As a communication skills coach I often help to prepare people for tricky business conversations in which they need to sell an idea or product, or negotiate terms, or seek to change entrenched attitudes and behaviours.
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Bad body language: five ways to ruin your presentation
Body language is usually the last thing anyone thinks about when preparing a presentation. They may design their slides with love and care
Read MoreFive vocal vices to avoid in presentations
Vocal technique is one of the three ‘pillars’ of effective presentations, the other two being content and body language. In the best presentations there is a pleasing congruence between the three pillars, with voice and body language supporting and reinforcing the words being uttered. In the worst there is a jarring dissonance between content and […]
Read MoreNine ways to mess up a media interview
There are a few sure-fire ways to succeed in media interviews and many more ways to fail. Here are some of the regular self-sabotage techniques I have witnessed in my 10 years as a media trainer:
Read MoreWhy storytelling is good for business
I’m wandering around this folly of a nineteenth century castle unsure, as always, what to look at and why. Over here is a bunch of family photos; over there, just beyond some priceless antiques, are a group of landscape paintings, some of them ‘originals’. There are the usual rooms laid out just as they […]
Read MoreWhy do people ignore emails and voicemails?
Is it just my perception or have emails and voicemails made people less accessible, less accountable and – dare I say it – less polite than ever before?
Read MorePresentations: why pictures speak louder than words
Last week I had the unusual experience of sitting through a slide presentation and enjoying every moment.
Read MoreAre corporate values worth the paper they are written on?
Recently when drafting a strategic plan for a national not-for-profit organisation I was asked what work I was planning to do on corporate values. I thought about it for a while – well a second or two – before replying: ‘Nothing, they are pointless at best, misleading at worst’.
Read More‘What should I do with my hands when I’m presenting?’
This is one of the commonest questions I get asked on my presentation skills courses, and it never ceases to surprise me. Many presenters seem to regard their hands as unruly children, who must be usefully employed at all times if they are not to run off and make a nuisance of themselves.
Read MoreWhen the questions get tough – bridge out of trouble
Bridging is the most effective technique I know for handling difficult questions, whether those questions arise in the context of a business meeting, a media interview or the Q&A session that traditionally follows a presentation. Bridging is, crucially, a three-stage process, which neatly fits into an ABC format: Acknowledge the question, or Answer it briefly, […]
Read MoreDeath by PowerPoint: grant your audience a reprieve
PowerPoint gets a pretty poor press but, as a regular user, I take the view that, as a mere tool, it is only as clever and effective as the person deploying it. I’m a fan of PowerPoint because it allows me to project a lot of pictures and a few words that aid my audience’s […]
Read MoreA few more words and phrases that (literally!) annoy the hell out of me
I had such a great response to my earlier post on ‘The 10 words and phrases I hate the most’ http://bit.ly/1S9uERs that I thought it was worth revisiting the topic and adding a few more. Every day I seem to find myself cringing in the face of yet another overworked cliché, grammatical infelicity or pointless […]
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