Presentation Skills

There will be no politics or political preferences in this post. But I will make a critical, although seemingly obvious, point. We advocate to our clients all the time the importance of not only strong preparation for your presentations, but we also advocate for time spent on practice. We separate those two concepts into two […]

In the 21st century business world, very few things are NOT global in some way, and successful professionals and organizations have no choice but to be thinking about how to reach and connect to a global audience. There are a few things we encourage our clients to do when they are speaking/presenting/meeting with a global […]

A virtual team is a team that is spread out over many locations, connected by the wonders of electronic communication. The hardest part of the Virtual Team is that the group rarely sees each other face to face, and in many cases, team members have never met in person. Despite an abundance of tools that […]

Clear, persuasive communication skills are a source of competitive advantage in the workplace. The people who can get make their point clearly, get to the point quickly, and make a persuasive case will get noticed and be in demand. Period. But not everyone communicates at the same level of skill. Some have natural comfort or skill, […]

A 2004 survey from Raindance Communications looked at the issue of multitasking. And for those of you who regularly lead conference calls (like me), brace yourselves… the numbers ain’t pretty. These stats are a little dated but still eye-opening. According to this survey: 90% of people surveyed said they multitask while on conference calls; 70% reported doing other, […]

We had a fascinating conversation with a workshop participant last week. He shared a real story, about a presentation he gave soon after he joined his current company. He worked hard at it, he prepared, and he was nervous, but ready. He made the presentation, it seemed to go OK, and then afterwards he asked […]

My colleagues and I see a lot of PowerPoint slide decks. More than we can count, actually. So we have a deep reservoir of context on what makes a good slide deck and a bad slide deck. And very often, people make a critical mistake when thinking about slides, and how to make them better. […]

According to some sources, more than 30 million business presentations are created each day. And you know what? Most of them are terrible. We’ve all sat through the proverbial terrible presentation with no purpose, nothing memorable, no clear action items, too many slides, the monotonous drone of the boring presenter. There is a reason business […]

Did you learn some new things last week? Do you look at the world the same way you did six months ago? Do your business strategy and business goals change over time? In other words, if my knowledge of you and your business is based on where things were for you six months ago, would […]

Let me know if this sounds familiar… you have a presentation to give. You immediately begin thinking about your slide deck. You pull out the last presentation you gave on the topic, you dust it off and realize that some of the same slides will work. So you are on your way. Then you look […]