June 2010 Newsletter
Is Your Presentation As Good As Dairy Queen?
Sometimes I’ll hear a dynamic speaker with fancy slides and think, “Yeah. But she wasn’t as good as Dairy Queen.”
Let me explain.
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary at Bacchanalia, which, on its website, bills itself as “Atlanta’s most celebrated restaurant featuring contemporary American cuisine.”
It was delicious and very expensive. We spent $250 (tip included) with one glass of wine each. I had the “Local Berkshire Pork Loin, Crispy Belly, Anson Mills White Grits, Fresh Andouille Sausage, Summerland Farm Greens, and Pot Likker Jus.”
For dessert, I had the “Brown Butter Poached Rhubarb Fried Pie” in the “Honey Tangerine Float”. It was also good.
But, to be honest, the dessert wasn’t as good as a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate at the Dairy Queen.
New Book From Speechworks President: 15 Minutes Including Q&A.
Corporate America is being overrun by a scourge of lousy presentations. Every day, business people bore listeners with presentations that ramble on, make no clear points, and fail to address the audiences’ key concerns.
Speechworks President Joey Asher proposes a simple cure for this corporate scourge in his fourth book: 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World from Lousy Presentations.
Now available on Amazon, 15 Minutes Including Q&A is a quick read that lays out a simple plan to create and deliver great short presentations that will connect with any audience.
What Can We Learn From Great Eulogies? To Connect with Audiences, Tell Stories
You’d have to have a very dark heart not to get a little misty-eyed reading “Farewell, Godspeed: The Greatest Eulogies of Our Time.” And you’d have to be blind not to notice what makes these eulogies so strong and this book so fascinating.
It’s the wonderful stories. These eulogies are a wonderful lesson to all of us of the power of stories to grip an audience.
The book compiles eulogies from a range of famous people: from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Lucille Ball. You’ll learn about:
When Delivering Bad News in Business, Be Brief, Be Simple, and Listen
Delivering bad news to a client or colleague can actually strengthen a relationship if done right. But to do it right, you need to show empathy, keep it simple, and listen.
So says Catherine Dubé, a senior lecturer at Brown University Medical School's Department of Community Health, whose research areas include doctor-patient communication. Dubé’s perspective was included in an article in the "Newport (Rhode Island) Daily News" interviewing doctors, police officers, and auto mechanics on how to deliver bad news sensitively.
Dubé described how doctors should deliver bad news to patients. But her ideas apply equally well to business situations, such as telling bad news to a client or an employee.
Great Speakers Connect with Boldness.
“Boldness in business is the first, second, and third thing.”
Thomas Fuller, an English writer, said those words four centuries ago. And they’re still true today, especially as they pertain to business communication skills.
At Speechworks, we couldn’t agree more. The key to giving a great speech is delivering it with passion. It’s hard to do that when you’re just mouthing someone else’s words. That’s why our workshops don’t just focus on how to deliver a presentation. We also teach how to create great messages.