What to Say &
How to Say It
You’ve been tapped to speak at the pending sales meeting. Your team doesn’t tell good stories to partners or customers. You have to sit down with a reporter and you’re slightly terrified of how to handle difficult questions.
Don’t panic. Our experienced coaches can help – here’s a sneak peek showing how.
We’ve helped 1,000s of people just like you over the past 20 years. How? By videoing them as they practice speaking, or telling stories, or answering tough questions. Then watching the video. Yes, that’s an incredibly scary process, but everyone has to practice if they want to do a good job. Think of us as your personal trainer who will help you prep and hold you accountable. The reality is everyone has different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to communicating. We’ve found video to be a sort of “truth serum” that validates what works and what doesn’t.
Learn to use weekend language.
One way to improve your verbal, your vocal and your visual skills is to learn to use weekend language.
Think about it: on weekends, we’re all great communicators because our default is storytelling. When we go to a party on Saturday night, we don’t talk about how we optimized our calendar last Wednesday to monetize our mission-critical, best-of-breed, seamless-solution-provider business. (If you do, that’s probably why you haven’t been invited back to many parties).
No, on the weekends our speech is conversational, simple, clear, and interesting. We speak in examples, anecdotes, and analogies. But then Monday morning hits. We step into the office and suddenly we’re full of feature lists and ten-point plans, “high level” terms and nonsense. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we beat the snot out of our audiences with 118-slide PowerPoint presentations chock-full of text.
Audience members typically don’t remember anything from those types of presentations. But they do remember stories. The approach and techniques found in this book are designed to help you replicate your existing strengths as a weekend storyteller so you can drag them into your weekday presentations to and conversations with customers, partners, employees, and investors.
That way, you can be a great communicator every day of the week.
Ready to learn weekend language? Click here to buy Weekend Language on Amazon or click here to subscribe to our newsletter and get chapter one for free.
Presentation Training
Get to the Point
We've all been there: a darkened conference room, a boring speaker, a lengthy slide deck.
It's not pretty.
But most of us have to present to audiences periodically. So how do we ensure that we speak in a clear, concise, compelling fashion? How do we get a point across? How do we avoid being that speaker who bores everyone or commits the sin of "Death by PowerPoint."
Fortunately, there are a few simple steps that can help you become a good public speaker by fixing any verbal, vocal or visual tics that negatively impact your presentation style.
Storytelling Workshops
Tell a Story
It’s a simple thing: tell me a story. But we don’t do it. Our storytelling workshops are designed to help unpack the stories that already exist at your organization. Imagine this, everyone comes to the workshop ready to tell a particular story - perhaps a client success story, perhaps something that happened to them, perhaps a cautionary tale. During the workshop we use video to flush out those stories and make them as “sticky” as possible, so much so that audiences will be able to repeat them word for word even three weeks after they hear them.
Click here to contact us for more information.
Media Training
Video is ugly.
But it works.
The media have the final say on any story. So if you're going to be talking to the media, you need to make sure you can get your message across.
What are your “must air” points? What are the key details you need to communicate? Whether you're preparing for a live interview on network television or meeting with a reporter from your local paper, it's important that you get your key points across. Video role-play is a critical element in developing and delivering those points.
We've worked with companies and their PR firms to deliver positive media training sessions for more than a decade. Our sessions include follow-up refresher courses and a private, individual, digital file of you on camera. The file is sent to you twenty-four hours after the session and also includes personalized coaching tips and examples.
Click here to subscribe to our newsletter and get a sample coaching report, plus chapter one of Weekend Language and presentation tips from Dave.
What Our Clients Say:
Our Coaches
Dave Yewman
A friend of Dave’s 11-year-old son Aaron asked, “What does your Dad do?” Aaron thought for a minute, then said, “He teaches people how not to say ‘um.'” Yup.
Carl Guess
Carl was on a train when someone asked what he did for a living. “I teach executives how to get to the point, and tell stories, so people understand what the hell they’re talking about,” he replied. The whole car broke up laughing.
Jill Bennett
Jill puts a laser focus on clear, conversational language that gets applause and gets quoted, plus she leads women’s workshops at major companies around the country.
Tiesha D. Douglas
Tiesha helps her clients focus on authentic communication. When you are honest and comfortable in who you are, you are likely to bring more of your ‘whole self’— your thoughts, feelings, and experiences — with you to the workplace and around your team.
Pattie Renouard
One of Pattie’s clients calls her his “BS Button” for her ability to cut through, well, BS, and find the core message.
Tatiana Kolovou
Originally from Greece, Tatiana had more than her fair share of “oops what did I just say” moments. Instead of shying away from her mistakes she leaned into the uncomfortable with an emphasis on communication, resilience and workplace effectiveness.