Welcome to the guest blog.
As part of the expansion to help more people tap into their unique talents to communicate, connect and come alive, I've decided to include other voices on the website. I hope the ideas here will help you in your business and in your life. Enjoy!
All my best,
Victoria
Posted by
Anni M.
Image source: Victorialabalme.com
I think the most persistent problem I see in presentations—from the boardroom to the convention center to my local chamber of commerce—is words. It’s not that presenters are choosing the wrong words. Often they are eloquent and organized, clever and interesting. Rather, they simply have too many of them. They talk and talk, fill their slides with text, and give the audience handouts full of more words. It’s as if they think, the more flotsam they can stuff into our heads, the more likely we are to retain something. Of course, that’s not how it works. People learn best when they are given a simple message, repeated frequently.
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Posted by
Anni M.
Image source: Siprep.org
It doesn’t matter who you are or what line of work you’re in, to succeed you must develop a track record of success. But this track record doesn’t necessarily match up one-to-one with every piece of work you’ve ever done. Instead it’s a carefully curated collection of your accomplishments—the best of what you have to offer. Here are some tips for building your most powerful and persuasive resume.
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Posted by
Anni M.
Image source: Robertvanarlen.com
For the self-employed crowd, self-promotion is one of those things we all know we should be doing. In this Internet-crazed world it’s so easy to fall through the proverbial cracks. There are basic musts like setting up a professional LinkedIn profile, but that’s not enough. If you’re currently working in an office but are interested in making a career out of speaking and presenting, there are a few very important things you need to know.
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Posted by
Anni M.
Image source: Flickr.com
Every good presenter knows the presentation doesn’t stop when the lights come up. The question and answer period at the end of a presentation can be even more challenging than the presentation itself. You don’t know what the audience is going to ask and unpredictability is frightening when you’re on stage in front of a bunch of people. Worse, if you have an audience member who strongly disagrees with your thesis, you may find yourself backpedaling and stammering to defend yourself—never a good position to be in, especially after you’ve worked so hard to get your point across. But you can protect yourself from most major Q & A pitfalls by setting the stage beforehand. Remember: you’re the master of ceremonies! You don’t have to give floor time to hecklers if you don’t want to. But you have to be bold, confident, and in control if you hope to steer the crowd towards your agenda and away from a heckler’s bag of tricks.
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Posted by
Anni M.
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The best presenters are also the best strategists. Of course, they’ve mastered the basics—confidence, eye contact, light humor, excellent and instructional images (that they thoroughly explain), and a focus on a simple and clear message. These basics make a presenter competent. They don’t make her brilliant. Brilliance is a quality reserved for the presenter who really gets inside the heads of her audience members. She anticipates their needs and their questions. She knows how to play their attention like a delicate instrument. While it takes many years to achieve this type of proficiency, there are some relatively simple techniques for bringing your competent presentations to the next level.
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Posted by
Anni M.
Image source: Victorialabalme.com
Most of the time I write to the business professional—the person who is interested in learning how to present herself well, on stage and off. But there’s another side to this equation: the business professional who is looking for an excellent speaker for his event. Business events are happening all over the world every day. They may be technology conferences or corporate retreats, inspirational seminars or chamber meetings. Surely, there is a wide world of professional speakers out there vying for a spot no matter what type of event you’re hosting. But how do you find someone good, someone who will inspire your audience and who will teach you something valuable?
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Posted by
Anni M.
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I think a man with such an illustrious business and speaking career deserves more than a single post. In truth, we can learn thousands of lessons from Steve Jobs—lessons about hard work, perseverance, cleverness, negotiation, and persistence. Apple faced many challenges over Jobs’ tenure. IBM was hot on their tail in the early years, poised to usurp Apple’s main demographic. But Jobs was up to the challenge. In one of the most famous Commercials ever made (directed by Ridley Scott) Jobs likened an IBM monopoly to the totalitarian government in George Orwell’s 1984, and to great effect. Apple emerged as the underdog (despite its position as a billion-dollar company) and gained a multitude of fans that have followed the company doggedly through think and thin. I believe this is due, in no small part, to the charisma and visionary talent of its founder and C.E.O., Mr. Steve Jobs. Jobs created a cult of personality and he did it through great products coupled with great style and likeability. He was accessible to his customers—the presenter who just seemed like one of the guys. In fact, he worked very hard to cultivate that personality.
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Posted by
Anni M.
Image source: Obamapacman.com
Steve Jobs was so many things: a visionary, a leader, an entrepreneur, a scholar, and an incredible public speaker. He was a diamond in the rough—a one-in-a-million thinker and doer. Jobs offered us a model of what a businessman (and a business) should aspire to be: innovative, ahead of its time, bold, risky, exciting, and for the people. Mac products hit that perfect balance between form and function—the balance artists and manufacturers are always striving to achieve. And Jobs was a genius at selling his products. His keynote speeches were always vibrant, compelling, exciting, and new. His style was comfortable and confident but he never talked down to his audience. Every word mattered and yet, it felt as though so much of what he said was off the cuff and spontaneous. Here are some important lessons I learned from Steve Jobs’ keynotes over the years.
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Posted by
Anni M.
Image source: Ibnlive.in.com
My younger sister has so much talent and promise but she lacks something every successful person must have: perseverance. She often calls me wondering why she hasn’t accomplished more. She bemoans her lot—all of the books she wants to read, places she wants to go, people she wants to meet, etc. She feels beaten down by the world, like progress is impossible. I think this is a very common condition for young people today. There is so much happening. We move so quickly. The world is so much smaller than it once was but somehow that makes it so much more overwhelming. For someone with vision, with an eye on the big picture, every day seems so strangely difficult. What do I do first? Where do I start? Unfortunately, these feelings often lead to paralysis. The overwhelmed person ends up doing nothing.
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Posted by
Anni M.
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Yesterday I wrote about the challenges of sharing a cubicle with a stranger. Indeed, co-workers occupy a strange and ill-defined space in our lives. We see them every single day and yet, they’re not really social peers. We don’t necessarily even like them very much. When we do like them, we are faced with a very difficult question: do we treat co-workers as friends and disclose our personal information or do we maintain a professional veneer despite our genuine feelings of friendship? Building barriers can feel wrong—cold, calculating, and manipulative—but without them we risk disclosing too much. Your professional persona probably isn’t in a 1:1 relationship with who you are. You put on professional airs of all sorts. When you talk with clients you filter your thoughts to project complete professionalism, politeness, and appropriateness. You don’t tell your boss about your weekend benders. You control your emotions in the office, even if you’ve had a really bad day. So, it should follow that you maintain a certain professionalism with your co-workers as well.
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