Speechworks

What to do About Smartphones During a Presentation

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:54:20 GMT

“When I’m leading a meeting, I find that people spend a lot of time typing emails. What is your strategy for dealing with the iPhone problem?”

“When I’m leading a conference call, I know that there are people listening in who aren’t paying attention. They’re surfing the internet, writing memos, making their own phone calls. Are there tricks for making people pay closer attention?”

“People look at their laptop and iPads during my presentations. Is there anything I can do about this?”

A lot of people ask me how to keep their listeners from getting distracted by today’s digital technology. And they never like my answer. But here it is.

BE MORE ENGAGING.

It’s not the listener’s fault that your meeting feels like a waste of time.

Many communicators blame iPhones and laptops for their audiences’ failure to pay attention. It’s as if some people think that the smartphone has created a form of attention deficit disorder that has made it more difficult to connect with listeners.

Many training sessions now begin with the scolding plea, “Please turn off your cell phones and pagers.” I read an article in the New York Times about a law professor that banned laptops during his lectures because he wanted to foster more “active intellectual experience.”

Yeah right Professor. The laptops are the reason that your law students aren’t paying attention to your soul-suckingly dull lectures.

Call me a contrarian. But I don’t buy the argument that speaking is more difficult in the digital age.

Lecture halls, conference calls, and meeting rooms are perfect little democracies. Audiences vote with their attention spans. If people feel the benefit, they will pay attention. If not, they won’t.

And it’s always been that way. The only difference today is the manner in which attention spans wander. In the old days, if you were dull, people would fantasize about their love interest. Today, if you are dull, people still fantasize about their love interest. But they also can tap out emails to them on their iPhone.

If you want to overcome digital distractions, you need to give people a strong reason to pay attention. You keep them engaged in four ways.

First, start the presentation by stating a simple listener benefit for paying attention. “During this presentation, I’d like to discuss how your organization can grow its revenues despite increased regulatory scrutiny.” If you don’t tell people a clear reason why they should to listen to you, then they have every right to turn to their smartphones.

Second, lay out a simple agenda for your presentation, meeting or conference call. “During this call, I want to discuss three things: the current regulatory environment, how it’s hurting us, and what we can do about it.” A clear roadmap gives a sense of what to expect and that you have your thoughts well-organized. That makes it easier to stay focused and pay attention.

Third, whenever possible, ask people questions and let them respond. Interactive is always better. One-sided presentations, meetings and conference calls multiply the chance of people tuning out. If people are involved in a discussion with you, they won’t be on their iPhones. That’s a guarantee.

Finally, be passionate. If you’re droning on like that dull teacher in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” people aren’t going to pay attention. But if you’re excited, they will listen.

It’s easy to blame the digital age for making it harder to connect with audiences. Don’t buy it. The fault dear speaker lies not in your listeners’ iPhones but in your skills as a communicator.

Joey Asher has worked with thousands of business people helping them learn how to communicate in a way that connects with clients. His new book 15 Minutes Including Q&A: a Plan to Save the World from Lousy Presentations” is available now. He is also the author three previous books including “How to Win a Pitch: The Five Fundamentals That Will Distinguish You from the Competition”, “Selling and Communication Skills for Lawyers” and “Even A Geek Can Speak.”

Joey Asher

Want to Succeed in Business? Learn to Remember Names with a few Simple Tricks

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:54:19 GMT

“I’m terrible at remembering names.”

We hear that all the time. But we find that remembering names is a skill that anyone can learn if they simply make it a priority and use a few tricks.

Three step Name Recall Process

Anyone that is good at remembering names does three things:

They listen to the name when they first hear it.
They take special care to remember names in their “life communities.”
They use one of several name recall systems

Be alert to the Name when you hear it

Any book that you read on remembering names will tell you the same thing about why most people are terrible at remembering names: They never listen to a person’s name in the first place.

One attorney that we know said that his ability to remember a person’s name increased dramatically simply by listening carefully and then repeating the name back. “Oh hi Sandra,” he’d say. “My name is Fred.”

If you don’t hear the name, simply ask the person to repeat it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name. Could you repeat it?”

This simple trick will enable you to remember names in most situations.

Know the names in your “Life Communities”

Most people get into trouble when they forget names of people that they should know. For example, everyone should know the names of all their neighbors and their co-workers. And many of us have other life communities: church, Cub Scouts etc.

For these groups, take a half an hour and sit down with the directory and quiz yourself. One executive we know regularly takes out his office directory and looks at the photographs and quizzes himself on the names. That way, he is never embarrassed when one of his co-workers calls him by name and he can’t respond in kind.

Use a System for Remembering Lots of Names Quickly

For remembering large numbers of people’s name quickly, you will need a system.

Magician Harry Lorayne did a trick where he would greet everyone in a 400 seat auditorium once and then remember every single one of their names. In his book “The Memory Book” he explained his rather elaborate system of associating certain facial features with the person’s name. For example, if someone named “Jack” had huge ears, Lorayne would imagine car jacks where the man’s ears should be.

A less complicated system is simply to make a game of it and test yourself. It works like this. As you go to a party of strangers, work the room gradually, introducing yourself and learning the names of the people in one conversation cluster at a time.

In the first cluster, you meet Fred, Jane and Izzy. You make a point of really hearing their names and using them. Before you leave the cluster, quiz yourself. Go to another cluster and repeat. But before going to a third cluster, quiz yourself on all names.

With a little practice, you’ll be remembering names like a pro.

Joey Asher

How to Give a Great Webinar

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:50:45 GMT

Leo Tolstoy began his masterpiece “Anna Karenina” with the sentence “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Here’s my twist on that famous opening line: “All lousy webinars are alike; each good webinar is good by following a few principles”.

Lousy webinars are an unfortunate fact of our Covid-driven business life. It’s great that you can sit at home, eat a sandwich, and learn something. But these on-line presentations are almost always boring.

And the reason they stink is almost always the same — they’re PowerPoint slides with a never-ending voice over. No one wants to stare at a computer screen listening to a voice drone for an hour about lowering business risk.

But webinars don’t have to stink if you follow a few principles.

Turn Your Webinar Into a Talk Show

Instead of talking alone for an hour, make the webinar an interview.

We did a webinar helping bank managers present to superiors. But I didn’t speak for an hour by myself. I had a bank manager on the call with me. I asked him questions and we worked through a presentation he had to give the following week.

It required that we prepare together in advance. But it was worth it.

Use Technology to Make Your Webinar Interactive

All video conference platforms have interactive tools that allow listeners to ask questions and make comments, usually via a chat box. Some of the services have polling capabilities. Use those tools often.

One study found that listeners’ levels of attention drop to almost nothing after 15 minutes. But you can revive the attention with interactive activities. A great activity on a webinar is simply to ask the audience questions that they must answer in the “texting box.”

Don’t say, “Does anyone have questions?” Make listeners give you a response. In our webinars we say, “I want everyone to go to the texting box and tell me the biggest challenge they face in creating presentations.”

When someone gives you an interesting answer, unmute that person’s line and ask him or her to explain further.

Keep it Short

There is a political party in New York City called “The Rent is Too Damn High.” I want to create a similar party called “These Webinars Are Too Damn Long.”

Webinars are usually an hour long. They should be half that. I don’t care how deep a thinker you are on the topic of lowering business risk, protecting patents, or improving customer service. You can’t cover it all in a webinar. Make one or two points. Then stop.

Webinars are a limited medium. Limit your message accordingly.

Remember that on a Webinar, You’re a News Anchor

If you’re leading a webinar, you should behave as if you’re in a television studio. Make sure that you have good lighting on your face. Those ring lights are a great investment.

More importantly, make sure that you make eye contact like a news anchor. That means looking at the camera lens, not the images of the people on your screen.

Several of our coaches are former television news anchors and reports. And they will all tell you that when you’re on camera, you should talk to the lens like you’re talking to your spouse.

Here’s a little trick that really works. Draw a smiley face on a sticky note and place it by the lens of your computer’s camera lens. That will remind you to look at the camera and battle the tendency to look at the images of the faces on your screen.

Webinars are a great training tool. But they aren’t effective if listeners tune out to respond to emails.

Public Speaking Advice from JFK

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:47:49 GMT

Joey Asher

“Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.”

With political conventions still fresh on everyone’s minds, John Fitzgerald Kennedy certainly stands out as a great speaker, including his 1960 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in L.A.

And his observation above underscores a mistake many speakers – especially political ones — often make.

Generally, audiences aren’t impressed by your extensive vocabulary, your ability to wax poetic, or your exhaustive explanations. Your primary goal as a speaker is to make listening as easy as possible for your audience. To do so, you should give it to them straight, simple, and concise.

In our public speaking workshops, we teach participants how to structure a message that is simple and persuasive. And then we help them achieve a connection with their audiences through an engaging delivery style. We focus on:

How to organize a message that is simple and focused on listener needs. Speechworks teaches a simple formula for focusing on listener needs. We believe that if you have strong content, you will be more confident when you get up to speak.
How to deliver the message in a style that connects with the listeners. We focus on eye contact and energy from your face, voice and body. Our coaches will give you private feedback on areas you can improve.
How to answer questions in a way that inspires confidence. We teach you to embrace the Q&A portion of any presentation, prepare for the questions ahead of time, and when it comes to your answers, be brief.

Consider attending an upcoming workshop. Our world-class communication coaches will teach you how to keep it simple!

Public Speaking Tip from Peyton Manning

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:46:13 GMT

Joey Asher

“Pressure is something you feel when you don’t know what the heck you’re doing.”

Manning recently announced his retirement after a storied 18-year football career. Much of his success can be attributed to being such a dedicated student of the game. He spent countless hours watching game film, learning the playbook, and understanding his opponents. On the field, all of that preparation paid off in the form of hall-of-fame performances week in and week out. He always knew what he was doing, so pressure didn’t get to him.

Great speakers understand that it takes lots of preparation to deliver winning presentations when the pressure is on. That’s why Speechworks’ workshops focus on learning the fundamentals of great presentation skills, and then practicing them until they become second nature. We focus on:

How to organize a message that is simple and focused on listener needs. Speechworks teaches a simple formula for focusing on listener needs. We believe that if you have strong content, you will be more confident when you get up to speak.
How to deliver the message in a style that connects with the listeners. We focus on eye contact and energy from your face, voice and body. Our coaches will give you private feedback on areas you can improve.
How to answer questions in a way that inspires confidence. We teach you to embrace the Q&A portion of any presentation, prepare for the questions ahead of time, and when it comes to your answers, be brief.

Consider attending an upcoming workshop. We’ll help you prepare to deal with the pressure and have your own hall-of-fame performance.

Public Speaking Advice from James Brown

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:46:12 GMT

Joey Asher

“Hair is the first thing. And teeth is the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things, he’s got it all.”

Those are the words of the Godfather of Soul, the recently departed James Brown. And while he probably wasn’t talking about public speaking, to our mind he was making a point about how to make an impression on audiences. And that point is this: how you look matters. And James Brown looked gooooooood. To view a video of James Brown singing “I Feel Good” click here.

At Speechworks, we think that to connect with audiences you have to have both style and substance. But we agree with James Brown that appearance matters. That’s why we spend much of our workshops, showing you how you look on camera and coaching you in how to look better.

In our workshops, we focus on two areas:

How to organize a message that is tight, simple and focused on audience needs. Speechworks teaches a simple Formula for focusing on listener needs. We believe that if you have strong content, you will be more confident when you get up to speak.

How to deliver the message in a style that connects with the listeners. We focus on eye contact, gestures, voice energy, and facial energy. Our coaches will give you private feedback on where you most need to improve.

Consider attending an upcoming workshop. We’ll coach you to look and feel good.

Public Speaking Tip from Bruce Lee

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:46:11 GMT

Joey Asher

“Simplicity is the key to brilliance.”

Those are the words of martial arts legend Bruce Lee. While he may not have been speaking about public speaking, he certainly could have been. Great speakers focus on doing just a few things well: keeping the message simple, telling stories, and speaking with passion.In our workshops, we help you learn how to express yourself with simplicity and connect with the audience. We focus on two areas:

How to organize a message that is tight, simple and focused on audience needs. Speechworks teaches a simple Formula for focusing on listener needs. We believe that if you have strong content, you will be more confident when you get up to speak.

How to deliver the message in a style that connects with the listeners. We focus on eye contact, gestures, voice energy, and facial energy. Our coaches will give you private feedback on where you most need to improve.

Consider attending an upcoming workshop. We’ll help you learn how to express your brilliance with simplicity.

Public Speaking Tips from Socrates

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:46:10 GMT

Joey Asher

Watch the recorded webinar “ How to Interview for a Job Virtually ”

Socrates said “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance”. But while the Greek philosopher may have touted his lack of knowledge, we can learn much about presenting ideas from his wise words.

“Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”

The Golden Rule is great it to keep in mind when crafting a presentation.

I worked with a real estate lawyer who had put together 40 busy slides for a CLE event. I flipped through the deck and paused. “Would you like to sit through this?” I asked.

He admitted that the answer was, “no.”

Here’s my version of the Golden Rule. Present unto others as you would have others present unto you.

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”

I’m not sure if I agree that being busy is a bad thing in general, but it’s certainly bad when it comes to presentations.

I worked with a construction firm as it prepared for a large new business pitch. Their original message had 10 major points. That’s way too busy. Nothing stood out as important. Ultimately, the team focused on three messages and had more impact.

“Be as you wish to seem.”

For help, rely on video.

Let me explain.

As Socrates suggests, there is often a distinction between how we actually are and how we “wish to seem.” That’s certainly true when it comes to presentation style.

At a workshop recently, I urged a banker to smile more and gesture with more energy. He tried to up the energy level. But when he saw himself on video, he was amazed that he came off so low-key. He saw that he needed to exaggerate the energy to reach the desired level of intensity.

This just highlights the importance of watching yourself on video to help improve your presentation style.

You can’t “be as you wish to seem” if you can’t see how you actually are. To help, use that video-camera built into your smart-phone to critique your next presentation. The one in my iPhone works great.

“Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue — to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.”

Extending that idea to public speaking: great speaking starts with great listening.

One of the real keys to giving a great presentation is to take the time to listen, getting to know the audience in advance, and understanding what they want to hear from you.

The 92nd Street Y in New York City once refunded tickets to angry patrons that showed up to hear an interview with comic/actor /author Steve Martin. Attendees apparently expected to hear him talk about his extraordinary life. Virtually everyone was disappointed to get a discussion of the art world.

Perhaps Mr. Martin should brush up on his Socrates. He needed to listen to his audience.

