The other day I sat by the phone waiting for the call about a potential coaching assignment. The phone never rang. The person who booked the session never bothered to call or write to explain why she didn’t follow through. Was she sick? Did she have to go out of town suddenly? I’ll never know,
If you wonder why so few women are running Fortune 500 companies, it’s because they lack “executive presence.” That’s not our opinion, but the results of a revealing study that’s summarized in a special @WORK supplement in Marie Claire magazine. Looking and Acting the Part In the view of Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founder of Center
The first presentation by me I’ll always remember. You would never use the passive tense to say, “I’ll always remember my first presentation.” Would you? Yet speakers too often use passive tenses in their presentations. As Strunk and White state in their classic The Elements of Style: “Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, noncommittal language.” This gem
You’re not a politician, you say. You don’t give stump speeches. But think about it. If you’re on a company’s new business team, or a member of their speaker’s bureau, you’re giving stump speeches all the time. They’re just called media interviews or presentations. And today, quite a few of them are virtual. Aren’t they
The preparation for any successful meeting or presentation starts the moment the date gets marked on the calendar. That’s when the real work begins. Determine Your Goal First, establish your goal for the presentation. What are you trying to achieve? You are most likely making a presentation to persuade your audience to take some sort
Enough is enough. That is what grammarians and pundits are saying about the atrocious grammar and punctuation that is rampant in business and on social networks. All the hard work you’ve put into a presentation will be wasted if you start by writing, “John and me will…” Purists will immediately spot that the correct usage
Writing an impromptu speech isn’t a non sequitur, though it may seem contradictory. While you don’t have time to write down your thoughts if you’re called on to say something extemporaneously, you do want to make a positive impression. The secret is to prepare in advance so you’re ready with your “impromptu” remarks. Tell Me
We’ve talked about how important it is to use power words in a presentation or media interview in previous blogs. But your non-verbal language is much louder than words and speaks volumes about what you’re really thinking and feeling. Most speakers don’t realize how transparent they are. Your body speaks for you, too – your
If you make a lot of presentations, you’re lucky if you haven’t already encountered a bully in the audience. That’s the know-it-all who interrupts your presentation whenever s/he feels like it or challenges your authority in the Q&A. It might happen to you one day, and you’ll need to take off your “white gloves” and
Remember that sick feeling you had as a kid when the teacher said, “Be prepared for a test tomorrow.” You hadn’t even opened the textbook yet! That’s how it feels when you’re about to make a presentation and your laptop freezes or something equally awful happens. Be Prepared When you’re scheduled to present, be prepared.
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The Newman Group is a recognized leader in guiding business professionals, celebrities and authors to improve their communications skills in presentations and media interviews.
Our highly skilled and experienced professionals have the expertise in media and presentation training to meet any business situation — from helping an executive to prepare for the challenge of talking to a reporter during a business crisis to presenting a group of investors during an IPO or keeping a celebrity spokesperson on point.
