The BUZZ is coming back
Post pandemic, what am I looking forward to? I’m looking forward to live audiences again; online is fine and serves its purpose, but nothing beats speaking to a group of people and feeding off their energy. Which in turn excites and energizes me to be more creative and provide value to my audience. I will not miss all the restrictions around my personal life. However, […]
The “Fly Me to the Moon” Pitch
Pitching Skill Workshop: “Fly me to the Moon Let me play among the stars Let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars In other words,” … Words & Music by Bart Howard 1954 Excite me Today I will show you how to create a pitch that excites both customers and investors. This […]
Stop Selling – Help People to BUY!!
(Are you a reluctant salesperson?) More often than not, the people I work with would not describe themselves as salespeople; they are ‘C suite’ people, or highly technical skilled people who are now expected to sell. Is this why they went to college, got a degree and created a level of experience in the workplace? Yet it’s the experience they have gained along the way which is the highly valuable attribute […]
A Pitch – the 5 Minute Trailer of Your Movie
Pitching Skill Workshop: Pitching Tips & Skills to Master I find that creatives in the visual arts and spoken word are often the most challenged when it comes to pitching for sales or investment. What they do is set aside all the creative skills they have, while attempting to be salespeople! Their creativity, imagination, visualization skills get put aside […]
People Love Stories
Storytelling in Business – My story, once upon a time … Yesterday I met my client for our final preparation session before he goes to speak at a farming conference in the UK. Which he believes will provide a good opportunity to grow his business in Britain and support the staff he already employs over […]
Stand-Up, Start-Up or Senior Executive? – Humour is the KEY to Audience engagement
I am back Recently I attended an event where I met an old friend who I had not met in some 10 years. Firstly, he told me of a tragic event in his life some time ago. And then to my amazement, he spoke about how my articles in some small way had been a […]
Do slides add or detract from your presentation?
Harvard University says they detract! “Harvard just discovered that PowerPoint is worse than useless”, article by Geoffrey James, Contributing Editor, INC.com “PowerPoint was rated (by online audience) as no better than verbal presentation with no visual aids (ouch)” Let me give you my view, based on twenty years as both presenter and coaching presenters to […]
The Presentation Advice that helped elect Bill Clinton
“It’s About Relationships – Stupid”, is the title of one of my favourite presentation workshops. I creatively swiped the message that Bill Clintons campaign manager James Carville wrote on the campaign headquarters whiteboard every morning, when Bill was running for the office of the President of America. “It’s about the economy” If you want to […]
Presenting is much more about Confidence than Content
What do I mean by this statement? Have you ever gone to the movies and sat through ninety minutes of content, where you never engaged or rooted for the characters? I read some research recently that said, in the majority of books sold, that the reader never progressed beyond page eighteen! Both of these examples […]
Your USP – 6 Steps to Success
‘Art of Pitching’ Last Friday I spoke to an audience of over 100 business women on International Women’s Day. The topic I was asked to address was the “Art of Pitching” and how to succeed when seeking to win new business. In my view, a pitch must be delivered in a conversational way, that puts […]