Holiday Networking Lesson in Personal Connection from Jimmy Carter

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:46:10 GMT

Joey Asher

With the holiday networking season upon us, I’m reminded of a lesson I learned from Jimmy Carter on how to connect with people.

As a cub reporter 26 years ago at The Times in Gainesville, Ga., I had the opportunity to interview Carter. He had been out of the Presidency for about four years and was hosting a health care conference at Emory University.

I don’t remember much about the interview. I do remember being nervous as I waited for him alone in a conference room. I remember him sitting down and answering my questions with grace and patience. He gave me the same respect than he would have given Bob Woodward. While I don’t recall what my story was about, I remember that he gave me some provocative quotes.

But there is one thing that I recall vividly. After the interview, the former President didn’t rush out. He started asking me questions – just general stuff about my life, where I was from, how I came to work in Gainesville, etc.

To this day, I can still see the Jimmy Carter looking me straight in the eye and listening. For those few minutes (it couldn’t have been more than ten), he focused on me alone. It was like he had decided that this 23-year-old reporter was the most important person in the world to him at that moment.

I’m convinced that Jimmy Carter became President because of that ability to form a quick personal bond.

I suppose I could dismiss this as the charisma of a master politician. But I also think that the source of his charm is easy to identify and learn from.

It started with his eyes. As I spoke, he looked at me with total concentration, never looking away. His eye contact made it clear that he was focused just on me.

Next was the smile. Of course, the Jimmy Carter smile is famous and often caricatured. But up close, when coupled with the eye contact, it wasn’t phony. He smiled at the right moments, crinkling his eyes and letting me know that he was paying attention. The smile told me he was enjoying himself. And that made me feel good.

Finally, I think Jimmy Carter found it in his heart to be truly interested. I know that he doesn’t remember me now. And maybe I’m naïve. But it didn’t seem fake. I think he just cared about people and wanted to connect with me. It was a gift.

About five years ago, I met Jimmy Carter a second time. I was on a late night flight to Atlanta from New York City. As I boarded the half-empty airplane with other rumpled business travelers, Jimmy and Rosalynn sat in first class.

Before takeoff, Jimmy walked to the back of the plane. He deliberately shook everyone’s hand, and said “Hello.” “I’m happy to be traveling with you,” he said to me. And as he said it, he looked me straight in the eye and smiled.

When Carter returned to his seat, a young man to my right beamed. “What a nice man,” he said to me. “That was so cool.”

Jimmy still had it –eye contact, a smile, and a genuine interest in making a connection.

Something to keep in mind as you head off to the holiday party season.

How Can Ben Franklin Help Improve Your Speaking Skills?

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:46:09 GMT

Joey Asher

Do you speak with all the energy of a houseplant? Do you pepper your conversation with too many “uhs” and “ums?” Do you keep your face in a permanent state of boredom?

More importantly, do you want to change some of these habits?

If so, then do what Ben Franklin used to do: pick one point of improvement and work on it continuously for a single month. Ben didn’t know it at the time, but he was changing habits using a technique that psychologists call “reticular activation.” Reticular activation is the little bug we plant in our heads to sensitize ourselves to certain things. For example, reticular activation is what makes you suddenly begin to notice all the blue Toyota Camrys on the road two days after you’ve bought your blue Camry.

You can use reticular activation to change and improve your communication habits. You simply need to plant in your head a bug to change a habit. Write down what you want to improve at the beginning of every day. For example:

Want to eliminate “uhs”, “ums” and other filler words? Sensitize your brain to make yourself pause every time you’re about to use a filler word.
Want to remember to smile? Tell your brain to remember to smile as you speak. Do like the best telemarketers do and put a mirror on your desk and make sure you’re smiling while you talk on the phone. The listener on the other end of the line may not be able to see the smile, but they sure can hear it!
Voice energy an issue? Put sticky notes everywhere to remind yourself to speak with passion.

What does this have to do with Benjamin Franklin?

Ben didn’t know the term reticular activation, but he certainly understood the concept. After some experimentation, Franklin learned that it took 21 days to change a habit. He’d pick one thing he’d want to change and work on it for three weeks. Then he’d work on something else for 21 days.

So take a tip from one of our founding fathers. Pick one thing you want to work on and focus on it for 21 days. Before you know it, you’ll no longer be using those annoying filler words and you’ll be coming across as a confident communicator.

Got Nerves? How to De-Stress and Power Through that Presentation!

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:37:25 GMT

Nerves can get your heart pounding and your voice shaking. Nerves can make you sweat or make you short of breath. They can make your skin flush and upset your stomach.

Public speaking anxiety, also known as glossophobia, can induce all these symptoms and more. It’s one of the most common social fears. In fact, studies show that people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of dying! While that may seem a tad dramatic, there’s no doubt the fear is absolutely real.

Nerves, or stage fright, don’t just affect actors and professional presenters. They can strike anyone who has to get up and speak in front of audience, including those of us who have to deliver business presentations.

It probably doesn’t help at all to tell you that these symptoms are completely normal! Or, that you should be more worried if you don’t have them. They’re caused by the fight or flight response, a rush of adrenaline that is a primal – and essential – response to danger.

The problem is if these symptoms strike when there’s no genuine physical threat. You can feel as though you are out of control, spiraling down into a complete meltdown of stress and fear.

So, how do you stop nerves getting the better of you? We at Speechworks believe there are three key things you need to do to conquer your nerves:

Number 1: Prepare Your Mind

Practice, practice, practice! Even the best public speakers don’t just show up and wing it! That’s an invitation for disaster.

You should be practicing your presentation 10..20.. 30 times. Not just to get really familiar with it, but crucially, to give you a huge boost in confidence that will directly affect your ability to deliver your speech.

We don’t just mean reading your notes multiple times on the airplane on the way to your presentation. We mean standing up and actually practicing it OUT LOUD like a play! Preferably in front of colleagues, friends, family – even the dog. Practicing with an audience helps you be ready for the real thing. And no, you can never practice too much.

Also prepare your mind by visualizing success. Research suggests your brain doesn’t distinguish between an imagined activity and a real one. That’s why elite athletes imagine wowing the spectators with an out-of-the-ballpark performance. Visualize a successful presentation and your brain registers a win -win! Cheers to that!

Number 2: Prepare Your Body

We’ve already mentioned the normal adrenaline rush triggered by the fight or flight response. Rest assured, there are ways to flush that adrenaline out of your system.

Try some relaxation techniques before you speak. Stretch your arms, back, and legs, or do some yoga poses to reduce tension. Try some deep breathing exercises. Close your eyes and focus on long breaths out, instead of short, staggered breaths in.

Watch your breathing during your presentation too. People tend to panic and rush through their speech, forgetting to breathe. No wonder your face turns red and you start feeling dizzy. Practice slowing down your speech and pausing for breath. It also allows time for your audience to process information. If your voice tends to get shaky, try humming gently before a presentation to steady it.

Of course, exercise is also a great way to work off that excess adrenaline. It releases tension and boost endorphins ..those feel-good chemicals in your brain. Aim for at least thirty minutes of exercise before your presentation. Try climbing the stairs or taking a brisk walk. Billy Crystal used to work out his nerves by doing push-ups back stage before presenting the Academy Awards.

If you can’t do full blown exercises, try isometrics. Press hard against a wall with all your strength, or just push your fists together to diffuse that energy.

Laughter is also a great workout and a natural relaxant. Watch your favorite comedy show or YouTube video before you hit the podium.

Finally – eat something before you speak, but try not to overeat. Also avoid caffeine which will just add to the jitters.

Number 3: Prepare Your Attitude

This is possibly the most important point. A positive attitude is essential for a good performance. Shy away from negative thoughts. Tell yourself you are prepared and ready to be the best you can be.

More importantly, realize it is NOT all about you! It’s about being audience-focused, not self-focused. Embrace the fact that you are there to serve your audience and give them what they need. You’re not there to win brownie points for yourself. That knowledge should help you feel better.

Finally, accept that you may never completely eradicate nervousness. Learn to live with some anxiety. Even the best performers feel nervous. In fact, many believe that nerves can give you an edge that actually makes you a better speaker.

Meanwhile, you can always just fake it till you make it! Convey confidence right from the start by arriving early, and smiling and chatting with your audience even before your presentation starts. No one else knows your heart is racing and your palms are sweating. Before you know it, neither will you.

Ultimately, know that your audience is not the enemy! They are usually rooting for you. No-one enjoys seeing someone fail. So, embrace the moment, have a positive attitude and get the job done!

Prepare your MIND
Prepare your BODY
Prepare your ATTITUDE

Julie Lindsay

Julie Lindsay draws on a long career in television news to help clients speak in a way that is simple and persuasive. She began her journalism career with the BBC in London, reporting on everything from terrorist attacks and natural disasters, to war zones and revolutions. Next, came a move to the U.S. as anchor and editor on CNN International.

She also served as Chief Managing Editor with WebMD in the U.K. and then programming editor of Global Health Frontline News, making documentaries about kids fighting curable diseases around the world.

What I Learned from Vomiting and Fainting in Front of My Class

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:37:24 GMT

Watch the recorded webinar “ Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking! ”

As a public speaking coach, nervous speakers regularly tell me “I think I’m going to pass out” or “I’m feeling sick to my stomach.”

And while they never do faint or vomit, I have wondered what would happened if they did.

Well I don’t need to wonder anymore. Because I did both –fainted and vomited – in front of a client during a presentation.

And I survived. In fact, it turned out to be a great presentation that taught me some nice lessons about connecting with audiences.

It happened about three hours into a workshop my company was delivering to a large chemical manufacturer. I had started to feel a little queasy about two hours earlier as I was speaking during a different part of the program. I ignored the discomfort, attributing it to some funny tasting Greek soup I had for lunch.

But the queasiness intensified. Finally, I was giving feedback to one of the participants when – and now I’m only reporting what I was told by witnesses since I don’t remember this part – I started babbling nonsense.

My students told me they wondered if I was kidding around. I do have fun during the workshops and have been known to horse around to keep things light.

But I wasn’t kidding. And two of my students grabbed me to keep me from falling and hitting my head. The next thing I knew, they were holding me up as I vomited the contents of my stomach – again I’m pretty sure it was that Greek soup – into a garbage can.

After throwing up, I felt fine. We took a break. I cleaned up. And soon enough we were back at it. When I returned to resume the program, I received a loud ovation. Afterwards, many came up to me and connected with me personally, asking about me and thanking me for the great program.

The episode taught me several things.

Build a Relationship with Your Listeners Before the Crisis

When the workshop was beginning – long before I fainted and threw up – I worked the room, asking people questions about themselves. “Where are you from?” If they say they’re from Columbus Ohio, I might say “Does that make you an Ohio State fan?”

It is general schmoozing. But it serves an important purpose for any speaker. It starts the relationship with the audience on a positive note and gets the listeners “on your side” from the beginning.

So if something unexpected happens like your projector fails, or you forget what to say, or you vomit uncontrollably into a garbage can, then the audience will remember that they like you and they’ll be forgiving.

And that’s what happened with me. I had built a strong enough relationship with the audience for them to sense that they needed to jump in and grab me.

Having a Sense of Humor About Yourself Builds the Relationship

“So before I get started, I want to ask you guys one question. As I was throwing up, how was my eye contact?”

The listeners roared. And everything went great from there.

When you’re willing to laugh at yourself, people like you.

I once took a class in comedy from Jeff Justice, a great teacher of standup here in Atlanta. He said that the best humor is self-directed.

Who knew that passing out would be such great material?

Being Vulnerable Builds The Relationship

I once helped with a senior executive prepare for a speech about her battle with breast cancer. As part of her presentation, she told a rather graphic story about her double mastectomy. Parts were difficult to hear.

But her “warts and all” story earned her a standing ovation. Afterwards, she was in line for an hour giving hugs to her listeners. Her willingness to be vulnerable built a strong relationship with her audience.

I’m not saying that you should intentionally get sick in front of an audience to build a relationship. However, I do think that many people try very hard to come across as perfect, speaking in perfect sentences, and moving their hands just right.

But audiences don’t want perfection. They want a connection with another person. So if you don’t want to throw up in front of your audience (and I don’t recommend it) you might want to find ways to show your vulnerability perhaps by simply telling revealing stories.

You’ll be surprised at how you’ll connect with the audience.

Stop Scaring Yourself Off the Stage

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:37:23 GMT

Lauren is a dedicated coach and advisor for Speechworks’ clients, helping them to craft concise and persuasive messages, develop an engaging presentation style and cultivate an executive presence. Lauren draws on her 15 years’ experience as a practicing business attorney to help clients refine their communication skills and content for a variety of scenarios, including condensing complicated information into simple and digestible talking points, presenting to boards, running meetings, making a pitch and handling impromptu speaking requests when there is little to no time to prepare.

Lauren is a Georgia native, but she lived in Boston, Germany and Colorado before returning to Atlanta in 2010. Lauren spends her free-time with her family, pottery throwing, studying philosophy and exploring local museums and festivals. She is also a “people person”, loves adventure and embraces diverse cultures, foods, music and customs with an open heart and mind.

Lauren Marlow

If you suffer from a fear of public speaking, you are not alone. Polls indicate that the fear of public speaking affects 70-75% of the population and is more common than the fear of spiders, confinement or even death. The fear of public speaking is anxiety driven and stems from our fear of being judged–our fear of self-humiliation. Tightness in the chest, sweat, nausea, a blank mind…it’s different for each of us, but it can be overcome. Believe me–I’ve done it. Now, not only have I overcome my fear of public speaking, but I coach communication skills at Speechworks.

In high school, I unwisely agreed to sing in the talent show. This was a small school and a BIG event, so the auditorium was full. I have no entertainment-worthy talents– so, why I agreed to sing— a Sarah McLachlan song at that— goes without reason…but I did it. And I was awful. Not only was I not in tune, but I forgot the second verse and sung the first one twice. I did, in fact, humiliate myself. I was a junior, so I was the butt-end of many jokes for a full year and a half.

I was traumatized. I couldn’t sing along with the radio in my car for decade. But, time heals, and as the joke got old and stale, I saw light at the end of my tunnel of shame. Now, I love to belt out “What’s Up?” by the 4 Non Blondes when I need to purge unwanted energy. It’s wonderfully therapeutic.

That said, my inner-critic wasn’t finished with me. The fear of humiliation came barreling back when I had to speak at my best friend’s wedding. I was her maid of honor—I had no choice. This time, I prepared. I practiced, practiced and practiced some more. I sang “What’s Up” in the car and did jumping jacks in the bathroom. I was sweating everywhere and my knees knocking, but I pulled it off. I looked the boogeyman in the eye and I ripped off the band-aid.

