Upcoming Courses

Upcoming Effective Business Presentations courses for the last quarter of the year include:           

•              2nd October in Cathedral Hill, Guildford 

•             14th October in Chineham Business Park, Basingstoke

•             23rd October in Oxford Business Park, Oxford

•               4th November in Thames Valley Park, Reading

•             13th November in Central London, EC4N

•             18th November in Stockley Park near Heathrow

•               2nd December in Central London, EC4N

•             15th December in Cathedral Hill, Guildford

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

Unlike this year, I will be raising the price of my courses in January, so if you want to ensure you get the same great price as the last two years, of only £285, make sure you book on one of this year's courses.

For more information or to book click on your preferred location above. 

Six for One 

Train to Gain is still giving away money to spend on training for companies with between 5 and 250 employees. See here

Include a senior decision maker on the course and you can save 75% of the cost of an in-house course. That means you could run an in-house course for 6 people for less than the cost of a single place on a public presentation skills course.

Email me and I'll send you the details.

Introduction to Management and Teambuilding

Paul and I have recently finished another successful set of 'Introduction to Management and Teambuilding' training sessions, this time for Shere in Guildford.
 
Shere is the market-leading provider of integrated self-service kiosk and desktop ticketing systems for the rail, hotel and hospitality sectors. Iain Kingsley the MD, invited Young Markets in to help him instil good leadership qualities in to the growing team of middle managers and supervisors in this expanding company.
 
Iain has been so pleased with the results that he is already planning to re-run the training for more of his team. 

"There has been a very good take up of the skills taught, which has transferred in to positive action in their day to day work. I have particularly noticed an increased maturity in the decision making with the team." said Iain.

If you know someone who might benefit from a modular Introduction to Management and/or Teambuilding  course, please let me know. You can find more details about this training here.

The A to Z of Effective Presentations

 In previous newsletters, which you can access here, I have covered A to V , so now it is the letters "X,Y and Z".  In this issue "X" stands for X Marks the Spot, "Y" stands for You and "Z" stands for ZZZZZ (i.e. Snoring)

X Marks the Spot  

Knowing the target that you are aiming for, the affect you wish to achieve and having a precise message, will make your presentations far more effective. 

In most business presentations you are not just trying to convey information, you are trying to use that information to influence the behaviour of your audience.  A scattergun approach is less likely to work than an accurately aimed rifle.  So mark your spot before you start to fire.

Y is for You the speaker 

While some of the hints and tips in this series have their origins in the theatre, one of the most important things when presenting is to be yourself.  Do not try putting on an act.  Do not pretend to be someone else.  Few people can do it well and those that do have glittering careers as film stars.

Even, if someone else wrote the presentation and provided a set of PowerPoint slides, you need to put the presentation in to your own words.

So be yourself, use your words, your actions, your thoughts, and speak from the heart.

Be proud that you have been invited to stand up and make a presentation to this audience.

Y is for You the audience

Do not forget that the only reason you are giving a presentation is because of the audience, who are listening to you.  Without an audience, there would be no presentation.

In planning your presentation, it is vital to consider what your audience wants, what they are interested in and why they are listening.  In giving the presentation, you can then make it personal to them.  Try using the words you and yours as often as you can.  Do not present in the third person, it makes it too remote.  You need to get your audience involved, the more involved the better.  Appeal to their emotions, their dreams and aspirations, appeal to their egos and to their wallets.

When you are developing your presentation, try to use the word you and yours 30 times in the first 5 minutes. Not only will the audience like the fact that your presentation is obviously about them, it will make you think about your audience more, as it is impossible to use the words "you" and "yours" 30 times without thinking about your audience.

Z is for Sleeping

Hopefully, if you follow all the hints and tips that have been outlined in this A to Z series, you will not hear the sound of anyone snoring during your presentations.

If, as you look round the audience maintaining that all important eye contact, you see signs of people getting too relaxed, vary the speed and pitch of your delivery, speed it up, talk a bit louder, bang out more key points and reduce the filler.  If they still have their eyes open, give them more eye contact (i.e. look at them more often) you should see signs of a revival after a very short time.