The bucket model for answering questions is simply thinking of all the hundreds of questions that you could be asked to answer and then sorting them into common themes or buckets. It might be questions about price, planning, quality, time frames, contingency plans, return on investment etc. You sort these key themes and place each theme in its own bucket …
I recently ran a Webinar on tips and tools to present more confidently and effectively. Before running the Webinar I surveyed all the registrants on what was their number one problem or concern around public speaking and presenting. The slide below summarises the 8 most common problems people encounter when public speaking. Not surprisingly, fear, nerves and anxiety around public …
Humour is a great tool to use in public speaking and if you can be naturally funny while staying on point, you can really engage and connect with the audience. Funny man John Cleese said “If I can get you to laugh, you like me more, which makes you more open to my ideas. And, if I can get you …
One of the rules that I lay out before each of my public speaking workshops is that “today there are no mistakes – just lessons”. And of course what I mean is that no matter what happens when you stand up in front of the group to speak, it is not a mistake, rather it is a learning experience, a …
Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, lists habit number 5 as “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”. He places a lot of emphasis on empathic listening and deep listening, without judging, analysing, problem solving or putting your point of view forward. Stephen later goes on to describe the importance of presenting your …
Michael Grinder, one of the gurus of body language and non verbal communication talks about different things that people do in their non verbal communication that will make them appear approachable or credible. Clearly at different stages of a speech you will want to be approachable. But at other stages, you will certainly want to be more credible. So knowing …