I won’t say that experience cured my fear, but it was the first step. As I progressed in my career, I faced it repeatedly in front of boards and large groups. Now, I’ve done the public speaking thing often enough that the boogeyman is just a flea I flick away before I take the stage, BUT only after I’ve mentally and physically prepared.

At Speechworks, here are some things that we recommend:

There is no substitute for practice.
Positive visualization. This primes the mind for success and staves off the fear of failure.
Grounding and meditation. This clears my mind, dispels flashbacks and replaces negative thoughts with positive ones.
Sing REALLY LOUD.
Power poses. Amy Cuddy has a wonderful Ted Talk that explains these and the benefits.
Dynamic tension exercises. E.g., Press hands together to create tension and release energy.

If I can do it, so can you. You just have to prepare.

Simple Business Development Tip for a Slow Economy: Practice the Five Foot Rule

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:25:11 GMT

Joey Asher

One way to help grow business during the current tough economy is to start practicing the “five foot rule.” That’s the rule that says, “Whenever you’re within five feet of someone, say ‘Hello.’”

Great business developers realize that a major key to developing business is to connect with lots of people that can bring you business. Just saying “Hello” to strangers in non-threatening circumstances leads to lots of business every single day.

Here’s an example. A client of ours, let’s call him Fred the Accountant, was in an airport waiting for his flight. A nicely dressed gentleman sat down next to him, took out his laptop and began to tap away. Fred the Accountant waited for when the gentlemen seemed to be taking a break and then said, “Hello, are you heading home or heading out?”

They struck up a conversation and it turned out that the nicely dressed gentleman owned a medium-sized business and was working on a deal that had some problems. One thing lead to another and Fred had an appointment to meet the following week to discuss solutions to the deal’s problems.

Next time you’re within five feet of someone, say “Hello.” That one word might help grow your business.

Use the Holidays to Master the Lost Art of Conversation

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:25:10 GMT

Great Conversations Start with Great Questions

Joey Asher

I was at a seated holiday dinner party this week and decided to play one of my favorite games. It’s called, “How long can I get my dinner partner to talk by asking one question?”

I think I set a personal record. I asked one question. My partner talked for 20 minutes almost non-stop with me throwing in the odd comment or two. We had a great time.

I tell you this because as the holiday party season stretches into football party season, now is the time to hone our relationship building skills by practicing the art of conversation. If you can make interesting conversation with a dinner guest, you can build the relationships that build business.

Great conversationalists live by the adage “The key to being interesting is to be interested.” Indeed, the only tools you need to be a great conversationalist are some good questions and a willingness to really listen.

First, good conversationalists understand that to get a conversation going, you need to have some good open-ended questions that prompt a story or an opinion. Around holiday season, here are a few of my favorites:

Are you planning to go anywhere for the holidays? Most people have holiday plans. If your partner doesn’t regale you about his annual ski trip, maybe you’ll get the scoop on his crazy parents.

Does your family have any holiday traditions? One friend always sets up an old model train set and makes a gingerbread house. One year the house was so elaborate that it was entered in a magazine contest (It didn’t win).

Perhaps the best practice is simply to ask for an opinion. Ask a real estate developer what she thinks about property values or new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Ask a Coca-Cola executive what he thinks of energy drinks.

At my holiday party this week, I was seated with a former Georgia Tech running back. As a Georgia Tech fan, I asked “What do you think of the quarterback?”

Asking about Tech’s quarterback was like saying the magic words. “Shazzam!” The opinions flowed and we began a passionate discussion. We solved Georgia Tech’s gridiron problems and soon did the same for the Falcons.

Listening Comes Next

Asking questions isn’t enough. You must listen. You need to find it in your heart to be genuinely interested in your partner’s opinions and show that interest so that your partner can tell.

The best listeners do a couple of things. First, they make great eye contact. Poor listeners constantly look around at others. One local attorney is well known for what I call the “better deal look”. That is, he looks around for someone he would consider a “better deal” to talk to you than you.

Great listeners also react verbally and facially. They smile or nod or do whatever else seems natural for the moment. They throw out such brilliant chestnuts as “Wow. That’s interesting.” Trite. But it works if it’s sincere.

I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time working on my “listening face.” Sometimes when I’m listening carefully I tend to look bored, even if I’m not at all. And when chatting with my Georgia Tech dinner partner, I made sure that I was smiling, nodding and giving him a clear sense that his ideas interested me.

The art of conversation isn’t hard. It just takes a few questions and a willingness to really listen, the same things it takes to build relationships that turn into business.

Public Speaking 3.0. Connecting with Audiences in the Internet-Era

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:25:09 GMT

Ancient Greeks to YouTube

Joey Asher

The last 50 years in public speaking have been the JFK/Ronald Reagan era. The next 50 will be the YouTube/Talk Radio /iPhone era.

Indeed, to be a great speaker today, you must learn to connect with listeners who have been conditioned by the modern media.

The Ancient Greeks gave us Public speaking 1.0: public speaking as grand oratory. Indeed, for centuries audiences weren’t conditioned by television and were happy to listen to long speeches. Before the Gettysburg Address, Sen. Edward Everett delivered a well-received two-hour oration. That long-forgotten drone-a-thon was much more the norm than Lincoln’s 246-word masterpiece.

Television gave us Public Speaking 2.0. Taking cues from news anchors like Walter Cronkite, politicians like JFK and Ronald Reagan understood that the key to great speaking was connection, not grandeur. And for the last 50 years, speakers have been coached to imitate news anchors by making strong eye contact, and having a personal conversation with the audience.

Now comes Public Speaking 3.0, where social media, talk radio, and the internet have conditioned listeners to value interactivity, brevity, and informality.

The Future is Interactive

Indeed today, the best speakers embrace Q&A or risk boring modern audiences.

Talk radio led the interactive trend. Political talkers and sports talkers have turned the airwaves into an open forum.

Similarly, interconnectivity has made traditional presentations rare. Most business is conducted by conference calls that resemble talk radio. Interactive webinars have replaced windy continuing education lectures.

Presidential debates where the public can ask questions get far more headlines than stump speeches.

The internet has further conditioned audiences – especially young audiences – to expect interaction. Hate Thomas Friedman’s column in the New York Times? Post an instant response. And don’t forget that audience members can speak with each other with text messaging and Twitter.

Monologue is out. Dialogue is in. Now and in the future, audiences will want to participate. The best communicators will save half their time for Q&A.

Brevity is Key

If you want to speak for more than 10 or 15 minutes in the future, you better be great. Otherwise, your audience can watch The Office on their iPhones.

No one wants to hear a long speech anymore. YouTube videos are 10 minutes max. Tweets are 280 characters max. Blog posts are two paragraph nuggets.

Great speakers today tell their story succincty. They dump irrelevant background and focus on audience issues. They will detail a plan and take questions throughout.

Informal Speaking Style

Along with interactivity and brevity comes an increasingly informal speaking style. Could you imagine Winston Churchill on a webinar? We associate him with eloquence and grand oratory.

But eloquence today is out. Thousands of YouTube videos and niche podcasts have made us tolerant of quirky individual styles. I listened to a podcast on fly-fishing hosted from a fly shop in Montana. The host was oddly delightful and passionate. He took questions for an hour and it was fascinating.

The best speakers in the future will rely on a style that resembles passionate dinner conversation. Most important, they will be themselves.

Learning from Your Dentist: The Keys to Delivering Bad News

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:20:27 GMT

Watch the recorded webinar “ How to Have a Tough Conversation at Work ”

Joey Asher

Many of us have to deliver unwanted messages. For example, my dentist recently told me that some of my old fillings were deteriorating and needed to be replaced.

“They’ve served you well for many years,” she told me. “But those old fillings don’t last forever.”

That was an unwanted message. And yet I was in the dentist’s chair earlier this week, my Novocain-numbed mouth pried open, undergoing extensive dental work.

As I was lying there, I settled on four keys to delivering unwanted messages.

Build a relationship with the listener first. One of the reasons that I accepted the lousy news from my dentist is that I had a relationship with her and trusted her.

An attorney for a large Atlanta company complained that she gets angry pushback whenever she shows up at a meeting and tells the group that a program runs afoul of regulations.

I suggested that she start taking these folks to lunch and getting to know them personally, building a trusting relationship so that when she has to deliver bad news, it will go down easier.

I also suggested that she talk to the key players about the issue before the meeting. Those conversations build trust and get buy-in.

Be nice. When my dentist broke the news to me that I had a lot of dental work in my future, she was nice about it. Her tone said, “I know that you’re not going to like this. And I wouldn’t either.”

There was not a trace of gloating in her voice.

Many of us don’t get this idea. Let’s admit it: it’s fun to be right. And it’s sinfully gratifying to rub it in with the person who was wrong. “That’s justice!”

I love gloating as much as anyone. But I get it out of my system alone. I have delivered some Oscar-worthy speeches in my car with the radio blaring. But when I’m with a client, I’m always nice.

Be clear as to next steps. My dentist didn’t just tell me that my fillings were deteriorating. She showed me a series of graphic photographs of my teeth, pointing to the problem areas (yuck). She then gave a detailed explanation about the procedure to repair the problem. The clear plan made it all go down easier.

Similarly, don’t just tell someone that they’re idea stinks. Tell them what to do next. And make it clear that you’re going to be there to implement the plan.

Be accountable with Q&A. If you’re going to drill my teeth, I’m going to want some answers. Upon receiving the bad news, I had a bunch of questions about how this all could happen. She fielded them all with ease. Similarly, if you want people to accept your tough message, be accountable. That means being ready for the tough questions.

The harsher the news, the more time you should leave for Q&A. I once told a client that the actual bad news should take only a quarter of the time with the rest of the time reserved for handling the hostile questions.

Sometimes your ideas are going to be about as welcome as dental work. If you deliver the message with care, you won’t lose the patient.

Checklist for a Winning New Business Presentation

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:20:26 GMT

Watch the recorded webinar “ How to Separate Yourself from the Competition with a Presentation ”

Joey Asher

How do I communicate in a way that is credible and assertive but that I can still be myself?

I recently read surgeon and journalist Atul Gawande’s bestseller “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.” It’s about the amazing power of simple checklists. For example, a five-step checklist saved 1,500 lives and $200 million by reducing infections in Michigan hospitals.

The first step on that checklist was that the doctor must remember to wash his or her hands.

That got me to thinking about putting together a checklist for winning new business presentations.

Checkpoint 1:
Before the presentation, speak to the client.

I worked with an architecture firm that was shortlisted for the chance to design a corporate headquarters. They had no idea of the motivation behind the project. I told them that without more information about the client’s needs, you have almost no chance of winning.

Checkpoint 2:
Present solutions only.

If it doesn’t bear on your plans to solve the client’s problems, dump it. If you’re selling accounting software, talk only about how you’re going to help the prospect’s finance team save time and money.

When you introduce the team, don’t tell where everyone went to school. How does someone’s attendance at Harvard help your client save money? Instead, talk about how each team member will help the prospects accounting challenges.

Will your firm’s fascinating history help solve the client’s problem? No? Then dump it. No one cares.

Checkpoint 3:
Start by articulating the Client’s business problem.

First words out of your mouth? How about “We understand that the key challenge you’re going to face in this matter is how to limit liability while at the same time training your existing employees how to comply with current law.” Don’t know what their key challenge is? Either see “Checkpoint 1” or save everyone’s time and stay home.

Checkpoint 4:
Limit your message to a few key points.

Leonard DaVinci said “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Limit your message to three points and you seem both sophisticated and easy to work with. You might say, “We’re going to talk about three things today:

Saving you money
Saving you time
Increasing your revenues

You want people leaving the presentation thinking, “Wow, they were easy to understand.”

Checkpoint 5:
Tell success stories.

One of the easiest ways to build credibility for a solution is to tell how the solution has worked elsewhere. “We worked with ACME corporation on the same challenge and we were able to save them $1 million a year in costs.”

Checkpoint 6:
Create a list of 50 questions.

Fumble just one question and you’re toast. So be prepared. I recently worked with a construction firm as they prepared a pitch for a large hospital construction job. I urged them to send an email to their entire firm asking for suggested questions. They received 150 questions from their team members. On presentation day, they were ready.

Of course, you need to practice answering the questions.

Checkpoint 7:
Rehearse.

I asked a program manager who watches dozens of presentations what he thinks separates one firm from another in a competitive pitch. “One easy separator is practice. It’s easy to tell who has practiced and who hasn’t.”

Use this seven-step checklist and you’ll win more presentations.

Should You Memorize Your Entire Presentation?

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:12:55 GMT

We are asked this question a lot. And, the answer is no. But, you should practice your presentation so much that you can say it almost the same way every time. That’s not the same as memorization.

Let us explain.

If you just memorize your presentation, then you’re going to deliver it like you’re reading it. We once worked with an executive who memorized all of his speeches. Sure, he didn’t use notes or a script. And, that’s good. But, he still sounded like a fifth grader reciting a poem from memory, speaking in a flat, nervous voice as he struggled to remember every word. And if, heaven forbid, he forgot something, his speech would falter as he tried to remember his lines. This is what happens when you memorize a speech.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t practice a lot. We tell people to memorize the few key phrases that lead into the messages that you want to make. If you practice enough, will be able to deliver the presentation in a conversational style that connects with your audience.

Let’s say that you’re going to deliver a section of your presentation where you discuss how you will help your listeners lower costs. Your point might be “We’re going to help you lower your costs.” You then give a three-point plan on how you will help lower costs. Then, you tell a story about lowering costs. The pattern is “Make the Point, Give the Plan, Tell the Story.” Once you’re familiar with that pattern, you really only need to remember the point. The rest should flow easily, assuming that you’ve practiced.

And, you won’t have to memorize the entire speech.

Joey Asher

The Key to Greatness: Rehearsal

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:12:54 GMT

“If you could give me only one sentence on how to be a great speaker, what would it be?”

That was the question I received once from a magazine writer who was doing a story about how to be a better speaker.

“I don’t need an entire sentence,” I said. “I only need one word. ‘Rehearse’.”

Rehearsal by itself can make you a substantially better speaker. Rehearse your presentation and practice answering questions.

Do it out loud! Like it’s a play!

Presenting is a spoken art. You can’t practice by flipping through slides and saying, “I know what I’m going to say here. I know what I’m going to say here. I know what…”

To be good, you need to rehearse out loud. We don’t want you to write out your speech word for word and we don’t want you to memorize it. Just make a few notes and begin vocalizing your message.

