The beginning of the presentation is your prime real estate. It’s when your audience decides if you are worth paying attention to or not. In my workshops, I call this the HOOK. You can do this by either asking a question, making a bold statement or telling a story that relates to your topic.
The topic of a recent keynote I gave this week was Own Your Confidence: Maximize Your Sales.
The focus was developing deep, authentic confidence that results in customers liking you, trusting you, and wanting to do business with you.
Please also listen to my conversation with master sales trainer and global sales speaker Chuck Reaves (below).
Confidence is crucial in sales and can significantly impact a salesperson’s success.
The ultra-modern convenience of Artificial Intelligence systems like ChatGPT and Waze has taken a lot of complex tasks off our hands, like collating information and writing generic blogs or navigating our way out of a traffic jam. But, however sophisticated and brilliant Artificial Intelligence becomes, there are certain things these systems will never be able to do for you. They are the very human features of interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence as embodied in the following:
Daniel Goleman is a psychologist and author widely recognized for his groundbreaking work on emotional intelligence (EI). He is the author of several books on the topic, including the bestseller “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.” So how can you increase yours? In my workshops, keynotes, and coaching, I provide tips and techniques to elevate your overall EQ.
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to recognize,
Have you ever had the scary experience of changing lanes on the highway and, hopefully, just avoiding side-swiping a vehicle in your “blind spot”?
I’m guessing you are all familiar with that term, but did you know that we also have personal “blind spots”?
Your “blind spot” is defined by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in the often referred to Johari’s window as things that you are not aware of,
In every presentation skills class, at least one participant asks how to get around their tendency to use filler words. Also known as “crutches” and “disfluencies”, they are words like “umm”, “you know,” “like”, “ I think”, and “right?”.
While there is nothing wrong with the occasional verbal filler, especially because it can make the speaker more relatable, excessive use of fillers is usually a sign of inexperience and nerves, and their effect can be both distracting and even irritating.
Never end your presentation with a question-and-answer session. Instead, ask for questions, comments, and concerns and only then end with a quick wrap-up. The goal is to end with your audience being clear on their next steps.
The beginning of the presentation is your prime real estate. It’s when your audience decides if you are worth paying attention to or not. In my workshops, I call this the HOOK. You can do this by either asking a question, making a bold statement or telling a story that relates to your topic.
Powerful presentations can persuade, influence, and inspire your audience.
In addition, the ability to present information in a compelling way and develop your overall presence is critical to your career advancement.
Here are seven things to think about every time you share information with an audience of one or one hundred.
1. Who is my audience?
2. What do I want them to THINK,
