Hello and welcome to 2021! I hope you had a peaceful and happy holiday, and that everyone in your world is healthy. We had a wonderful “stay-cation” in our home, and spent a lot of time reading, playing games, and watching our favorite shows. Honestly, another week of that would be just fine. But its […]
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Category: Presentation Skills
Originally published with the Forbes Coaches Council. In goal-oriented communication, few things are more important than creating a sense of connection between yourself and the person you are speaking to. When you are in the audience, what type of speaker captures your attention more: the one who speaks to your concerns, your needs and your circumstances, or […]
Death by PowerPoint. Or as Dilbert put it: “PowerPoint poisoning.” It’s software that is so despised that it has been banished by Amazon and banned from military strategy meetings. It’s easy to hate on PowerPoint. After all, it’s often the single common denominator between all the boring presentations and too-long meetings we have to endure during our workdays. But is […]
This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. My third grader learned a very important lesson at the start of this school year. It was about “the pit”, or “the learning pit”. Her teacher explained that all learners fall into the pit sometimes, and they feel helpless, don’t know […]
Ask anyone who performs at a high level: athletes, dancers, singers, etc. They all prepare and practice their skills the same way. They break their skill down into smaller “sub-skills,” then practice each one individually, then put them all back together, and their overall skill level has improved. The same is true with communication. “Great […]
Let’s continue our discussion of classic persuasion mistakes… here’s another one that we see all the time. If you want to persuade someone to take advantage of an opportunity, don’t spend all your time trying to demonstrate all the upside, how unbelievable the idea is, and how they would be crazy if they didn’t do […]
My colleagues and I spend just as much time changing the way people think about communication as we do anything else. Better communication is not about new tips or tricks (here is a line I hear in workshops a lot… “I am looking forward to getting some new tips.” Wow, does that drive me nuts.) […]
Quick, but powerful idea for you today. Let’s say you have a meeting coming up and you will be making a presentation. Your boss and some other senior managers will be in the room or the virtual meeting… or maybe a key potential client who you have been trying to sell for a year… or maybe you will […]
I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about writer’s block. Well actually, I spent a lot of time this weekend puttering in my garden, and listening to podcasts while I was toiling away. And two of the podcasts were interviews with Aaron Sorkin, the famous writer of television shows such as The West […]
Your audience will only remember a small percentage of what you say. Some studies suggest it will be less than 20%. Fact. Other studies suggest that the average adult attention span is now about 8 seconds. Bummer. So what do you do about it? Focus on all three aspects of the audience experience: Make sure you prepare your […]
Want a copy of Dean Brenner’s latest book?
What if it were possible to simplify communication, and break it down into a series of simple, repeatable steps? Persuaded tells you how.