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You probably aren't the only person—or organization—who does what you do for a living. They key to standing out from the crowd is being seen as the preium choice in your space. This blog is dedicated to sharing ways to help you do just that!
If you’re reading from a script, you’re not connecting—you’re reciting. This post explains why smart notes, not word-for-word scripts, are the key to sounding like a leader, staying flexible under pressure, and truly commanding the room.
In today's data-driven world, simply possessing data isn't enough; the key lies in turning numbers into a narrative that can give you real influence with your audience.
This post uses a relatable driving anecdote to illustrate how presenters often frustrate their audiences by not clearly signaling their direction during presentations. It offers five practical techniques—like using whitespace, graphics, visual cues, screen blocking, and verbal guidance—to help presenters keep their audiences engaged and aligned.
Most people feel anxious before giving a presentation—but you don’t have to be one of them. This article breaks down five powerful, practical steps to help you beat stage fright, build confidence, and deliver presentations that captivate any audience.
Discover how to enforce brand consistency within your team for stronger identity and customer loyalty. Key strategies for implementation included.
This post emphasizes the importance of emotional connection in sales and leadership. It outlines a six-step approach to building influence by first establishing an emotional bond with the audience, then reinforcing it with logic, data, and a strong call to action.
Many leaders lose impact when addressing larger audiences because they focus on delivering a perfect presentation instead of creating a real connection. To truly engage, shift from reading scripts to having conversations—prioritizing connection over perfection.
The skill of brining greater focus to your presentations can rapidly expand the growth of both your career and your influence. Here's how to do it.
Understanding the relationship between vision, values and brand and communicating that to your team is essential to building a winning team.
While technological advancements—like AI-powered meeting summaries and smart home integrations—will become standard, they won’t set individuals apart. True differentiation comes from developing unique human skills, particularly communication, leadership, and personal branding.
Mastering these two leadership communication skills can help accelerate your career and grow your professional brand.
The question I get asked most often—other than questions about my name—is about the phrase “The hay’s in the barn.” This blog post will answer the question.
Mental pictures will increase your audience's retention of the information you share by as much as 40-percent. Here's how to do it.
Addressing the uncomfortable situations early in a presentation or meeting clears the way for great impact and influence. Here's how to do it.
Mission let's your entire team or organization know what they are trying to do and when they are trying to do it. It gives clarity and focus to your team. If you want better results, give your team better clarity.
Every presentation is a sales presentation. How you communicate in that presentation will determine the effectiveness of the sale.
The most influential sales people, and presenters, know the ears are more powerful than the mouth. In this video, I'll show you why.
Photo credit: https://couponsnake.com/
Too many presentations come across bland and boring because presenters makes this one mistake…
They follow a carefully written script. Fortunately, there’s an easier way to give a presentation. I share it with you in this video.
You don’t have to give a TED Talk to tap into the power of a TED Talk. You just have to follow the guideline and principles of the most successful TED Talks. And by doing that, you can transform any presentation into powerful leadership communication with the impact of a TED Talk.
Your problems reshaped into your stories will help you stand out from the crowd and separate you from competitors while connecting you to target audiences in a genuine, authentic way. This video shows that in action.
Taking these two steps will show you how the audience will see your presentation and where you can easily improve to make sure the audience gets the same message that you intend to send.
PowerPoint gets a bad rap as being terrible or it gets confused with actually being your presentation. In fact the reality is PowerPoint is neither good nor bad. How you use it determines its real value.
Brands communicate faster than words—for both individual leaders and organizations. Build and support a strong brand and when people think of you—either as an organization or an individual they will already be in position to do business with you. There’s real power in being on brand on purpose.
Topic area experts face a unique challenge when giving a presentation. They have to find the the sweet spot between what they know and what their audience can handle. This video will show you how to do just that.
Managers who present frequently to the same team face unique presentation challenges—similar to what pro sports coaches face. This video will give you a step-by-step process to stand up to those challenges.
Stories need conflict and stakes a hero a villain and a point. But they also need just the right amount of details to bring the story to life and put the audience into the story. This video will show you how to do just that.
It’s easy to miss with an audience when you are aiming at the wrong audience. That happens when we confuse who brought us in to give the presentation with the people who are in the audience for the presentation. See how to recognize the two audiences for every presentation and how to connect with and deliver for both of them.
When a presentation topic bores you you can still bring the presentation to life by bringing something that moves you to the presentation. Your passion or passions are the quickest way to fix a dull presentation or a dull topic. In this video, I’ll show you how to pair your passion with a topic that doesn’t move you so you can still connect with your audience and transform a lifeless topic into a moving presentation.
A lesson I learned from my mother in the most unlikely of places has stayed with me and shaped the way I think about success—even success in presentations. I hope this video changes the way you think about it too.
You aren’t a zoo animal. Audiences don’t just want to sit and watch you. Today’s audiences want a more active role in presentations. They want to be engaged. This video will show you how to do it early, often, and effectively.
