What is the most important aspect of giving a presentation?
No, it is not eye contact, memorizing your talk, using visual aids or humor properly. Granted those are important. But if you master all of those skills and neglect this one important aspect, your effectiveness will be lost and your message will fall on deaf ears.
The most important aspect for you to focus on when preparing and giving a presentation is the audience. And this holds true whether it is a small group of 5 or a large group of 500.
The best way to focus on your audience is to answer the following questions:
What matters to the group? Why should they care? Why should they listen to Read More...
When you think about it, life really is just a series of moments. It is a collection of activities, encounters, adventures, interactions with other people and just the things that we do.How enjoyable and fulfilling we find our life is directly related to our attention and our focus in the one second that is now, the moment which is our life.
Realistically, the time that we spend with other people, with our friends, family, even our clients or associate, doing things in our life, it is all very finite. We might think that there will come another time, a down the road or a next time. But that moment often does not materialize. And even if it does, it is a different timeframe, a different perspective and Read More...
The purpose of following these guidelines for your business writing is to get the reader to read your document. You want your document to be pleasing to the eye and not overwhelming.
The first area that I would like to address is the usual white space. The white space is simply the amount of paper that you see as opposed to the amount of text you see on the paper. A good test to see how much white space is used is to ‘print preview’ the document and set the percentage to about 25% or so. In other words, you will see the document on the screen but you won’t be able to read the words. This way, you will get a good feel for how much black there is against the white. Read More...
One of my favorite analogies for effective business writing is the clear window. Below are five simple guidelines to ensure your written communication is effective.
Write the Way You Talk
Imagine your reader is looking through your words, not at your words, for the meaning beyond the text. Whenever you use ultramajestic, high-fallutin, quadrasyllabic words, you force the reader to look at the words, often stopping to comprehend their meaning. When this happens, the message is clouded and even lost. The beauty of short, simple words is they speak clearly and in language that is typically the way you would talk in person. Write the way you talk. Great business writing means the Read More...
You know radio station, WII FM. It is all about your primary concerns, needs and wants. “What’s in it for me?” When you are trying to persuade people to your point of view, it is counterproductive to tune to that radio station. Instead, the best way to win over people is to focus the message on what is in it for them.
One of my favorite books that illustrates and proves the power of this idea is, How to Win Friend and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. If you have not read it yet, I highly encourage you pick up a copy today and read it.
Overall the main concept in Mr. Carnegie researches is the fact that most people’s favorite subject is, you guess it, themselves. He Read More...
The grass is always greener on the other side.
It is a syndrome that affects all of us throughout our life from time to time. Wanting, wishing, and desiring things that we do not have.
Those pains of envy when your neighbor drives up in a new car or if they have a new house, or they bring home a new baby, or they have new clothes. All these things, these material things.
Realistically, it is all just matter of perspective because they are probably looking over the fence to your yard and at your life and at you going, “Oh, look at him. Look at what he has done. Look at who Read More...
