When we are talking about talking in our presentations, speeches, or video calls, we are distracting from our message. I’ve never been good at predictions. But there is one speaking behavior that is so common I can predict it with amazing accuracy. Watch for it on...
Engage your audience without using verbal polls How many of you use verbal polls in your presentations? OK, that was a set-up. In our workshops, one of the most popular ways for people to get started (we’re usually prompting them with a topic they have not prepared)...
In a series of Public Speaking Don’ts, I wrote last month’s article, The Graduation Speech No One Wants to Hear. I got a number of notes (which I love getting!) giving me first-person accounts of various graduations. “The student speaker was amazing!” “The...
How does Culture affect communication? Last fall I was privileged to travel for clients to far-away lands: South Africa, Egypt, and the Philippines, with a travel layover in Paris thrown in as a bonus. As an infrequent international traveler (although that seems to be...
For an audience to remember a speaker for the wrong reasons is a failure on the speaker’s part. It can go one of two ways. One great; one… not-so-great. It begins with someone who appears to be a total stranger approaching you and opening conversation with, “I...