Joey Asher

Rehearsal Helps You Figure Out How to Say It Smoothly

Rehearsing out loud gives you a feel for what sounds right. You can’t do that by just flipping through your slides.

Let’s say that you’re going to talk about how your plan resembles another project you did last year. How are you going to articulate that thought?

The first time you try to say it, you might start out like this:

“Last year we built a hospital with fifteen floors and a cardiac wing in Denver, Colorado. They were very worried about patient safety because the last time they had work done, one of their patients tripped over a stray piece of a drywall.”

Does that sound the way you want? Maybe.

However, it might sound better if you said it like this:

“We understand that you’re concerned about safety. We heard about how on a previous project one of your nurses slipped on some paint and sprained her wrist. We actually had another client just like you in Denver. On a previous job, a patient had tripped over some drywall.”

I’m not suggesting that one way is right and one is wrong. All I’m saying is that you need to figure out the best way to say it and how to get the words to come out of your mouth. You can’t do that without rehearsal.

By practicing, you can find all the dead ends where you don’t want to go. You can hear how it sounds and say, “That doesn’t sound right. I better try that again.”

You need to rehearse over and over again so that when you get up there to deliver your presentation, you sound smooth and confident.

How to Present to a Tyrant

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:12:53 GMT

And you think you have a tough boss?

Consider the poor Amazon engineer that gave a presentation to CEO Jeff Bezos only to have him say, “Why are you wasting my life?”

Bezos is notoriously difficult in meetings, according to “The Everything Store, Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon,” a fascinating new book by Brad Stone.

According to Stone, Bezos berates employees with “Jeffisms” like, “Are you lazy or just incompetent?” and “Do I need to go down and get the certificate that says I’m CEO of the company to get you to stop challenging me on this?”

Most of us must meet with tough bosses occasionally. Here are some rules for presenting to tyrants and other senior executives.

Joey Asher

Rule #1: Know Your Listener.

I know a group of engineers that prepared a presentation to the CEO on a new technology that would allow the company to charge customers more money. They were stunned when the CEO rejected their plan.

It turned out that the CEO wasn’t focused on generating revenue. At the time, 2008, he was focused on cutting costs.

Three months later the engineers returned to the CEO with a presentation focusing on how the same technology would reduce costs. By understanding their listener, they were able to win approval.

Rule #2: Keep it short and limit your slides.

Top executives hear tons of presentations and are time-strapped. So get to the point and prepare for a conversation rather than deliver a typical “presentation.”

Steve Yegge, an Amazon engineer, pointed out in a Google+ post that Bezos spends an inordinate amount of time hearing presentations. Says Yegge, “He doesn’t have to do anything at all except dress himself in the morning and read presentations all day long . . . You have to tear out whole paragraphs or even pages to keep it interesting for him.” Less is more with top execs.

Similarly, Steve Jobs, the late Apple CEO and another tough customer, hated slides. Rather, he preferred discussions.

“People would confront a problem by creating a presentation,” Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson for the bestseller “Steve Jobs.” ”I wanted them to engage, to hash things out at the table, rather than show a bunch of slides. People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”

Keep it tight. State the challenge. Propose a solution. Discuss.

Rule #3: Prepare for Questions.

I know a top sales executive who was preparing to meet with the CEO of one of Atlanta’s largest companies. He didn’t even bother creating a presentation. Rather, he spent two weeks brainstorming all the questions that he might expect during the meeting.

We urge our clients to send out an email to everyone that knows your CEO and ask for a list of questions to expect.

Then practice those questions.

Q&A is never credibility neutral. Good answers build credibility. Lousy answers destroy it.

Rule 4: If You Don’t Know, Admit it.

Bezos is famous for blindsiding employees with unexpected questions. Yegge, the Amazon engineer, described in his Google+ post how he fully expected to be caught off guard by Bezos.

His presentation addressed skills needed by a generalist engineer. During the presentation, Bezos asked, “Why aren’t data mining and machine learning on this list?”

Yegge said he laughed and said, “Yup, you got me. I don’t know why it’s not in there. It should be. I’m a dork. I’ll add it.” Yegge said Bezos laughed and “everything was great.”

At times, admitting ignorance can calm your tyrant.

How Does the 80-20 Rule Apply to Presentations?

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:12:52 GMT

In the late 1800s, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that 20 percent of the peapods in his garden yielded 80 percent of the peas. He also noted that 80 percent of the land in Italy was owned by 20 percent of the population.

So was born the “Pareto Principle,” sometimes called as the “80-20 rule”. It’s the idea that 80 percent of value comes from 20 percent of input. So, 80 percent of a firm’s revenues come from 20 percent of the business developers. Or 80 percent of earnings come from 20 percent of your clients. It’s useful if you want to maximize resources by focusing on highest yielding tasks.

The Pareto Principle applies to presentations. Considering the countless hours wasted creating lousy presentations, let’s examine how to get the best presentations for the smallest time investment.

Joey Asher

Don’t Start with the Slides

PowerPoint is a time suck that often yields little value. I worked with the VP of sales for a medical device company. He was preparing for a presentation to his international sales team. He and his team of helpers had created a presentation with 60 slides on the future of the company. It was an enormous investment in time – maybe 80 man-hours for a 45-minute presentation. And he hadn’t even begun rehearsing yet.

And yet the presentation ignored his sales team’s key question: how can I make more money this year?

Slides support the presentation. But they’re not the presentation. The presentation is what you say and how you connect with the audience. Before opening PowerPoint, take out a sheet of paper and make notes. That’ll determine if you even need slides.

Start by Interviewing Your Audience

When it comes to creating presentations, the best return on time investment comes from interviewing your audience in advance. Find out what’s important to the audience and focus on that.

I worked with a team of engineers that were frustrated that the senior management rejected a proposed capital investment. “It could help us grow our business significantly,” one of the engineers told me.

But at the time of the presentation, the management team was not interested in growing the business. They wanted to save money. So, we turned the pitch around and focused on how the investment would save the company millions.

Here is the text of an email message that could have saved these engineers the trouble of having to go back for a second presentation:

“We’re going to be giving you a presentation next week in which we ask you to make a substantial investment. What are the key business objectives right now? What sort of business results are you looking for right now in an investment?”

Even better would have been to call the decision makers and ask the same questions.

Prepare for Q&A

You can have the best slides in the world and your presentation will still stink if you can’t answer questions well. On the other hand, if your slides are hideous, your presentation will be great if you handle all questions well.

I urge my clients to write down 20 questions they might get during the presentation. Nothing impresses like handling all questions without a hitch.

Rehearse

Here’s a question I get a lot. “What’s the easiest way to improve my presentations?” My answer is one word: “Rehearse.”

I’d trade an hour of rehearsal for an hour of messing with slides any day.

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Questions

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:04:24 GMT

In our communication skills workshops, we spend a good bit of time focused on Q&A. In fact, we feel it’s probably the most important element of a presentation. It’s when what really matters to the listeners gets addressed. It’s also the point at which the speaker’s credibility is tested and confirmed (or destroyed…yikes!).

Here are 5 questions about questions that get asked frequently by our workshop participants:

Joey Asher

1. What do I say if I don’t know the answer to a question?
Occasionally “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer. It reassures the listener that you’re a straight shooter. Even better is to commit to finding out the answer and getting back to them. The best way to avoid too many “I don’t knows” is to spend time preparing by thinking of all the questions you might get, and then practicing answering them.

2. Should I take questions at the end? Or throughout the presentation?
Take questions throughout. This creates a conversational atmosphere with your audience and ensures you’re talking about what matters most to them.

3. Is it ok to “add on” to my co-presenter’s answer if there’s something they could have said better or more clearly?
No! There’s no faster way to undermine your co-presenter’s credibility than to “pile on” to their answers. Let their answer be the answer and move on.

4. When someone asks a question, should I just respond to them? Or should I address the whole audience?
In the first sentence or two, answer the question by speaking directly to the person who asked it. If the answer calls for a bit of explanation beyond that, then address the entire audience.

5. How do I respond to someone who doesn’t really ask a question, they’re just angry or frustrated and using Q&A as a platform to vent?
Typically people who do this just want their voice to be heard. In these “hostile” situations, it’s best to empathize and reassure. It may sound like this: “I can imagine that getting an incorrect invoice is incredibly frustrating, and I want you to know that we’re aware of the problem and have a team of programmers working to solve it.”

What to Do When Stumped By A Question; How to Coolly Say “I Don’t Know”

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:04:22 GMT

If you give enough presentations, it’s going to happen. Someone’s going to ask a question and you’re not going to know the answer.

Maybe you just need a moment to think about it. Or maybe you just have no clue what to say.

So what do you do?

Here’s what not to do. Don’t fake it! Your credibility with the audience can be lost in an instant if you are caught bluffing. Instead, you can do one of two things:

Joey Asher

1. Palm the question off on the audience. Instead of blatantly admitting that you don’t know the answer, open the question up for the rest of the group and ask for input. Say something like, “You know, I’ve never thought about that before, does anyone here have an opinion about that?” But if you do this, don’t turn around and restate an audience member’s answers as your own. Your credibility is at stake!

2. Admit you don’t know (gasp!) and commit to finding an answer. During a workshop, someone once asked whether it was O.K. to make eye contact when speaking to Asian listeners (the questioner heard that Asians don’t like eye contact). Our coach said she didn’t know and committed to finding out. It turns out that some Asian cultures place less emphasis on eye contact than in America. But that didn’t mean that Asian listeners dislike eye contact. She emailed her findings to the questioner just as she had promised, which further added to her credibility with that person.

The Perils of Saying “Great Question!”

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:04:21 GMT

One of our coaches was at a restaurant recently and when the first person at the table gave his order, the waiter said, “Very nice choice.” In fact, the waiter said, “very nice” or “good choice” to everyone at the table…except our coach!

“I ordered the fish,” the coach said. “He just nodded and walked away. I felt a little offended. He didn’t tell me I made a nice choice. For the rest of the meal, I wondered if I had ordered poorly.”

Similarly, saying, “That’s a great question!” when someone asks a question during a presentation is not a good idea. Once you say “great question”, you’ve put yourself into the position of having to say “great question” to everyone who asks a question. After all, everyone thinks they’ve asked a “great question.” Failing to say so to everyone, once you’ve said it to one person, will seem like a snub. Also, since so many presenters say, “That’s a great question!” that it often seems patronizing and insincere.

Of course, we understand why people say “great question.” They want to connect with their audience and prod more questions. One of the most uncomfortable parts of presenting is when you open the floor for questions and no one speaks up. So the thought is that by giving the question positive reinforcement, other questioners will volunteer.

Rewarding questioners is a good idea. But you don’t need to do it patronizingly with “That’s a great question!” Instead, reward the questioner by treating the question as if it were a great question. Smile at the questioner, nod your head seriously, and give a strong answer. Most importantly, don’t do anything to indicate that you think the question is stupid. Don’t snicker or roll your eyes, or sigh exasperatedly.

If you’re giving interesting and lively answers, the questioners will want to ask more. And you won’t have to tell everyone that they’ve asked a great question.

Joey Asher

To Get More Questions, Study Our Law of Audience Behavior

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:04:20 GMT

When I tell people that they need to leave as much as half of their time for Q&A, I get some worried looks.

Inevitably, one of those worried listeners will say, “But what if no one asks questions?”

That’s not usually a problem if you understand “Joey’s Law of Audience Behavior.”

That law states “Audiences typically behave the way they think they’re supposed to behave.”

If you understand that principle, you’ll never have to worry about not getting any questions.

Let me explain.

Joey Asher

Learning from Magic Shows for My Kids

I hit on the law when I started doing magic shows for my kids. Every time one of my three kids turned four, I would perform a magic show at their birthday party.

Doing magic shows for four-year-olds is interesting. These kids have limited experience with live entertainment. They’ve watched lots of television and spent a lot of time looking at a computer screen. But they’ve rarely interacted with a live entertainer. So they don’t understand the idea of showing appreciation with applause.

So when I would finish a trick, they would stare at me like I was a performer on television. No applause. Just blank looks. It was disconcerting. I mean, I wasn’t that bad!

But then I realized that no one had ever taught them that they should applaud live entertainment. So I told them what to do. I said, “When I finish a trick, if you like it, you should applaud. Let’s practice.” And we would all clap really loud.

They started applauding after they understood the concept.

The point is that these kids didn’t applaud because they didn’t know they were supposed to applaud. No one had ever told them to applaud.

Similarly, one of the main reasons that people don’t ask questions in presentations is that they usually don’t know that they’re supposed to ask questions.

Why? Because speakers discourage questions!

We say things like, “I’ve left some time at the end for questions.” Or “I’m going to get to that soon, so hold onto that question.”

Or we overstuff our presentations with too much information leaving virtually no time for questions. We just don’t sound particularly welcoming of questions.

So What Must we Do to Encourage Questions?

Consistent with “Joey’s Law of Audience Behavior,” the most important thing we can do to get more questions is to ask for the questions.

I always tell my audiences early on, “I’ve left a lot of time for questions. I want them. I want you to ask aggressive questions. I want you to try and stump me. I want you to argue with me! In fact, the more questions you ask, the happier I’ll be and the better the presentation will be.”

And then I stop repeatedly and ask for questions. My experience is that people will ask questions if you seriously want them to do it. Here are a few tricks to spur more questions:

Ask for Questions and then Wait. Too often people will say, “Any questions?” and then move on quickly. I prefer to let the silence fill the room. Let the audience know that you’re serious and that you’re not afraid of the crickets.
Ask the Audience a Question. “So tell me, what do you see as the biggest issue here?” Or “John, you look like you disagree with me.” Or “Sarah, yesterday you said that the key issue was growth. Does this approach make sense?” Prod the audience. Poke the hornet’s nest. Make them respond.
Act Happy Whenever You Get a Question: If you look at someone and smile as they ask the question, you’re sending a message to everyone that questions are welcomed. If you look at someone’s raised hand with disdain and say, “Yeah, what do you want?” you send a far different message.

The more you ask for questions, the more questions you’ll get.

Use “The Matador Effect” to Impress Your Listeners

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:04:19 GMT

Want to be a superstar at your next presentation? Take lots of questions.

That will allow you to tap into what I call “The Matador Effect.”

Let me explain.

Who gets paid the most at a bullfight?

The Matador! Why? Because he’s the one who stands in the ring and responds to the bull’s angry thrusts, dodging and waving his cape until the bull finally succumbs. He’s the one who stands up to the risk and, if successful, wins the admiration of the crowd.

