When I was in school, I had to write a lot of essays. This was great practice for thinking logically (and becoming a speechwriter!), and I hope that essays haven’t gone the way of the rotary telephone. But today, TED Talks are also being assigned in class. So I sometimes hear from students who have Read More
Blog
Speaking Up Is a Mix of Skill and Will, for Both Men and Women
What can help you speak up — for yourself, for your team, and for your ideas? To “speak up,” you need a combination of skill and will. This means that you’re clear about wanting to be heard by others, and that you have the basic public speaking skills (you speak loudly enough, your words can be understood, you pace Read More
Annoyed at Work or Home? Business Communication Skills Can Help [Download: The Annoyance Grid]
Business Communication Skills Can Help with More than Just Business You won’t hear this at a job interview, but the fact is, there’s a lot of inter-personal emotion mixed into our daily business lives: People have trouble accepting feedback. People get annoyed with (and are sometimes rude to) their coworkers. Personal situations show up at Read More
The 3 Rules of Great Pitching
There are two kinds of great pitching: One happens on a baseball diamond. The other happens when employees, entrepreneurs — really, anyone in business — “pitches” a prospect, donor, influencer, or boss to get support for a project or an idea. If you work “outside the home,” you’ve probably given a business pitch, and you’ll Read More
Got One Minute? Build Your Skills With These Five Public Speaking Exercises
How can five public speaking exercises that take just one minute to complete help you become a better public speaker? Well, as with any physical discipline (and public speaking is physical; you speak with your body), a little bit of daily practice can produce more dramatic results than the occasional cram session. Yes, public speaking mastery takes Read More