Talk abut a duh moment! I recently gave a workshop for women entrepreneurs at New York’s In Good Company Workplaces. The topic was “Talking About Your Business,” and I thought it went quite well. Almost 30 women got up in front of the room and talked briefly about their businesses. They got feedback from me Read More
Mistakes (We All Make Them!)
Rick Perry’s Public Speaking “Senior Moments”
NOTE: This post was originally written in 2011, when Texas governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry forgot the name of a federal agency he planned to eliminate. In December of 2016, Perry was nominated by President-Elect Donald Trump to head that agency, the Department of Energy. You can’t make this stuff up! **** We all forget things. And even Read More
The Public Speaking Cringe: “I Said it Wrong.”
No, you probably didn’t. Lots of people suffer over the real or imagined errors in their public speech. But here’s the thing: A communication is only “wrong” (if you even want to take that tone), when Your audience totally doesn’t get it. Yup, that’s it. The sole determinant of a public speaking error is, “Does Read More
How to Communicate Bad News to Your Customers
Bad News? Communicate It Carefully! It seems like Netflix is often in trouble with us customers. This post from my archives talks about one of the reasons why, as summarized in two New York Times headlines: 7/12/11: “Netflix Raises Price of DVD and Online Movies Package by 60%“ 7/25/11: “Netflix Sees Angry Clients Cutting Profits.“ Read More
Rupert Murdoch’s Apology Demonstrates How to Say You’re Sorry (Not!)
Rupert Murdoch’s “Apology” for Hacking British Journalists’ Phones If you’re interested in delivering a non-apology, you can learn a lot from Rupert Murdoch, the man who’s arguably done more than anyone except Grover Norquist and the Koch Brothers to shape our public discourse in the U.S.. After his newspaper, News of the World, was caught red-handed hacking into Read More