A presenter who handles Q&A well is a lot like a good Matador. Like the Matador, the speaker must respond to all the thrusts and parries from the audience, defending her conclusions and her data.

To be sure, it’s a tricky business answering all the questions effectively. But, as with the Matador, if you do it well, there’s a huge payoff. People will be inspired by your skill and will buy into your position.

Of course that means you have to prepare for the questions. There’s no secret here. You have to write down all the possible questions that you might expect.

When I was practicing law, we would prepare for a court appearance by writing down all the questions we would expect from the judge or opposing counsel. We found it quite easy to predict virtually all the questions.

Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State, once started a press conference by saying, “Does anyone have questions for my answers?”

There’s someone that knew how to prepare for questions. He was a true Matador.

Joey Asher

To Win a Pitch, Show How Much You Care

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:58:24 GMT

There’s a saying among sales people that goes, “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

But when you’re one of two or three firms delivering a presentation for a big project, I don’t think it’s quite right. I think it should read, “In a beauty contest, no one cares how much you know. They only want to know how much you care.”

In other words, when you’re on a shortlist competing for an opportunity, your expertise is irrelevant. Everything in that final presentation needs to be focused on one thing: showing that you care about the client.

Joey Asher

Your Expertise is Irrelevant in a Beauty Contest Presentation

Let’s say that you’ve made the shortlist to present for a chance to represent a bank in a lawsuit. At stake for the bank are millions of dollars and months of horrendous publicity.

You should not include in your presentation a discussion of your experience with these types of lawsuits. If you’ve made the shortlist, the client already knows your credentials.

“You don’t even get in to see us if you’re not qualified,” one general counsel told me. “In the final stage, we just want to know who we like the best.”

And to make your prospect like you, every move should say, “We care.”

Speak Directly to the Client’s Key Issues

The first way to say “we care” is to customize your presentation around your client’s challenge. If you’re competing for a chance to represent a bank in a major lawsuit, every word of your presentation should be about your plan to help this client win.

One general counsel told me about hearing several presentations from firms competing for a chance to represent the company. The winner presented a detailed, heavily researched, litigation strategy. “They told us their plan for winning our lawsuit,” she told me.

By contrast, the firm’s long-time counsel took the client for granted and only presented a list of qualifications. The general counsel told me, “When they left, I looked at my colleagues and said, ‘Well that sucked.’”

Giving a detailed plan for the prospect takes work. But it shows that you care.

Your Passion for Their Work Needs to Show in Your Voice

“Our work should speak for itself. How we say it shouldn’t matter.”

I hear comments like that all the time. But it’s not true. Great firms look the same from the prospect’s perspective. Passionate delivery can separate you from the competition by showing how much you care.

I once watched four construction firms compete for a chance to build a new elementary school in Boca Raton, Florida. One project manager talked about growing up down the road from where the new school was to be built. He seemed excited about the chance to build a school in his old neighborhood.

The listeners could see that he truly cared for the project. His firm won.

How Much You Care Should Show in Your Rehearsal

Your actual performance during the presentation screams whether your care or not. To perform well, you need to rehearse. Did you care enough to rehearse transitions between team members? Did you care enough to keep your presentation tight? Did you care enough about them to leave enough time for Q&A? Did you care enough to make sure that everyone sticks to a common theme?

If you really want to win, show you care.

Great Presenting Style Starts with Strong Eye Contact

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:55:40 GMT

Sometimes I feel like telling people that they should physically grab their listeners by the shirt and say, “Pay attention to my presentation! I want you to understand these ideas because they can help your business succeed. So listen!”

Of course you can’t do that. But that’s why eye contact is so important. The closest you can come to physically grabbing someone and saying, “Pay attention!” is making strong eye contact. Indeed, great eye contact is the most intimate thing you can do during a presentation to help connect you with your listeners.

While most people in business do okay with eye contact, they don’t maximize their connection with the audience by holding eye contact long enough. Most business speakers just look out at their audience and graze them with their eyes, never really connecting with anyone longer than a fleeting moment.

The idea is to make eye contact long enough for the person to feel as if you’ve connected with them, and to give you some sign that you’ve connected. Maybe it’s a nod. Maybe it’s a smile. Maybe they stick out their tongue at you. You just want to connect.

Joey Asher

Have Miniature Conversations with Individuals

Great eye contact happens when you look at individual members of the audience long enough to feel like they are responding to you. As I write this, I’m on a flight from Chicago after delivering a program on creating and delivering presentations to a group of prominent architects.

In demonstrating the type of eye contact that was necessary, I looked around the room and connected with Ingrid, an interior designer from Frankfurt, Germany. As I spoke, I maintained the eye contact long enough until I saw her beginning to smile. “Now, I’ve got you,” I thought. “I’ll move to someone else now.”

We do an eye contact exercise in our workshops that powerfully illustrates how important and how often difficult it is to make appropriate eye contact with members of your audience. We have one of our participant’s stand in front of the group. Then we ask all members of the group to raise a hand.

“Talk about what you did on your summer vacation,” we tell the participant. “As you look at each person, you need to make eye contact long enough to get them to put down their hand. And they won’t put their hand down unless they feel the connection . If you just graze past their eyes without really holding it, they are going to leave up their hands. You need to hold the eye contact through a thought .”

It’s an interesting exercise because many of the participants find it very difficult to get those hands to go down. Sure, they make eye contact, most people do, but they don’t hold it long enough. Usually, they make the eye contact quickly and move to the next person, but then they realize that the person they just left still have their hand up in the air. For most people, to get the hands down, you really have to hold it longer than they are used to or comfortable with.

That’s the point. What you think is comfortable in terms of eye contact is probably not enough to give your listener a sense of connection.

A good rule of thumb is to hold the eye contact three to five seconds before moving on. For those who aren’t used to it, this will seem like a long time. Perhaps it will feel inappropriately long, but it won’t bother your listeners. To the contrary, they’ll just get the very nice sense that you’re connecting with them in a personal way.

How to Find Your Authentic Speaking Style

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:55:39 GMT

Imagine that you’re at dinner with a close friend or family member. And you’re talking with a great deal of intensity about something that you’re passionate about.

That is the kind of presentation style we recommend. We want you to speak with the same energy that you bring when you’re talking to a close friend and you’re speaking with intensity.

Of course the problem when you’re speaking in a business setting is that you’re not speaking with close personal friends. It’s not a dinner conversation. It’s a business presentation. And you’re not the same person in business as you are with your friends.

So how do you get back to that “personal style” when you’re giving a business presentation?

Joey Asher

Make Great Eye Contact and Exaggerate

First comes eye contact. No one can be a good presenter if they’re not making good eye contact with the audience. Eye contact is the point where actual contact with the audience takes place. It’s the point of connection. And without connection, you’re lost.

Next comes exaggeration. You need to exaggerate your facial energy, your gestures, and your voice energy. Why exaggerate? Because when we’re speaking in a business setting, we pull in. We become a more conservative version of ourselves. We become flat. Indeed, the number one issue with business presenters is that they speak with too little energy.

“But I don’t want to come across like a television huckster!” That’s the pushback we get when we urge people to exaggerate the energy.

The Authenticity Paradox

But when we exaggerate, over-energizing our facial energy, vocal energy, and gestures, we don’t come across as “over the top.” We just get back to the personal style that we have when we’re with friends and we’re intense.

I like to call this the “authenticity paradox.” I want you to be authentic. But when you’re standing in a conference room, you don’t feel authentic. So to find that authenticity, exaggerate your energy. In a sense, you need to act like an exaggerated version of yourself to get back to an authentic version of yourself.

If You Want to Improve Your Hand Gestures, Focus Your Energy on Facial Energy

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:55:38 GMT

The face bone is connected to the wrist bone.

That’s right. Very often, when our clients are having trouble improving their hand gestures, we’ll focus on their facial energy. That’s because if you improve facial energy, the gestures will often improve.

“What do I do with my hands?” is a question we get from a lot of our clients and workshop participants. And like most public speaking skills companies, our programs include a very effective module on hand and arm gestures and body movement.

But often we see gestures improve simply by energizing the face.

Joey Asher

Be Like Jim Carrey on Steroids

“Here’s what I’d like you to do during your presentation,” one of our coaches will tell a workshop participant. “Deliver your next presentation with too much facial energy. It should feel like you’re face is over-active, like Jim Carrey on steroids.”

And the participant will speak on video with lots of eyebrow action, exaggerating the smiles and grimaces. We’ll then look at the video and see that the gestures suddenly became quite natural! It’s like the facial energy somehow fixed the gestures!

Of course, what’s happening is that the focus on the facial energy has made the participant forget about their hands and start gesturing in a natural, energized and confident manner.

Other Tips for Gestures

The fact is that while we teach gestures, movement, facial energy, and vocal energy as separate modules, they often all work together and are naturally connected. If you improve your facial energy, there’s a good chance that you will improve your gestures.

Of course, it doesn’t always work that way. Much of the time, gestures can be improved with a few simple tips:

Make Big Gestures: The best gestures reach out and make you take up a lot of space. The bigger you look, the more confident you will appear to your listeners.

Hold the Gestures Through a Thought: No apple picking! Don’t stab at the air with your hands. That can be distracting. Rather reach out and hold the gesture confidently until you’ve completed your thought.

Gesture Boldly: Think about how an umpire calls a player “safe” when sliding into home. He makes a strong decisive movement. That powerful movement makes him look confident.

Great Communicators Connect with Boldness

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:47:08 GMT

“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 believe that great communication is about boldly and passionately making simple, easy-to-understand points, and supporting those points with stories that connect with the listener. That’s what we focus on whenever we coach our clients. All of our programs focus on two areas:

Joey Asher

How to organize a message that is tight, simple and focuses on audience needs. Speechworks teaches a simple Formula for focusing on listener needs. We believe that if you have strong content, you will be more confident when you get up to speak.
How to deliver the message in a style that connects with the listeners. We focus on eye contact, gestures, voice energy, and facial energy. Our coaches will give you private feedback on where you most need to improve.

So if you want to be bold in business, make your points boldly. We’d love to help you learn how.

Why Do We Get Nervous When We Speak? Maybe Public Speaking is an Unnatural Act

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:47:07 GMT

Public speaking is the number one fear of the average person. It’s a statistic that’s repeated constantly. But the question remains: “Why?”

There are plenty of psychologists that will give you a theory. But here’s another thought. Could it be that we fear public speaking because it is an unnatural act for the human species? Put another way, if you look at the evidence, humans were not designed to stand in front of large groups and speak. As a result, most of us feel uncomfortable doing it.

Consider the evidence:

Joey Asher

Exhibit A: Our voices. We have soft voices that obviously weren’t designed to address large groups of people. If we were intended to address large groups, wouldn’t we have voices that didn’t need microphones to be heard in large auditoriums?
Exhibit B: Our stature. If we were intended to speak to large groups, we would be much taller. That way we wouldn’t have to stand on platforms when addressing large groups.
Exhibit C: Our facial features. One of the most expressive things about our bodies is our faces. Yet we have small eyes and mouths. Our facial expressions are only effective when speaking in intimate settings where your listeners can really read your face.

The number one way to overcome a fear of public speaking is to rehearse like crazy. Next time you’re feeling really nervous about a presentation, practice like your life depends on it. You’ll still be nervous, but you’ll do a lot better than you expect.

Can You Learn “Executive Presence?”

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:47:05 GMT

Sometimes my clients teach me about communication skills.

“I have an associate that needs your help,” a law firm partner told me over the telephone. “He is smart and a great lawyer. But he lacks executive presence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Speaking to clients, he never inspires confidence, ” the partner said. “Every time he speaks, I cringe.”

What a great definition of “executive presence”: the ability to inspire confidence.

So can we teach how to speak in a way that inspires confidence?

Yes. It takes four things.

Joey Asher

Strong eye contact

Without good eye contact, you won’t look confident.

I worked with a computer consultant who was charged with proposing ideas to senior business executives. By all accounts, his analysis was brilliant. But when conveying ideas, he would only make glancing eye contact.

“When I’m thinking as I speak,” this consultant said, “I like to look up or down. It’s a way of gathering my thoughts. So I don’t really give good eye contact.”

The best practice is to start your statement with strong, unwavering eye contact. Don’t shift your eyes. Don’t look down or up. Lock in for three to five seconds. After that, you can look away briefly and then return to strong eye contact.

Cleanly Organized Messages

Here’s a classic test of “executive presence”. You’re in a meeting and someone asks you, “What’s happening with the project to expand services into Canada?”

If you respond with a “brain dump” spewing ideas at random, you’re not going to inspire confidence.

We recommend organizing your thoughts with an easy-to-remember, three-part structure: what’s happened so far, challenges, solutions.

“We think we can expand into Canada, but there are some issues. I’d like to touch on three things: what’s happened so far, the challenges we see with the expansion, and the solutions we propose.”

Then go through each of those three issues (what’s happened so far, the challenges, and the solutions), making sure to start each section with a verbal cue like “So let’s talk about what’s happened so far.”

The ability to report on matters quickly and simply is a classic example of strong executive presence.

Answer questions tightly

Tight answers have snap and inspire confidence. Here’s a simple recipe for answering questions with executive presence. Start with the simple answer in the first sentence or two. Give a little explanation. Then stop.

“How long will the project take?”

Poor executive presence:

“Well, we need to have a couple of meetings with people in the field first. During those meetings, we’re going to gather a lot of data about preferences. Sometimes their preferences can dictate a lot of extra work on our part. However, if their preferences are pretty straightforward, we probably won’t have to do much in terms of follow-up. If that’s the case, then we estimate that the project will take between three and six months.”

Good executive presence:

“We estimate it will take no more than six months. The key will be whether we can get the key data from field personnel quickly.”

Speak with Passion

Intensity and passion sell ideas and inspire confidence. I love the quote from Thomas Fuller, an English writer from the 1600s who wrote, “Boldness in business is the first, second, and third thing.” A bold, energetic voice is a sure characteristic of executive presence.

So be bold. Make strong eye contact. Organize your ideas simply. And give simple answers. You’ll greatly improve your executive presence.

How to Improve Your PowerPoint Presentation?

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:38:01 GMT

There’s an actual political party in Switzerland called The Anti-PowerPoint Party. Don’t believe me? Then check out this website .

I don’t bring this up because I hate PowerPoint. It’s a fine piece of software for creating visuals to illustrate a presentation. But I do think that we need to rethink how we use the presentation tool.

