Presentation Training, Presentation Coaching, Presentation
Development, Demo Training, E-Training, Tel: 01276 502257

January 2009

Welcome

Welcome to the January issue of Markets View. In light of the current economic climate, this issue is a credit crunch special, designed to equip you with the skills to progress and save you money at the same time. Look out for the piggy bank symbols. 

I am also very proud to tell you that I am now a published author as my presentation skills book is now available in paperback as well as an ebook. See below for details.

The winner of a copy of my ebook in December was Ms Michelle Pike, General Manager, Smarter Interactive Ltd. Congratulations Michelle. To stand a chance of winning a copy for yourself this month, try my Presentation Quiz.

Yours sincerely,

Graham Young
+44 1276 502257

Upcoming Courses

Usually in January the cost of attending one of my public courses rises in-line with inflation. My small contribution to aiding the green shoots of recovery is to keep my prices the same as they were a year ago. So for the whole of 2009 you can attend my Effective Business Presentation training for £285 (ex VAT).

 Upcoming Effective Business Presentations courses include:

    4th Feb  - Cathedral Hill, Guildford  (places still available)
    17th Feb - Thames Valley Park, Reading
    4th Mar  - Lyon Way, Camberley
    20th Mar - Chineham Business Park, Basingstoke
    2nd April - Oxford Business Park, Oxford

As always courses are limited to 6 people, so you may need to be quick to ensure your place.
 

For more information or to book click here.

New Course Dates for 2009

The dates for all my courses during the first half of 2009 are now available, the next course is on 4th Feb in Guildford.

You can download the Course Calendar in pdf format by clicking here. 

Paperback now Available 

I'm very pleased and proud to announce that a paperback version of my book "The A to Z of Effective Business Presentations" is now available from Amazon and "all good bookshops". Click here to see it on Amazon.

The 10 digit ISBN is 1849231133 and it costs only £5.99

Which is even cheaper than the ebook version!

This is an updated version of the ebook that everyone receives at the end of one of my courses. As you can see on the Amazon website, nobody has, as yet, added a review of my book. If anyone who has read the ebook version would like to add a review, I would be very grateful.

Click to add a review.

Bite Sized Knowledge Transfer

In the current economic climate, not everyone can afford the time, resources and money to take a whole day out of the office to improve their presentation skills, no matter how much difference it may make to their future presentations and subsequent business success.

With this in mind, I have introduced a new format for my Effective Business Presentation skills training. the bite-sized course.

These hour long seminars focus on the essentials of creating and giving a business presentation and your can hold them in your own office whenever you like.  

Learn while you eat, book a presentation training session for all your staff one lunchtime (or breakfast or dinner if you prefer). While they eat their sandwiches they will also pick up some great tips on how to make their next presentation better.

For more information and suggested content please click here.

Catch 22 for Better Sales

We all know that business is tougher these days, that new sales are harder to find and even harder to close. Only the really good, knowledgeable sales people are winning the business. The catch is that if your sales force need that extra tuition there is very little money around to spend on training. Plus you probably can't afford to take them off the streets to go on a course.

Well I have found a solution, Sales Training Online provides a comprehensive range of courses on sales and marketing topics which your sales force can take in the office or even at home.

Formally endorsed by the ISMM (Institute of Sales and Marketing Management) www.salestrainingonline.com stands out from other sales training because the in-built ability testing ensures that participants have thoroughly understood the knowledge being transferred and are able to apply that knowledge to real-life situations.

As Dr William Pedley, Director of Education at the ISMM stated this is:

"One of the most innovative offerings to date relating to online sales training!"

No longer do you need to take 3 or 5 days out of the office to undergo an off-site training course. www.salestrainingonline.com brings the same high quality training to your desktop in easy to digest bite-size chunks and at a fraction of the cost.
 
Every course now comes with its own accreditation test. Salespeople and / or their sales managers will know who has completed each course and how successfully they have learnt the lessons, ensuring that their new knowledge will be put to use and improve their selling ability

You can pay for just one module or take out a corporate licence for all your staff and it really is very cost effective.

I urge you to take a look, view the free tour and let me know if you are interested in a corporate licence as I have negotiated an even better deal for all my readers.

PS. Don't forget to turn the sound up on your computer when you take the free tour.