The pandemic has shown you if you are an introvert or an extrovert. If you realize you are an introvert, you may not realize that is actually a trait that can make you a great presenter.
This video will show you why and very possibly open a new door in your career and your life.
Video is the easiest way to leverage yourself. It’s the ultimate influence multiplier. But to tap into the power you have to get past not liking the way you look and sound on video. This video will help you do that.
Stage fright, or performance anxiety, isn't a bad thing. It's actually there to help you. You just have to know how to manage it. This will help you do just that.
We all look for resources to grow as a presenter, a communicator, a leader. But start the journey by looking inside, not outside, for the best guidance.
It is crucial when people ask what you do or what your company does to be able to inform and engage in eight seconds or less. This video will show you why hitting that target is gold for your career, connections, and company.
Even after we move past having too many Zoom meetings, we can still learn from the powerful lessons of Zoom fatigue to create more meaningful meetings in the future.
Annoying filler words like "uh" "um" "err" can become a huge distraction in your presentations and virtual meetings. This video will show you have to get rid of them. And your audience will thank you!
Improving your influence in a virtual setting begins with improving your eye contact. This video will show you where to look, when to look there, and how to look natural doing it.
Two things scare a lot of people: talking to an audience in person and talking to a camera—either on Zoom or in a media interview. Don’t let fear stand in your way of sharing your message. Don’t play small. The world needs your message.
Maximizing leadership talent revolves around tapping into the power and leverage of focus.
All of these years later, I still get confused with the other Jerry Sandusky and it has taught me powerful lessons in leadership.
Adding multi-media to your presentation only enhances the presentation if your audience knows what it’s looking at and where to look—in person or in a remote presentation.
In this age of remote work and remote communication, eye contact equals influence. To lead effectively, you need to get comfortable with making eye contact—even if that now means making eye contact with a camera lens.
True influence begins with an emotional connection, not intellectual perfection. This video will show you how to do it.
Becoming a better communicator doesn’t begin with thinking of the next thing you want to say or even how to say it. It begins with becoming a better listener.
Knowing where to look and when to look there can give you a greater sense of poise, polish, and command of the situation in a video meeting.
Here are two simple adjustments to make to quickly improve your next Zoom meeting
In this video, I’ll share with you the two tools to steer clear of so you stay on the productive side of technology and the effective side of communication.
Your instinct after a stumble or a misspoken word or phrase in a presentation is to speed up and move through it. That's your body feeding you the wrong information! There's a much better way to handle the misstep.
Organizing a tough conversation with an employee or manager like a presentation can give you an advantage and increase your comfort and results.
Like any speech or presentation, longer isn't always better. Too long can spoil any speech or presentation. Use the tips in this video to make sure you shine in your most important speeches and presentations.
Getting from one place to another smoothly and seamlessly in a presentation is a sign of a pro and it makes the experience more enjoyable for the audience. This video will show you several ways to do it.
There’s a fine line—and sometimes no line at all—between Powerpoint that follows a standardized approach and Powerpoint that have no connection to each other in an organization.
Too much standardization gets boring. No connection gets confusing.
Learning to communicate more effectively using Zoom, GotoMeeting, Teams, and other virtual mediums gives you a chance to not only continue doing your job, but to also greatly enhance your potential reach.
One of the most underused techniques to improve presentations is pausing. It's a subtle way to dramatically improve your performance and your impact.
Miscommunication is often caused by mixed messages that we send.
Creating an emotional connection to your audience is crucial in any presentation. This video will show you how to find that connection long before you being your presentation
We all want the audience to listen to us. That's the point of a presentation, but it's also a two-way street. You have to listen to them too.
We are all influenced by leaders in our lives. Some teach us the meaning of leadership when we think they are teaching us something else.
Virtual meetings are more than a temporary adjustment. They are part of the insightful, effective leader's toolkit moving forward.
It doesn't matter about the topic. All audiences, large and small want the presenter to deliver on at least these three things.
Moving can bring a presentation to life, or it can wear out the audience by making them feel like they are watching a caged animal pace in front of the room. The art is knowing when to move and how to move to maximize the impact of your presentation.
Watching video of your presentations is a great way to improve your skills in front of an audience, but in order to do it effectively, you need a system when you watch the video. The 1-2-3 approach will help you improve faster without wasting unneeded energy beating yourself up.
You don’t have to let a disruptive person in the audience to steer your presentation off course. These simple techniques will help you diffuse the disrupter and increase the impact of your presentation.
Leadership is a learnable skill and there are multiple resources to help you navigate your path to the top.
In today’s data-driven world, understanding the significance of metrics can transform the way we communicate and influence any audience. In this blog post, we explore the art of simplifying statistics, showing you how to craft impactful narratives and mastering the skill of delivering insights with clarity and confidence.
Visitors often appreciate knowing what to expect when they click on an app and are more likely to click if you tell them the value associated with taking that action.