One of the best and most effective ways to develop your own business or your own profile in the organisation you work for is to grab every opportunity you can to present yourself to an audience.  This might be your colleagues with a project proposal that you are working on, it might be a networking event where you are showcasing your organisation, whatever the reason it is YOU that is being seen by the audience. This is a great selling opportunity.

So YOU are the most important part of that presentation so YOUR preparation is crucial to your success. In the last few weeks I have seen someone miss such a golden opportunity to do this by, what appeared from the audience viewpoint, as a complete lack of preparation, an inability to present effectively and thus give themselves and their organisation a shocking image to the audience (which numbered around 100!!!).

So please think about some of the fundamentals:

Can your slides and all the data on them be read from the back of the room? Do you know the information that you are presenting well enough to answer detailed questions on it?  You need to engage with the audience, so look at them, not the slides!! Remember that audiences will pick up on words that you say  regularly....'ok' is probably the most obvious!!  This presenter said it 54 times in 45 minutes, and yes I was counting!  Finally DO some homework on your audience, find out what they want form the session and make sure the session, its title and content are all related & relevant, you do not want to waste people's time.

You only get one chance to make an impression....I know its a cliche, but it is right.  I watched this presentation for a cringing 45 minutes and would not recommend either the speaker or the company that they represented to anyone....in fact I would actively discourage people away from them.  This is not what you want when you have this sort of opportunity, so prepare, prepare prepare!!

Thanks for listening, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

So here we are at the end of the third week in January and this is traditionally the time when all those resolutions that we made in our drunken or hungover state at New Year start to fall apart.  Yes we set off on our path of eating less, exercising more, spending more time with loved ones or giving up alcohol (in my case) or fags (in the case of my good friend Liz) and here we are now feeling like its really hard work, we have had Blue Monday to cope with and we need a kick up the back side…..

HERE IS THE KICK UP THE BACKSIDE:

There is a reason you decided to change a habit so ask yourself: WHY?

WHY do you want to be thinner, lighter, spend more time with loved ones,drink less, climb a mountain, make lots of money etc?

Only when you are very clear about the WHY will you be able to carry through your resolution.  One of the key reasons why you are doing this must be for yourself, your personal development, the success of your business, your role as leader; for ultimately we are only motivated by our own inner drivers….you have to want to do it!!  So you need to be clear about the WHY before you start to consider the how and when….these will flow naturally once you have clarified the WHY.

You also need to be resolute in what you are trying to achieve and be realistic about it….you can then start to manage each day, through your prioritised ‘to do’ list (see previous blog) and each small step you take will get you on the road to reaching your goal.  There is no quick solution to changing habits because you have taken a long time to build them into a habit….there are a lot of myths around 21 days to break a habit but no concrete research to back it up.  It is up to you and your motivation….maybe you need a coach to support you through this; maybe you need to write a blog or diary to help you or maybe you have great internal motivation because you have really thought about the WHY.

Don’t forget that if you are also leading/managing a team of people you need to be their coach & support in what they are trying to achieve as well because the more motivated your team are, the more effective their performance will be!

So go and spend some quiet time considering the WHY and write it down, then you can plan the how, where and when.

Thanks for your time and good luck with your resolutions,

Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk