ___ Audience Rapport And Connection
45. ___ Props And Costumes
46. ___ Speaker Notes And Memory Tricks
47. ___ Presentation Timing And Planning
48. ___ Speaker Introduction
49. ___ Speech Opening
50. ___ Speaker Credibility
51. ___ Speaker Authenticity
52. ___ Adult Learning Strategies
53. ___ Body Language
54. ___ Eye Contact
55. ___ Humor, Stories, Music And Magic
56. ___ Pacing And White Space
57. ___ Audience Involvement Exercises
58. ___ Vocal Variation, Volume And Tone
59. ___ Pronunciation
60. ___ Understandability
61. ___ Accent Reduction
62. ___ Audience Memory And Organization Devices
63. ___ Enthusiasm, Passion And Involvement
64. ___ Persuasiveness And Salesmanship
65. ___ Contingency And Emergency Plans
66. ___ Content Transfer Issues
67. ___ Content And Entertainment Mix
68. ___ Strong Closing

If there are any other presentation issues that come up for you prior to your first presentation skills coaching session, please write them down so they can be addressed. This is a fascinating, fulfilling journey you are about to embark upon, one which will have far-reaching effects on your career and on your life.


To learn more about how presentation coaching can help you become a better, more confident speaker, visit Bill Cole, MS, MA, the Mental Game Coach™ at www.mentalgamecoach.com/Services/PresentationCoaching.html.

Copyright © 2005 Bill Cole, MS, MA. All rights reserved.

Bill Cole, MS, MA, a leading authority on peak performance, mental toughness and coaching, is founder and CEO of Procoach Systems, a consulting firm that helps organizations and professionals achieve more success in business, life and sports. He is also the Founder and President of the International Mental Game Coaching Association (www.mentalgamecoaching.com), an organization dedicated to advancing the research, development, professionalism and growth of mental game coaching worldwide. He is a multiple Hall-Of-Fame honoree as an athlete, coach and school alumnus, an award-winning scholar-athlete, published book author and articles author, and has coached at the highest levels of major-league pro sports, big-time college athletics and corporate America. For a free, extensive article archive, or for questions and comments visit him at www.MentalGameCoach.com. You can call Procoach Systems toll free at 888-445-0291.

Free Re-Publishing Rights For This Article

You have our advance permission to republish this article, as long as you do not sell it. The author's name, web address (MentalGameCoach.com) and copyright notice (Copyright © Bill Cole, MS, MA) must appear in all reprinted articles. If the article appears on a website or in an e-zine, the article must include a link to a page in the MentalGameCoach website. We would also appreciate your including the author's bio and full contact information in your article, although this is not a requirement. For additional information, see our full article re-publishing permission guidelines.