The A to Z of Effective Presentations

In previous newsletters, which you can access here, I have covered A to S , so now it is the letter "T".  In this issue "T" stands for Timing, Trust and Tongue Tied..

T is for Timing
Find out in advance how long you should be presenting for.  If this is an ad hoc presentation, ask the audience how long they can spare.  Then make sure you can easily see a clock or a watch, or have someone in the audience who can hold up time cards to let you know how long you have left.

If you are timing yourself the most important things is to look at the time just before you start, with all the other things you are thinking about this can so easily be forgotten and then you do not know if you are on time or not.

There are few greater sins than running over time when giving a presentation and there is no reason why you should.

Most novice presenters worry if they will be able to talk for long enough to fill the allotted time.  This is rarely a problem for two reasons: a) It usually takes longer to give a presentation than it did when you were rehearsing; b) Very few audiences will be worried if you finish ahead of time.

On the rare occasions that you do end up finishing well ahead of time do not apologise, just ask for questions.

It is more likely that you will be running over, in which case, you need to cut some of the anecdotes, go into less detail and maybe speed up your delivery. 

If you are using PowerPoint, you have a problem, as you cannot miss out a slide.  One of the worst things you can do is put up a slide for a second or two and say, 'In the interests of time we will skip over this one'.  This makes your audience feel a) that they are missing something and b) that if the slide really was not worth looking at why was it there in the first place.

You are far better to go through each slide but summarise the information they contain, it is surprising how quickly you can work through a set of slides.  You do not need to read out every bullet point, or talk about each of the items.  Summarise the slide and leave the audience to read what it says.

The one thing not to rush is the conclusion and the call to action.  The call to action is in many ways the reason for the presentation, so if you skip over that there was little point in doing the presentation at all. 

This is why it is useful to mark interim timings on your cue cards so that you know you are over running before you reach the end.  That way you can speed up the middle of the presentation and leave time for the summary and your call to action at the end.

Of course, the best approach is to practise, practise, practise.  That way you will know you have the right material for the time available.  If you are timing a presentation in rehearsal, it is imperative that you say the presentation aloud when you are timing it.  I would then add an extra 20% to the time taken, as invariably people take longer in real life.

For a 45-minute conference presentation, where you are expecting to have a question and answer session at the end, I would prepare 30 minutes worth of talking.  This should then take about 35 minutes to give and leave 10 minutes for questions and answers.

T is for Trust
Before you can influence someone, you need to gain his or her trust.  They need to respect you as someone who knows what they are talking about.  Try giving them a piece of information they know to be true, suggest an opinion they already hold or express an opinion with which they can sympathise.  All of these things will help to build a level of trust between you and your audience. 

Relating a personal anecdote helps to build trust between you and the audience, as they feel you are sharing something personal with them.

In the situation where your audience are likely to have an objection to part of your message, there is little point in trying to evade the issue.  Confront it; bring it out into the open.  By recognising the potential objection, your audience will not only realise that you are telling the truth and want to hear more, they will think you are astute and someone who can be trusted. 

T is for Tongue Tied 
Even the most experienced presenter sometimes gets their words mixed up. They may stumble over a particular word or find that when they try to say a phrase, gibberish comes out of their mouth.  If this happens to you, do not worry.  You can make light of it with a humorous remark such as 'I must remember to put my brain in gear before engaging my mouth.' or 'Sorry I'll try that again'.

Practising saying tongue twisters can help to give you the verbal dexterity to minimise these types of occasions.

Improve Your Presentations

I hope you have found this newsletter useful and interesting. You can learn a lot more about how to structure and give an Effective Business Presentation, by:

• Attending a Young Markets Effective Presentations Skills training course
• Reading my ebook "The A to Z of Effective Business Presentations" which you can download from my website today.
• Taking my on-line course which is just one of the many sales related training modules at www.salestrainingonline.com  

Please feel free to forward this on to your friends and colleagues.  If you have received this second hand and would like your own personal copy of future issues, please click here.

Effective Business Communication

www.youngmarkets.co.uk
 www.businesspresentation.biz 

 Click to subscribe to this email newsletter

Links | Sitemap |  Privacy & Legal Statement | ©2010 Young Markets | Email Young Markets  | Tel: 01276 502277 | Request a call |