How Presenters Can Give A Toast Without Toasting A Relationship

So you’ve been invited to a wedding, a retirement party, or some other celebration in which friends and family are going to gather in order to honor someone. There will probably be some sort of food served, drinks will flow, and then someone will do it – they’ll stand up and give a toast. Oh, … Read more

A Presenter’s Greatest Threat: Self-Sabotage!

A few years back I found myself in a situation where I had allowed myself to get roped into delivering a presentation to a university class. I was going to be talking about what I had learned during my IT career – a somewhat painful and introspective topic. My excitement level was at zero. I … Read more

How To Write The Perfect Speech

Last week I had the opportunity to give the perfect speech. Now, you might be offended by this statement and are probably wondering just how I could become so full of myself, so perhaps I should explain myself. I had spoken in this venue four times before, I had been invited to speak again because … Read more

When Presenters Run Out Of Ideas, It’s Time To Read A Book

Sometimes when we are called on to give a presentation, we sit down to create the presentation only to find that our creative juices have somehow run dry. Oh, oh – this can be a big challenge. What always just seemed to “be there” can go missing just when we really need to draw upon … Read more

What Jack Welch’s Speech Writer Can Teach Us

So just about everyone out there knows who Jack Welch is – he was the CEO and Chairman of GE who lead them from a market valuation of $14B when he took over to a valuation of over $410B when he stepped aside. What many people may not know is that Jack is a great … Read more

The Presenter’s Dilemma: 5 Ways To Make Your Training Stick

Ok, so it’s time to talk about an ugly little secret that nobody who does presentations really like to talk about. What’s the secret? Most of the time what we tell our audience goes in one ear and out the other. It just doesn’t stick. In fact, if you are presenting training or a new … Read more