In many ways, PowerPoint has grown beyond an illustration tool and merged with our corporate presentation psyche in ways that hamper our ability connect with audiences and give good presentations. Here are some ideas that will help you with your next PowerPoint deck.

Joey Asher

Don’t Use PowerPoint to Draft Presentations

The process of creating PowerPoint slides has merged in our corporate brain with the process of initially creating a presentation. As a result, we’re creating terrible presentations.

Here’s a scene that takes place thousands of times every day in law offices across America. Judy wants to create a presentation. So, she sits down at her desk and opens up her PowerPoint software and begins using the program’s easy-to-use templates to outline her message. Before long, she has created 30 or 40 slides, loaded with bullet-points. She then goes in front of her audience and narrates her presentation from the slides.

About two minutes into her speech, her listeners are busily thumbing their iPhones. Judy has bored her audience with too much detail and too many slides.

Why?

In part, because PowerPoint encourages lots of bullet-points and a boring outline format. We need to remember that PowerPoint is a program for creating visual aids, not drafting presentations.

Instead, of turning so quickly to PowerPoint, Judy should have taken out a blank sheet of paper and written down three simple ideas that she really wanted her audience to take away from her presentation. Then she could use PowerPoint as a tool for bringing her presentation ideas to life with graphic images.

Don’t Let PowerPoint Rob You of Rehearsal Time

Next, corporate America is spending so much time creating PowerPoint slides that it’s failing to do the most important thing needed to give good presentations: rehearse.

PowerPoint is a horrible time-suck.

I was on the telephone with an architect the other day who told me that they were consistently losing competitive presentations for new business. When I asked them how much time they spend rehearsing their presentations, they admitted that they didn’t do much rehearsal. But when they e-mailed to me their PowerPoint slides, it was clear that they had spent several days creating gorgeous visuals.

Let’s be clear about something. If it comes down to a choice between PowerPoint and rehearsal, dump the slides. For a 30-minute presentation, use eight to ten slides at the most. Save your time for rehearsal.

Plenty of people are great presenters without PowerPoint. No one is great without rehearsal.

Implement these ideas and none of us will have to join the Anti-PowerPoint party.

For a Great Presentations, Practice this Rule

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:37:59 GMT

Guy Kawasaki is a technology guru and venture capitalist who listens to a lot of presentations from entrepreneurs seeking money for start-up ventures. The overwhelming majority of the presentations he hears are, as he says, “crap.”

And so he demands that all presentations at his business, Garage Technology Ventures, follow what he calls the “10/20/30 rule.” It’s a rule that should be embraced by anyone else who wants to connect with audiences.

The rule states that all presentations should be limited to 10 slides, 20 minutes, and have no words on the slides smaller than 30-point type. I love the rule because it keeps you out of the weeds by forcing you to keep your message focused on key issues.

Limit Your Presentation to 10 slides. Too many of us create presentations by opening up PowerPoint, picking a template, and typing. Before long, we have a “presentation” with 40 slides.

I was coaching an executive once as he prepared to speak at an industry event. He arrived at our practice session with 60 slides for a 45-minute presentation. Flipping through, I noted that every slide was loaded with bullet points.

“Let me ask you a question,” I said. “Would you want to listen to this presentation?”

“Well . . . , ” he muttered, seeming startled. “I guess not.”

His presentation was packed with too much information. Limiting your message to 10 slides forces you to answer the question “What do I really want to say?”

PowerPoint has no template for that question.

Speak for no more than 20 minutes. When Kawasaki listens to a pitch for start-up capital, he allocates an hour. Limiting the pitch to 20 minutes allows for 40 minutes of Q&A. As Kawasaki knows, all presentations improve with lots of Q&A.

Last weekend, I went fishing in Tampa with a guide named Rick. He told me that one way he markets his business is by giving presentations on how to catch fish in the Gulf of Mexico.

“I usually speak for about fifteen minutes and then take questions,” he said. “I’ve found that people have a lot more fun at my presentations when they get to ask questions.”

That’s a nice lesson in hooking an audience from a professional fisherman.

No Slides with Words Smaller than 30-Point Type. For many people, this seems impossible. You can’t get more than five or six words on a line with 30-point type.

But all businesses should mandate this rule. Smaller type is so hard to read that it becomes distracting.

To me, corporate America tolerates tiny type on slides in the same way that mill town residents tolerate the stench that fills their community. It’s so prevalent that everyone just gets used to it and no one even notices anymore.

But your slides will be far more effective if you minimize your bullets and keep your type size big.

And if you follow the 10/20/30 rule, your presentations will be a breath of fresh air.

Joey Asher

What Would the Gettysburg Address Look Like in PowerPoint?

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:37:58 GMT

Watch the recorded webinar “ Top Five Mistakes People Make with PowerPoint ”

“Hi. I’m Abe Lincoln. My first slide lays out a timeline for our nation. As you can see reading from left to right, it really all started four score and seven years ago. . . .”

Of course that wouldn’t have done at all. But if there is any doubt that there is a growing backlash against PowerPoint, you need only look at the proliferation of PowerPoint spoofs on the Internet. A funny one is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address .

There’s even a political party in Switzerland dedicated to reducing the number of lousy PowerPoint presentations. It’s called the Anti-PowerPoint Party .

For the record, Speechworks is not Anti-PowerPoint. And we’re not members of the Anti-PowerPoint Party. Visual aids can help your presentation have more impact. But PowerPoint is overused and misused.

There is almost always an inverse relationship between the quality of the presentation and the number of PowerPoint slides.

We recently worked with a large Atlanta company that banned PowerPoint from its national sales meeting. And the meeting went great!

Here are a few tips to ensure that your PowerPoint doesn’t ruin your presentation:

You are the most important visual aid. Don’t use slides that take too much attention away from you.
Use fewer slides. For a 30-minute presentation, keep it to eight slides.
Don’t murder your audience with bullets. If you’re going to have text in your slides, then keep the bullets to a minimum. No one is going to read it all or remember it anyway.
Pictures have impact. The best slides show photographs that the audience can quickly grasp.
Complex slides are usually terrible. Too often we see complicated diagrams of business processes that would only make sense if the audience had a lot of time to digest the slide. But usually, these slides are up and gone in seconds. If you have a complex slide, give it the time it deserves or dump it.
Don’t read your slides. If you’re going to read to the audience, hand out the slides and let them read it themselves. You’ll save everyone’s time.

Best Way to Use a Quote? Don’t Put it on Your Slide: Just Say It!

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:37:57 GMT

A client recently sent over a deck of slides for a big presentation on leadership. The first slide was a quote from Jack Welch, the former GE Chairman.

“My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.”

What a great quote!

But what value do you add to the audience by putting it on the slide? We think none at all. That’s why we advise our clients never to put quotes on slides.

Remember that the speaker is the most important visual; far more important than any slide. You’re there as a leader to influence your audience with your ideas and your intensity.

When you put a quotation on a slide, you undermine your presentation by diverting attention from you to the slide.

And you certainly don’t undermine the impact of the quotation by delivering it without the slide. Indeed, we think it’s far more impactful to look at the audience and state the quote from memory, or if necessary from a cheat sheet.

Imagine this:

You stand before your audience with a blank screen. Here’s how you start.

“We’re here today to discuss leadership training. And when we’re talking about this issue, I’m reminded of a quote from Jack Welch. He said, ‘My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.’”

Now that’s the way to grab your audience’s attention! Having your audience look at a slide while you read it to them won’t have near the impact.

By the way, if you’re looking for quotations to use in presentations try wikiquote.org.

Joey Asher

Topics to Avoid if You Don’t Want to Be a Bore

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:37:55 GMT

The problem with these topics, Rubin notes, is that your listener usually has nothing to add. All they can really do is listen politely.

Rubin adds that these topics could well be fascinating depending on how well you tell a story or the avowed interest of your listener. If the person you’re speaking to is a fellow wine nut, then by all means, talk about your wine cellar.

But beware of glazed looks.

Joey Asher

A dream.
The recent changes in your child’s nap schedule.
The route you took to get here.
An excellent meal you once had at a restaurant.
The latest additions to your wine cellar.
An account of your last golf game.
The plot of a movie or play—in particular, the funny parts.

Remember how fascinated you were the last time someone told you a detailed plot of their favorite movie?

Didn’t think so.

Detailing a movie plot is just one of “Seven Topics to Avoid if You Don’t Want to Risk Being a Bore” according to Gretchen Rubin, an author, lawyer, and former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Rubin is the author of a book entitled “The Happiness Project” in which she spends a year testing theories and tips on how to be happier.

According to Rubin, the seven topics to avoid are:

Support Your Data by Telling the Story Behind the Numbers

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:37:54 GMT

Everyone that uses data knows how easy it is to twist numbers to reach a biased conclusion. So how can you make people believe your data?

How about telling the story of how your data was compiled?

Here is an excerpt from a presentation by a client that wanted to improve the summer internship program at a large media company.

“Only 1 in 92 of our summer internships actually resulted in a permanent position.”

Of course, that sounds horrible. But it begs a lot of questions. What is causing that horrible return? And could it possibly be true that we’re wasting that much money on internships?

Now there is a piece of data that just begs for an explanation of the story behind the data. Unfortunately, the presentation failed to provide such an explanation.

Here is the rest of the story. This was a presentation by someone in Human Resources. He was seeking funding to create a centralized summer internship program throughout the company. At the time, all summer internships were offered ad hoc. No one in the organization had any sense of the return on the investment from the internship program. No one was tracking how many of those interns became permanent employees. Furthermore, no one had any sense of whether the interns found the program beneficial.

To compile the “1 in 92” figure, he had to call around the company and identify all the different internships being offered. So here is how he could have presented the data more effectively.

We need to centralize our internship program in order to get a return on our investment in the interns.[ Note that he starts with the main point] Right now, we simply have no overall program to manage the interns and ensure that we’re maximizing the return. For example, right now we actually have no clear idea of how many internships are even offered across the company. It’s all handled on an ad hoc basis.

I called around the company and was able to identify 92 separate internships offered last summer. Of those, only one resulted in a full-time offer. That’s obviously a terrible return on our investment.

Why do we have such a lousy return? For one thing, we are only allowed to offer full-time positions to college seniors, yet we’re offering internships to freshmen, sophomores and juniors. There’s no rhyme or reason. If we were to restrict the internships to rising seniors only, that alone could help our ROI.

Also, because the internships are so decentralized, we have no way of ensuring that our interns have a good experience when they’re with us. We have no way of knowing if we’re just training them so that they can go work for our competitors. We have no way of even knowing if we’re identifying the best performers and making them offers.

If you’re going to use data effectively, you have to tell the story behind the data.

Joey Asher

If You Want a Message to Penetrate, Repeat Two of Three Catchphrases

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:37:46 GMT

If you want to make sure that your message gets through to an audience, consider taking a lesson from the great marketers. They settle on a catchphrase and repeat it over and over, hoping to penetrate the public’s mind.

Many great speakers do the same thing.

One of the great recent advertising campaigns is from Geico. Most of you can probably repeat their catch phrase from memory: “Fifteen minutes could save you 15 percent or more on your car insurance.”

We can remember that message because the Geico ads repeat it so often. And notice that they repeat it the same way every time.You never hear them say, “If you spend 15 minutes on our website, you might be able to save 15 percent over your current auto insurance rates.” No. It’s the same way every time. Exact repetition helps the listener remember.

Great speakers do the same thing, focusing on a message and repeating a catchphrase. One of the most famous is Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech.” He actually had two catchphrases in that speech: “I have a dream” (which he said nine times) and “Let freedom ring” (which he said 10 times).

King wanted to get a message across. So he repeated his key phrases to ensure that they made it into the audience’s mind. And like Geico, he repeated the phrases exactly, not changing a single word. King understood that great speaking is first and foremost about getting a message across to audiences that are often distracted. Repeating a catchphrase without any changes helps.

During your presentations, think about using catchphrases. Maybe it’s as simple as “Our brand is about saving money,” or “This program will increase your sales.” Be sure that you repeat the key phrase the same way several times. That way, you’ll be sure that your message gets across.

Joey Asher

Lessons in Persuasion from a Fishing Guide

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:37:43 GMT

I drove to the Great Smokey Mountains near Townsend, TN recently to fly fish for trout. And I caught more than my fair share – 14 gorgeous rainbows. But who’s counting?

Spending time with my guide — a terrific, pony-tailed fisherman and author named Ian Rutter, of R&R Fly Fishing — I also learned a lot about persuasive communication.

Lesson 1: To Catch a Trout, Study the Trout

“Be a predator,” Ian said.

But that doesn’t mean thrashing the stream like a hungry bear. Rather, Ian wanted me to study the trout’s habitat. Learn where trout feed, what bugs they eat, and how those bugs flow through the water. Then you can make an offer consistent with the trout’s environment.

The same is true about persuasive communication. To persuade, you must study the audience’s habitat and fit your proposal into that environment.

Let’s say that you’re trying to win the business of an auto leasing company. You can’t say, “We have a great firm and many big clients.” You must study the world of auto leasing. Are owners worried about negotiating deals with manufacturers? Are they trying to reduce the terms of their leases? Are they trying to improve relationships with insurance companies?

Figure out those things and then present an idea to address those problems. Then you’ll maximize the chance of an owner taking your fly.

Lesson 2: To Catch a Trout, You Have to Listen to the Trout

Ian taught me that you must have a dialogue with the trout. You must listen and adjust. Last Friday, Mr. Trout said “no” several times before saying “yes.”

We started with a fly called a “Parachute Adams”, which floats like a bug on the surface.

Mr. Trout said, “No thanks.”

We switched to a floating “black ant” fly. “Ants fall out of trees all day long,” Ian said. “This one usually kills them.”

But Mr. Trout said, “I’m not interested.”

Then we returned to the “Parachute Adams”. But this time we added a “dropper fly”, tying an 18-inch line to the bend in the hook and attaching a “nymph”, which mimics an underwater bug. Two flies on one rig!

Mr. Trout said, “Looks like dinner to me.” We went on a tear.

The point is that we had a discussion with the trout and found a point of connection.

Similarly, great speakers know that persuasion happens more readily through dialogue.

Let’s say that you’re trying to persuade your partners to move into a new market. You’ll increase your chances for success if, during your presentation, you take questions rather than trying to ram your ideas through with logic alone. Let your partners object. Then you can respond, adjust, and increase your chances of success.

Lesson 3: Trout Care About Your Presentation Style

“Nice cast Joey,” Ian said. “Now hold up the rod tip and let the fly drift as naturally as possible.”

Trout care how a fly is presented. They are most likely to bite if the presentation is authentic.

Similarly, speakers with an authentic style are more persuasive. We tend to believe people who sound like they’re speaking to a close friend.

Just a few lessons from a skilled Tennessee fly fisherman and some Smokey Mountain rainbows on how to hook and land a skeptical audience.

Join Us in Welcoming

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 16:35:00 GMT

Deborah Lanham

Deborah is a passionate, visionary leader with experience in the non-profit sector and a strong background in sales, marketing, and communications. Over the past two decades, Deborah has excelled in cultivating an extensive network, forging valuable connections at local, national, & global levels.

Prior to launching her consulting business, Deborah served as President and CEO of the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce (ACC) for four years where she guided the organization through the global pandemic, grew membership and event revenue to historic levels, and led the work to level up the entire organization. Her efforts placed the ACC in its best position strategically and competitively.

Under Deborah’s leadership, the ACC entered a strategic partnership with the Development Authority of Alpharetta/City of Alpharetta to create the Downtown Alpharetta District (DTA). This 3-year economic development initiative focused on strengthening small business and driving sustainable growth through the development of a comprehensive branding and marketing strategy.

Deborah thrives in creative, innovative, and solution-finding environments. She has a passion for helping others get where they want to go and believes everyone has leader-quality potential. Throughout her career she has developed multiple programs that encourage collaboration and drive revenue growth.

Before joining the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce, Deborah served as Vice President of Business Development for the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. During her successful tenure at GNFCC, she developed the Tech 400, Women in Business, and Young Business Professionals programs while driving membership sales and renewals to record levels. A skilled collaborator and influencer, Deborah gets people connected across multiple business sectors. You will often hear her say “the mission is to drive business growth, but my passion is to build meaningful partnerships.”

Deborah Lanham
Founder & President
Deborah Lanham Consulting, LLC
dlc@deborahlanham.com
www.DeborahLanham.com

The post Join Us in Welcoming first appeared on Speechworks .

Lessons in Managing Nerves from Biathletes

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 23:32:00 GMT

Biathlon competitions are often on the TV in our house during the winter months – we have a healthy respect for the skill and prowess of these athletes.

Demanding the endurance of cross-country skiing and precision of expert marksmanship, the biathlon is deserving of its reputation as one of the most difficult sports in the world.

These athletes can somehow regulate their heart rate with seemingly superhuman skill.

Going from an approx. max. heart rate of 90% (while cross-country skiing) to as low as 61 – 73% max. heart rate (to position and shoot targets) in 50-60 seconds is a remarkable skill.

Then, it occurred to me – calming a racing heart is analogous to calming nerves… and mastering that skill would be beneficial in countless situations, notably – in preparing to speak in front of others.

My interest piqued. How do they do it?

In my research, I came across one particularly interesting possible answer to this question*:

Something called “Prospective Control”.

“Prospective Control” is the use of “perceptual predictive information to prepare the body for challenges that lie ahead.”

My interpretation in non-scientific language:

taking in situational cues gives your body – and your brain – a head start in adjusting to upcoming stressors; AND
this head start actually REDUCES a person’s heart rate in a high stress situation.

Wow.

From where I’m sitting, this looks like a powerful tool to take back some control and reduce those darned cortisol levels…

Applying this in the speaking context? To me, this looks like:

Being present and observing other people – get out of your head and people watch (AKA – read the room)

Seemingly obvious – but we’re all guilty (myself included) – of getting stuck in our heads, which is not only counterproductive in its own right, but also gives our nerves the upper-hand.

I will be investigating this technique more, as any tool that helps me maintain control, composure and put my best foot forward is a valuable tool in my book.

Lauren Marlow

Lauren is a dedicated coach and advisor for Speechworks’ clients. Her 20 years of experience as a practicing corporate and tax attorney allows her to help clients refine their communication skills and clearly convey content for a variety of scenarios, including condensing complicated information into simple and digestible talking points, presenting to boards, running meetings, self-advocating, making a pitch and handling impromptu speaking requests when there is little to no time to prepare.

The post Lessons in Managing Nerves from Biathletes first appeared on Speechworks .

Simple Tips to Inspire Speaking Confidence

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 19:33:00 GMT

Verbal communication skills are essential to the success of many careers, yet the fear of speaking in public is overwhelmingly common. No matter what position you hold in the workplace – manager, sales representative, or C-Suite – possessing the confidence to communicate your thoughts and ideas clearly is critical to how you are received by clients, customers, employees, and peers.

Contrary to popular belief, public speaking is not simply a verbal skill. Non-verbal communication cues, such as eye contact, gestures, posture or carriage, and enthusiasm, also have a significant impact on how your message is received by your audience. At Speechworks, we teach our trademarked framework, stylistic strategies, and strategic approach for delivering persuasive messages to empower leaders and professionals to elevate their speaking presence, connect with their listeners and transform their public speaking by developing their own authentic speaking style .

First, let’s go ahead and acknowledge that being confident and looking confident are two different things. It is possible to feel confident about a presentation but still lose the audience if your non-verbal cues point to a lack of assurance. Conversely, you can also feel terrified about a presentation, and yet, still convey confidence and build trust with the audience if you’re serving up your message along with a few sides of intentional, poised non-verbal cues.

Although there are probably a thousand things you could do to level up your non-verbal communication, there are two that, without any doubt, will help you shine and look confident (even if you don’t feel it yet): Eye Contact and Energy.

Eye Contact

Eye contact shows confidence, holds attention and builds trust. Making an effort to hold meaningful eye contact with your audience members opens the door to making a personal connection and increases the chances that your message will land with the audience and that your message will be remembered.

So, what does it mean to make good eye contact? There’s more involved than most people think. We’ve all heard the advice that you can fool your audience and fake eye contact by looking at the back of the room or at their foreheads. That’s terrible advice – and completely false. You’re not fooling anyone with that tactic.

Rather, good eye contact requires you to actually hold someone’s gaze for 3 to 5 seconds, or through a thought. To make that connection even better, you can use your whole body by actually turning to face an audience member and speaking directly to them.

Vocal Energy

Pauses, inflection, and tonality can all impact the delivery of a presentation. Even when answering a simple Q&A or leading an informal staff meeting, maintaining energy with your voice and speaking with intention can cue your audience to pay closer attention.

It’s ok to have silence. Did you know that pauses evoke confidence? Too many times, presenters or speakers worry about the silence and are quick to fill the space with filler words such as “um” or “like,” or to move on too quickly, smothering the opportunity for the audience to ask questions.

Practicing speaking aloud will provide you with auditory feedback and help you become more comfortable with silence and aware of your use of filler words.

Physical Energy

Body language is an often overlooked element of public speaking. It is important to remember that your audience is soaking in your presence as well as your voice – from the moment you enter the room until the moment you leave. Developing natural comfort with a confident and commanding presence will emphasize the confidence of your words.

In a study, social psychologists found that holding a “ power pose ” can help people feel more powerful and confident. Standing tall and open, facing your audience, and using thoughtful gestures are all methods of powering up a presentation with body language that inspires confidence.

Facial Energy

You can command a tone or a response from a simple facial expression. A quizzical eyebrow raise or a well-placed grin can elicit thought and laughter and keep your audience captivated. When we talk about a topic we are passionate about, our face and eyes tend to light up and emits positive energy. Bringing those bright and attentive facial expressions to each speaking engagement can help you share positivity and passion with your audience.

Have you ever heard the term “smize”? It means to smile with your eyes. Walk in with a strong presence – that shows you are excited to be there and you care about your topic – and smile with your eyes to ignite a spark.

As part of your preparation for a speaking engagement, practicing your facial expressions in a mirror can help you identify moments that require more facial energy and give you some self-awareness and perspective for your appearance.

Exaggerate your Energy

Many clients share with us that they are more serious at work because they want to be taken seriously. In taking on our “serious” business persona, we tend to fall flat. We all want to be taken seriously, but packing your personality away is actually counterproductive. Rather, allowing your personality to peek through your content helps you to connect with your audience in an authentic and engaging way. Exaggerating your facial expressions and body language will provide you with enough energy to keep others engaged and paying attention to what you are saying. The notion of exaggerating your body language sounds strange and feels uncomfortable at first – but with 40 years of experience – we know that the extra energy doesn’t come off as “over the top,” but rather evolves you into the less formal version of yourself, or how you might speak and act when among close friends. It is that gregarious energy that will help you stand out as a confident leader. Remember, how you look and how you feel are two different things.

The Key to Speaking Confidence

These tips can guide you toward successful public speaking, but confidence is ultimately found through rehearsal . Repeatedly saying your presentation and responses aloud will allow you to hear tonality and emphasis, and give you the opportunity to adjust elements of your presentation so that you are delivering. There is no substitute for practice, and it is not practice unless you are practicing your presentation aloud.

Join Us for a Workshop

The Speechworks Presentation Skills Workshop is structured to coach business leaders and professionals through the fundamentals of creating and delivering concise, confident messages across multiple fields. Participants gain skills that will prepare them to hold captivating and engaging presentations in both formal and informal environments.

See all of our workshops at https://speechworks.net/workshops/ .

In addition to offering our speaking training and coaching in person at our Atlanta offices, we can also travel to your location, as well as offer virtual programs. All workshops can be tailored to fit the specific needs and goals of your organization.

We serve clients locally, nationally, and globally, impacting people and businesses all over the world. Contact us today to learn more about improving your company’s communication and develop the skills to speak with confidence.

The post Simple Tips to Inspire Speaking Confidence first appeared on Speechworks .

How to Give a Persuasive Business Presentation

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 20:16:00 GMT

Standing up in front of a room of peers or potential investors and delivering a concise and persuasive presentation can be daunting for anyone. The many challenges associated with public speaking and learning the skills to deliver an impactful presentation can directly influence the success of your work, brand, or company.

Speechworks has decades of experience coaching Fortune 500 business leaders, salespeople and entrepreneurs in a wide range of sectors, helping them to prepare and deliver action-driving presentations. Continue reading for tips on how to successfully connect with your audience and present your ideas in a way that has the desired impact and furthers your goals.

Stay Organized and Simple

Business presentations do not need to be complicated or laden with information that is not directly aligned with the interests of your audience. Streamlining your message to a few key points that focus on the needs of your listeners will help your audience stay engaged and interested. Simple, direct statements presented creatively through storytelling, analogies , or anecdotes are great ways to interest your audience and keep them captivated no matter the subject.

Connect with your Audience

Identifying and utilizing a personal style that connects with your audience will help you build speaker-audience relationships. Eye contact, as well as authentic physical and facial energy, play a huge role in your physical presence – and how your message is received. Speaking clearly and with confidence will show your interest and excitement in the content you are sharing, keeping your audience engaged.

To connect with your audience, you must be able to read the room and adapt to shifting energies. To be persuasive, take a moment to understand the environment you have stepped into and identify how your material will align with your audiences’ needs. To do this well takes research and a willingness to adjust your delivery without compromising organization and simplicity.

Build Credibility

Question and answer segments provide a great opportunity for speakers to build credibility by demonstrating knowledge and expertise. Keeping responses short and to the point will maintain the interest of all listeners and keep you from getting lost in the weeds. If asked a question you don’t know the answer to, avoid bluffing a response – everyone can see it, and no one appreciates it. Instead, turn the question back to the audience or simply admit that you do not know that piece of information. Trying to stumble through an answer you are not prepared for is a surefire way to lose credibility and potentially leave a poor last impression.

Practice

The best way to improve your skills is with practice. By speaking aloud, recording yourself, and practicing in front of a mirror, you can better understand how your voice projects, how your physical energy can be perceived, and how tempo can affect your presentation, among other things. The self-awareness found during practicing is key.

Learn From Experts

Speechworks is committed to helping leaders, professionals, and teams learn, develop, and refine the skills needed to communicate clearly and persuasively. Knowing that public speaking is uncomfortable for a lot of people, our talented, top-tier coaches are experts in fostering an enjoyable and supportive learning environment where you, your leadership, and your teams will learn, practice, and see an immediate impact from their time and effort in our workshop. We teach our strategic approach and trademarked formula that outlines a methodology for developing organized and simple messages that can be modified for any situation, whether for a sales presentation, keynote address, board meeting, or weekly staff meeting.

The Speechworks Persuasive Speaker Workshop is structured to coach business leaders and professionals through the fundamentals of creating and delivering simple, persuasive business presentations. Participants gain skills that will prepare them to pitch to potential clients, provide project updates, obtain buy-in from stakeholders, or speak at an industry event.

In addition to offering our services in person at our Atlanta offices, we can also travel to your location, as well as offer virtual programs. All workshops can be tailored to fit the specific needs of your organization. We serve clients locally, nationally, and globally, impacting people and businesses all over the world. Contact us today to learn more about improving your company’s communication and develop the skills to speak persuasively.

The post How to Give a Persuasive Business Presentation first appeared on Speechworks .

Become More Effective When Presenting Pitches and Ideas

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 19:10:00 GMT

Whether you are presenting a high-level sales pitch, giving a presentation or leading a meeting, words (and how you use them) have the power to create a meaningful connection with your audience.

Speechworks has helped countless executives, leaders and company team members speak in a clear and compelling way through our workshops, individual coaching, and skills-based public speaking instruction. Our proven educational framework teaches our clients a practical approach. It gives them access to the tools they can leverage to level up their communication skills, elevate their professional presence, and further develop their leadership skills. We emphasize simple and persuasive communication to cultivate connection and inspire confidence, tieing in elements of storytelling, vocal expression, and delivery style to gain credibility.

Julie Lindsey , Speechworks Communication Coach, joined our team after a successful career in broadcast journalism sharing her talents with BBC and CNN. She explains in this video below one of the key reasons why corporate executives rely on Speechworks to help them hone their communication skills, executive presence and prepare for keynotes and other high-stakes presentations.

Speechworks’ Leadership Training is specifically designed to enhance comfort and confidence when speaking and leading others. Our workshops use a combination of role-playing, video recording, and individualized coaching techniques to help our clients see immediately visible results that they can carry through to boost their effectiveness in any business discussion.

Regardless of how comfortable and polished we may be as a speaker, we all have room to grow when it comes to connecting with each unique audience. At Speechworks, we can help you and your organization’s leadership overcome the challenges of connecting through effective communications to launch business objectives forward.

Learn more about our workshops on www.speechworks.net or contact us to learn more about our leadership workshops and custom executive training.

The post Become More Effective When Presenting Pitches and Ideas first appeared on Speechworks .

