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Visual aids can help or hurt a presentation. Whether you are using PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi, slides, video, a software interface, or other visual support, you need to make sure that the visuals won’t distract from the presentation. Many speakers have chosen abandon visual aids altogether and even proclaim that they are above using such tools. However, well-utilized visuals will significantly improve a presentation. This training will teach the best visual aid practices and offer the opportunity to practice techniques with individualized coaching feedback. Listeners will appreciate how the skillful use of visual aids truly enhances your presentations.
Speakers must prepare to answer real questions about their topic. Sometimes, listeners ask friendly, genuine questions, but often, you might be tasked with answering aggressive or set-up questions. In either case, the ability to handle even the most challenging question in a clear, comfortable, and competent manner is an important skill. Whether you have been called to answer questions at a congressional committee, in a sales meeting, or during a team presentation, this module will teach you how to hear and understand questions in order to respond with practical answers.
Have you ever wondered how some people always have the right thing to say at the right time? There is an art to handling yourself well in just about any setting—from dealing with an angry customer to holding a political debate or managing a contentious investor meeting.
Imagine yourself in front of the executive committee, the board of directors, the press, or a client, and someone requests that you speak on an unfamiliar topic. Perhaps you are asked a tough question that you hadn’t anticipated. What do you say? Thinking on your feet is a module that teaches you how to process and organize your thoughts quickly in a way that will help you communicate clearly and with confidence
What two words would you like people to say about you after you have left a meeting or a conversation? The answer defines your communication style. Style coaching is one of our most popular leadership and management offerings. It allows senior executives, managers, and emerging leaders to achieve their personal vision of how they wish to present themselves. Our coaches work with clients on their core communication skills, beginning with their two style words. The result is authentic, comfortable, and effective leadership or management capabilities.
Most crucial business communication occurs between leaders, managers, board members, and shareholders. Because Boards advise and direct management teams on key decisions, it is critical that leaders and managers clearly communicate the vision, metrics, and progress of the organization. Having worked with thousands of managers and board members, we have developed valuable insight into how relationships, presentations, handling questions, and more can affect your communication success. Whether you’re new to senior management or an old pro, this module will allow you to hone your Board and shareholder presentations and share your thoughts in a clear, concise manner. Our guidance will help you strengthen your relationships and effectiveness with your Board and shareholders.
Since the 1990s, coaching and mentoring have become widely used to develop employees in the business world and are important skills for anyone in a managerial or leadership role. Learn how to communicate in both coaching and mentoring styles while learning the differences between the two. Among other things, learn Socratic questioning, goal setting, skills in accountability, and ways to inspire that lead to complete development.
At times, speaking with coworkers, your staff, your boss, and, yes, your customers can be difficult. They may come to you with stories about their problems or your mistakes. They might even mistreat you. We need to remember that there are always two sides to every story. Learn how to diffuse difficult situations and become the difficult person’s advocate rather than the enemy.
When relationships are strong, you can communicate anything. When they are not strong, even the simplest feedback becomes difficult. This module provides an understanding of why and how strong relationships are created using our original research, which has unveiled the two most essential characteristics for building a solid working relationship. This module utilizes practice to strengthen the techniques and skills that foster trusting relationships.
Listening is not just about hearing—it involves the understanding and evaluation of what is heard. Whether you’re in a face-to-face meeting or talking on the phone, leaders and managers must exhibit comfort and proficiency in six specific areas of listening, or messages can be misunderstood. These qualities and techniques are the focus of this module. In addition, this module covers the top ten barriers to listening and how to overcome them. This is one of our most popular topics.
Have you ever felt that your listeners were confused? Have listeners ever asked you to get to the point? Truly connecting with your listeners is fundamental to all communication and critical for a successful presentation. This module teaches you how to make your point and engage all of your listeners. It does not provide a one-size-fits-all methodology but instead covers a whole range of skills from which you may choose the best approach for specific groups.
Business speaking requires a mixture of information and persuasion. Both are critical, and you use both in different situations and for various reasons. The distinction between these two types of speaking is that informative speaking lists data and impartially clarifies and enlightens with no particular goal other than making information clear. Persuasive speaking urges a partisan decision, favors a position, and tries to garner acceptance for that position. In many presentations, the speaker will use both information and persuasion in order to convince the listeners.
This training will help you understand the difference between informative and persuasive presentation. It teaches how to implement these concepts in your content and delivery and the three ways of persuasion that are used in virtually all presentations we see today. You’ll learn how to choose the proper mode of persuasion and how to match your message to your listeners.
Do your listeners ask you to repeat keywords? The ability to speak clearly is an important skill, no matter who you are. There are several ways to lose your listeners, but poor articulation, mumbling, and lack of volume are the most preventable. Don’t force listeners to work harder to understand the words coming out of your mouth! This module on communication excellence will teach key sounds and practice techniques to ensure that you are speaking clearly.
Your customers will often pay attention to how you sound as much as what you are saying. A positive interaction can depend on your tone and inflection, speed, and projection.
Plus, words matter! Your choice of words, such as “customers,” “clients,” “guests,” or “patrons,” will shape their perception, and perception shapes service communication. Don’t let your choice of words become a distraction during a customer interaction. This teaches participants the various sounds of service and how to master their sounds to best communicate with customers.
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Why Your Team May be Failing at Presentations
Usually, team presentations are done when the stakes are high and the consequences are critical, requiring subject matter experts to weigh in on their topic. These presentations are most often geared toward complex projects, strategic alliances, acquisitions, etc. Of course, they all have large sums of money involved.
Team presentations have many more challenges than individual ones. Most teams preparing on their own without a speech coach will spend all of their preparation time on the following:
While those logistics are important, we spend far too much time on those three rather than ensuring the team comes across as cohesive, knowledgeable, and collaborative. The decision-makers listening to and observing the team will be acutely aware of the team’s non-verbal and interpersonal communication. Research shows that more people rely on non-verbal communication than the spoken word.
For example, I had a client who was a well-known architectural firm who brought me in because they started losing projects they should have won. After assessing the team, I realized that one of the members did not get along with the others.
Despite well-planned, streamlined presentations, they still lost and they were dumbfounded. What were they missing? Their subtle nonverbal behaviors revealed team discontent. Despite the polite and professional words, there was discord within the team revealed by their facial expressions, lack of eye contact, awkward transitions, etc.
People believe what they feel and observe over the words they hear. Non-verbal communication can be very subtle via micro-expressions. This client needed an additional kind of coaching to get past the issues plaguing the team. It was much easier for an objective outsider like myself to point this out than someone on the team.
One helpful way to identify these behaviors in your team is to videotape the practice session. I assure you that unless you have analyzed a video of your team presenting, you may never know the subtle nonverbal behaviors that are blocking the successful communication of your message. It will help to watch the film with no sound and take notes.
Here is a list of nonverbal behaviors I have coached teams to improve:
The list could go on and on. When there are high stakes, there are also savvy, intelligent people evaluating your team. Your team may have the most compelling content; however, if your non-verbal communication reveals discord or disconnect, you may be losing without ever knowing why.
It only takes one person to render your team presentation ineffective. A good speech coach can assess your team’s effectiveness objectively and give appropriate coaching techniques that help you with important team presentations.
Author
Robin Golinski
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