We learn a lot from the people we work with. Recently, on the last day of a workshop, one of our learners said that the most important thing he took from the class was that “Anyone can be more effective with time.” When he made this comment, he was talking about pausing long enough to...
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The Turpin tagline—Find your focus. Be yourself. Only better.—is really simple, and we’ve been using it for years. But we keep finding new resonance in it. In this post, I’m going to talk about the “be yourself” part. Recently, we were comparing notes and discovered that we’ve each had a few learners who put on...
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For some business presenters, nervousness is a temporary condition. When they’ve moved past the first few minutes, their nerves seem to float away. For other presenters, nervousness is long-lasting and debilitating. It never goes away, even when the presentation is going well. We’ve heard this described as having an out-of-body experience or experiencing an eleven...
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I recently delivered a workshop for eight very nervous presenters. They were a great group and talked very frankly about their worries and concerns about presenting. Their nervousness stemmed from different things. For example, One of the presenters hated being the center of attention, so speaking to groups increased her anxiety. One was a non-native...
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Not long ago, we were working with a group of highly technical professionals who had recently moved into a sales role. While these folks are excellent in their technical work, their ability to be persuasive when talking with clients was lacking. One of the topics we discussed was the need to lead with benefits. That...
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You may have heard the adage that people fear public speaking more than death. In their 2012 study,¹ Karen Kangas Dwyer and Marlina M. Davidson proved that this is true. More than sickness, financial problems, or, yes, even death, we really don’t want to get up in front of our peers to speak. Nervous speakers...
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Maximize the Benefits and Reduce the Snags of Team Projects and Presentations In the first of a two-part series on team collaboration, we discuss the importance of having a framing strategy. When you were in school, you probably heard the words “group project” and groaned internally. You anticipated days or weeks of miscommunication, differing...
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Congratulations! Your conference speaker proposal has been accepted. Now what? Beyond getting the information you’ll be delivering together, timing its delivery to stay within your time limit, and creating slides that will be easily understood and easy for you to deliver. Four Best Practices for Delivering a Great Conference Presentation 1. Don’t...
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One way to make your presentations clearer and easier to listen to is to avoid burying the lead. “Burying the lead” (sometimes spelled “lede”) is a journalism expression that refers to the failure to mention the most important part of a story first, in effect burying it in the details. This principle applies to presentations...
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A myth we thought was long debunked came back around a few weeks ago. In talking about how to do demonstration presentations, an experienced presenter (not a Turpin trainer) said that real eye contact isn’t necessary, “Just look at the back wall, and people will think you’re looking at them,” she said. Even if that...
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