Casual Use of Analogies and Idioms in Communication

Thu, 18 May 2023 16:46:00 GMT

I experienced a communication and relationship-building skills lesson that hit me like a one, two punch in a boxing match— all starting with browsing for a podcast to listen to while I did some gardening.

Being Speechworks’ CEO and communications coach , the title of Rough Translation’s “ How to Speak Bad English ” got my attention – and it was fascinating…and thought-provoking.

After listening to the podcast, I heard myself saying many of the phrases/analogies/idioms they referenced. I saw myself writing them in emails. Many of those that borrow from our collective understanding of “America’s Favorite Pastime” — Baseball – and more:

“It was a home run!”
“That joke went over my head.”
“That came out of left field.”
“Step up to the plate.”
“I’ll get in touch next week”
“We need to move the goalpost on those benchmarks.”

Analogies and idioms- when well explained, and used with the right audience, can be immensely effective and constructive in helping others to understand a complicated topic, BUT, when used out of context, or without the context being clear, can be confusing.

That’s obvious.

While chatting about it with my neighbor while our kids played in the front yard a few days later, the lesson came again – but this time in a different flavor. Still interesting, still provoking – but a little more difficult to swallow.

Being from El Salvador and speaking English as a second language, my neighbor immediately started nodding her head and then went on to describe her own English as “broken” and she felt self-conscious about it.

I was shocked because her English is excellent and in no way “broken”.

She went on to tell me a few stories – one of which was that she learned what “keep me posted” meant from her doctor. That phrase – to her – literally meant to keep him on a sticky note, which made no sense.

She said it was not unusual to be confused by various phrases and idioms used by her American colleagues in conversations, and that she’s often afraid to interrupt and ask for clarity for fear of being judged for speaking English poorly. And, not only is she afraid, but the fear is accompanied by some element of intimidation that holds her back or even shuts her down altogether.

The lesson got brighter, and I could see it more clearly. And with that lesson, I also realized that I’ve been doing this – unintentionally and without malice – I too freely use idioms and colloquialisms that are so ingrained that I have forgotten that they are analogies or metaphors. And with that, it’s possible – if not probable – that I have also unknowingly caused another to feel less comfortable speaking English with me, or in front of me, or caused them to hold back or shut down.

Since I would never intentionally try to intimidate someone else or discourage someone from engaging in conversation with me, it’s candidly an uncomfortable reality to face. But with this awareness, I can now pivot and improve my own communication skills and build better relationships.

I’m not saying I’ll never use idioms or colloquialisms again – being from the South – they’re too much fun to pack away forever. But, I will be much more thoughtful about my audience in choosing when to use them and which ones to use — because my top priority is to communicate clearly and to help others do the same.

Lauren Marlow, Speechworks CEO and Communication Coach

The post Casual Use of Analogies and Idioms in Communication first appeared on Speechworks .

What Makes A Great Commencement Speech

Mon, 08 May 2023 17:40:00 GMT

It’s that time of year again – the birds are chirping, spring colors brighten the scenery, and it’s graduation time.

And, that means that many of us will be treated to that long-standing public speaking tradition – the commencement address.

Over the years, we’ve seen and heard A LOT of commencement speeches, and we’ve found that the best, most memorable speeches have one thing in common.

What Makes a Great Commencement Speech?

A High Story-to-Advice Ratio.

If a commencement address has lots of stories and a few pearls of wisdom, chances are that it’s pretty good. If it has lots of “life advice” and few, if any, stories, chances are that it’s a snoozer.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get to hear something as good as the one that Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivered in 2005 to the graduates at Stanford . It’s one of the best we’ve ever seen (and we’ve featured it in our newsletter before). The entire speech consisted of three stories wrapped around a few key tidbits of “life advice.”

Lots of Stories. A Little Advice. We Love It.

More likely, however, you’re going to hear a speech like the many that you can see if you’d search for something like “how to write a graduation speech” on YouTube. Many of these consist of homemade videos by valedictorians or their proud parents. Some of them are cute. But, most are horrendously boring (and terribly videotaped).

Lots of life lessons but few, if any, stories. No, thank you. Many are too preachy. And, without the stories to give the lessons relatable context, it’s less likely that the “words of wisdom” will resonate, sink in or have a lasting impact.

We did find a very good commencement address by a high school student that we really liked. The speaker is Matt Lum at Brazosport High School in 1995. The speech is only four minutes long.

More importantly, however, it consists almost entirely of a single, self-effacing story about a lesson he learned in gym class. Matt stood up, told his story, made his simple point and then sat down.

Great Story to Advice Ratio.

His speech reminds us of one of our favorite quotes from Franklin D. Roosevelt about the secret to giving a great speech. He said, “Be sincere. Be brief. Be seated.”

Congratulations to all graduates, and best speaking wishes to commencement speakers!

At Speechworks, we help our clients learn how to communicate in a way that connects and persuades. If you’re interested in becoming a great communicator give us a call at 404-266-0888 or check out our website at www.speechworks.net .

The post What Makes A Great Commencement Speech first appeared on Speechworks .

Here’s a Template for a Best Man/Maid of Honor Toast

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 17:45:00 GMT

A highlight of any wedding reception is the toasts to the bride and groom. Of course, the toasts can also be a source of anxiety for the person who has to stand in front of everyone at the reception and speak while raising a glass.

The best of these short speeches are touching and often a little funny. They usually have stories that help the listeners get to know the couple.

I’ve written and delivered my share of toasts. So if you’re not sure what to say, or if you’re a little nervous, here is a template that you can use to honor the happy couple.

Start By Introducing Yourself

“My name is Joey Asher. Fred and I were roommates during our freshman year at Georgia Tech.”

Give a Positive Trait and Tell a Story

Now, Kristina, I know that you love Fred and know many of his great qualities. But you may not know that Fred is [insert positive trait].

Next, tell a story or two to illustrate your point. The story can be funny or touching. Just make sure that it’s positive.

I told you that Fred was a great cook. Our first year in the dorm, he actually organized an entire Thanksgiving Dinner the week before the fall break. We ate in the dormitory lounge and cooked everything ourselves. He cooked a turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings. I told him that I wanted to make the cranberry sauce, that my grandmother had a great recipe. But when I made my request, he got quite agitated. He was hesitating to tell me something. So I forced it out of him. He said he wanted to be in charge of the cranberry sauce. That it was very important to him. Of course, I didn’t care that much. On the day of the feast, he showed up with two cans of jellied cranberry sauce from the grocery story. I said, “What the heck?” He said that for him, it’s not a Thanksgiving Dinner without the canned cranberry sauce.

Tie it in to the Formal toast. And Make it Sappy.

So I’d like to make a toast to the Bride and Groom. May you love long. May your lives be filled with thanksgiving. And may you always have plenty of cans of cranberry sauce.

Don’t Forget to Practice . . . A Lot

Once you have the toast written, practice. I always practice enough so that I can do it without notes. Lots of practice will help you overcome the nerves too.

The post Here’s a Template for a Best Man/Maid of Honor Toast first appeared on Speechworks .

Here’s a Template for a Valedictory Speech

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 17:44:00 GMT

You thought becoming the valedictorian of your high school class was tough? That’s nothing compared to giving a great valedictory speech. Spend just a few minutes on YouTube and you’ll see that most valedictory speeches are boring and, worse, embarrassing.

But there’s hope! You can give a great valedictory speech.

Great valedictory speeches follow a pattern. They offer a fond reflection on the high school years. They connect with audiences using anecdotes and lots of name-dropping. And they offer gratitude. With that in mind, the key to a great valedictory speech is to keep it simple, short (ten minutes is perfect), mention lots of people by name, tell stories, and practice it so much that you don’t have to read it. You want to deliver it like you’re having an animated chat with a close friend.

Here’s a template to pass along to the valedictorian in your life.

My fellow graduates. Over the last four years here at [Insert name of high school.], we have learned a lot. Mr. [Insert name of math teacher.] taught us how to [Insert a complicated sounding math thing.]. Ms. [Insert name of English teacher.] taught us [Insert interesting tidbit from a favorite piece of literature.]. And Mr. [Insert name of widely known funny, popular teacher.] taught us [Insert something odd that parents might be surprised to learn. For example maybe he taught you how to swear in Portuguese. Or maybe he taught you the best way to approach a girl at a dance. Make it funny but revealing about a beloved teacher.].

And all of this knowledge will no doubt be valuable as we go forward in life. But I think that the most important thing that we have learned over the last four years is [Insert major theme. Keep the theme simple. Good themes include “How to build relationships and rely on each other,” “How to Work Together as a Community,” “How to respect each others differences,” and “How much we need each other to succeed.” Don’t worry if it’s corny. If it’s from the heart, go for it.].

Over the next few minutes, I’d like to talk about what we’ve learned, the people we have to thank, and the people we have to remember. [Notice that you’re setting up a little three-part structure, letting your listeners know where the speech is going.]

I told you that the most important thing that we learned was [Restate the theme.].

Let me give you just a couple of examples of what I’m talking about. [Give three or four quick and fun examples that bring in as many of your classmates’ names as possible. People love hearing their names. One of the examples might sound like this. “In ninth grade with our first pizza drive, we raised a lot of money for homecoming. It was a true team success. John Smith was our pizza baker. Cindy Jones showed us how to track and spend the money. Fred Williams played a critical role in getting people to turn out for the event with his creative posters. And Garth taught us that indeed one person can eat three entire pies in one sitting.” Give one longer example that is personal. For example, you might tell about how one of your teachers took an interest in your writing and encouraged you to submit your stories for publication. Be sure to tell about how you thought the story was really stupid but your teacher disagreed. Be sure to thank the teacher by calling her out from the audience, asking her to stand and asking the audience to give her a round of applause. Finish the story by telling how this teacher taught you that “Nothing we accomplish is done alone. Rather, we need each other for support and coaching.”]

Next, I’d like to take a moment on behalf of myself and my fellow graduates to thank the people that have brought us here.

[Pick five or six people to thank. But don’t just give their names. Tell why you’re grateful to them. And in telling why, give anecdotal context. For example, “I’d like to thank my mother Wendy Johnson, who taught me that if I want to make it to the bus stop on time, I can’t spend 20 minutes checking Facebook.” Or “I’d like to thank my Math teacher, Ms. Jackson, who drilled into my head “Getting the right answer isn’t everything. How you get there is important. So show me your stinking work!”]

Finally, I’d like to take a moment to remember our classmates and teachers who are not with us today.

[Here is where you mention anyone in your school community that died during your years in school. Once again, don’t just give their names. Give their names and then give a personal remembrance. “We all miss our friend Jenny Wilson. She was a wonderful sister and daughter, a great friend, and the best cheerleader on the squad. We also miss our teacher Mr. Carson. Mr. Carson didn’t allow us to show up late in his class. And we loved him for his humor. No one went through his class unchanged for the better.”]

So now we’re high school graduates. And soon we’re going to be signing each others’ yearbooks and saying goodbye. There will be hugs and tears. We’ll do our best to stay in touch. But we’ll be living our lives and doing our best.

As a final thought going forward, I’d like to leave you with a quote from [Insert name of someone you’d like to quote. The best people to quote are people that you’ve personally learned from, like your parents or grandparents. For example, “My grandfather told me that ‘A high school education is a great thing just as long as you’re willing to learn something after you graduate’.”]

He said, [Insert final quote.]

Thank you all.

The post Here’s a Template for a Valedictory Speech first appeared on Speechworks .

Here’s a Template for a Parent’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah Speech

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 17:44:00 GMT

I wrote this post before I attended my 13-year-old cousin’s bat mitzvah, the traditional service marking a Jewish child’s passage into adulthood. A highlight of many bat/bar mitzvah services is the short blessing or speech from the parents.

The best of these speeches are touching and often a little funny. They have stories that help the congregation get to know the young man or woman who has been studying hard to lead the congregation through that morning’s a Shabbat service.

Along with my wife, I’ve written and delivered three of these two-minute b’nai mitzvah blessings. So if you’re not sure what to say, or if you’re a little nervous, here is our template that you can use to honor your young adult.

Opening Your Speech

Start by telling your daughter how proud you are. Then tell her and the congregation some of the personality traits about her that you most admire.

“[Insert first name of your child]. Your [mother/father] and I are so proud of how well you did today, leading the congregation in prayer this morning. But more than that, we’re proud of the wonderful young man/woman you’ve become.”

“You’re [insert the positive qualities that you admire about your child. For example you might say “You’re sweet, and kind and responsible.” Or “You’re friendly and extremely outgoing!” Or “You’re hard working and generous with your time!” or “You’re not just a wonderful pitcher for the baseball team. You’re warm and caring older brother.”]

Stories are the Best

Next, tell two or three short stories that illustrate your child’s wonderful qualities. Stories are what make these blessings great and memorable.

Story One:

[I said that you are outgoing and friendly. I remember when we moved to Atlanta from New York. You were sad leaving behind your friends. But you didn’t waste time finding new friends. As soon as we settled into our neighborhood, you found the neighborhood directory and started calling up kids your age in the neighborhood. You said ‘Hi, I’m Elliott. I’m new to the neighborhood. Would you like to play sometime?’” You have to be the first child in history to cold call for friends. The funny thing is that it worked. Several of those friends are here today.”]

Story two:

[I also said that you were hard working. I remember your first dance recital. You were up in front of a lot of people and you fell down. It was a little embarrassing and you told me so. But you didn’t get frustrated. Rather on the way home you just said to me ‘Dad, I think I need to practice more.’ And that evening, I heard you in the basement, practicing. Now you’re one of the best dancers on the dance team and you’re teaching us moves that we’ve never seen. You’ve even started teaching dance to younger kids at the JCC. Of course you bring that same determination to your studies and to your preparation for this day.]

If you want to add a third story, knock yourself out. But remember that no one wants to hear a long speech. When the Rabbi says “Keep it to two minutes,” he or she really wants it short. Remember, this is not your day. It’s your son or daughter’s day.

End by Going for the Heartstrings

Finish with a sincere pronouncement of love and admiration.

[Of course, we are proud of how you performed today. But that’s not nearly as important as the fact that were are incredibly proud of the young man/young woman that you’ve become. We love you.]

Don’t Forget to Practice . . . A Lot

Once you have the speech written, practice. My wife and I practiced enough so that we could recite it without notes. Lots of practice will help you overcome the natural nerves you’re going to feel.

If you feel you have to use notes, that’s OK. Just read with gusto. You want it to sound like you’re just telling stories at a dinner table.

Practice hard and you’re son or daughter will be as proud of you as you are of him or her.

The post Here’s a Template for a Parent’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah Speech first appeared on Speechworks .