https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/rss en-us Chances are that you've seen the following happen more than once: A colleague builds a beautiful case to support his recommendation. Then comes the relentless questioner who pummels him with questions that seem to have nothing to do with the core case, and the colleague limps to a close as if he'd been attacked by war planes rather than stung by a B-B gun. If you haven't experienced this in real life, you've certainly seen it on TV press conferences. People ask hostile questions for any number of reasons:... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1980 Tue, 06 Jan 2015 07:14:04 -0500 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1980-3-tips-for-handling-hostile-questions-during-presentations More and more people are trying to use iPads during their sales meetings, but often get stuck with just email, CRM, and maybe a brochure or PDF presentation, none of which is really going to rock your audience's world. So, to change all that, we're going to run down a list of some of the best apps to use to help you revolutionize the way that you conduct sales meetings, with the iPad playing an integral part in the conversation. Sadly,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1617 Tue, 26 Aug 2014 09:08:18 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1617-7-vital-ipad-apps-for-sales-presentations Last week I received a call from a sales manager whose team we worked with last year. He wanted a presentation skills "refresher" for his salespeople because their presentations were getting "sloppy" again. These were the same salespeople who did extremely well during our training class one year ago, but over the months they had gradually slid back into old habits. Granted, they were still "pretty good" in terms of their skills. But the manager wanted them to be great again. While this is certainly frustrating for the sales manager, it is understandable. After all,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1577 Fri, 15 Aug 2014 08:00:40 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1577-5-ways-to-keep-your-sales-team-focused-on-presentation-skills Every few weeks, someone speaks out on a public forum somewhere about how bad PowerPoint is. About how it should be eliminated from corporate culture. About how it is the root of all evil. Over on the Presentation Gurus LinkedIn group, one of the regular contributors, Eric Bergman, shared a link to an NPR article entitled "Physicists, Generals and CEOs Agree: Ditch the PowerPoint." The article describes how... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1547 Tue, 05 Aug 2014 09:05:30 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1547-the-folly-of-ditching-powerpoint Could you persuade someone to donate a quarter of a million dollars in 120 seconds? Last year one of our clients was in this situation. He shared his story with me last week while I was leading a workshop for his nonprofit staff. Here's the backstory. The nonprofit director was rejected multiple times by this prospective donor, a local senior business executive. Not just rejected, but he was told very frankly by the executive that meeting was a waste of time. With persistence, the nonprofit director sent out a final Hail Mary:... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1531 Tue, 29 Jul 2014 11:02:37 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1531-the-two-minute-250-000-presentation So here's the setting: Standing in the wings, a nervous entrepreneur has an idea. And it's not that they're just looking at it as a quick path to personal wealth. It also seems a part of their DNA - to create something from nothing. But they have a problem. Not enough cash to make their dream a reality and they need to get more of the stuff from probably the most intimidating audience they'll ever encounter: venture capitalists. You see, those investors' motivation is rarely altruistic. It has everything to do with making money...lots of it and with deal leverage that feels like your children, dog and golf clubs may be included. What I'm describing here is one of the most highly-rated TV shows going, The Shark Tank. So let's see if we have our arms around this high-pressure presentation scenario:... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1530 Tue, 29 Jul 2014 10:58:52 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1530-presentation-lessons-from-the-shark-tank Have you ever found yourself sitting in the center seat of a packed auditorium-hemmed in on both sides by people and laptops-listening to a keynote speaker who is supposed to be imparting knowledge and wisdom, but instead is droning on and on? You want to run, but you can't. So you endure what seems like torture. You probably think this only happens in large university lecture halls, right?... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1470 Thu, 03 Jul 2014 06:56:33 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1470-the-7-deadly-sins-of-presentation-preparation In a recent blog post I discussed a study that showed that we leak our stress levels to other people. As I pointed out, if stress is contagious and we leak our emotions, then speakers need to concern themselves with their emotional states before and during their speeches. A stressed-out speaker will induce stress in the audience. Imagine what that does for communication. When we're stressed,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1459 Thu, 26 Jun 2014 11:39:28 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1459-how-to-deal-with-stress-15-tips-for-presenters PowerPoint 2010 has a new feature that's very hard to find, but that people are praising over and over. It's called Custom Shapes, and it's a set of four tools that you can use to create your very own shapes. Why do you need Custom Shapes?... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1186 Fri, 28 Feb 2014 04:52:46 -0500 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1186-how-to-create-your-own-custom-shapes-in-powerpoint Last year I created an online tool to calculate the sizes of two shapes based on values that you input. This allows you to create a diagram with two proportional shapes (see below). I wrote about this calculator in an issue of my newsletter and gave examples of the background and other links about this type of diagram... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1174 Tue, 25 Feb 2014 10:34:23 -0500 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1174-tired-of-bar-graphs-compare-values-by-using-proportional-shapes I remember my first big speaking engagement with the International Association of Business Communicators. It took place over a decade ago in Vancouver, British Columbia, and like any trip across the border, it involved a brief chat with a uniformed agent in the customs booth. What would happen next would remind me once again about one of the most important presentation skills we can master. As I stood patiently in line... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/993 Wed, 16 Oct 2013 09:36:20 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/993-the-one-presentation-skill-that-anchors-them-all The sponsor - an experienced sales person - had 15 minutes to make her pitch to 25 customers. Each person in the audience could recommend her services to others. It was an important 15 minutes. But she blew it. Instead of pitching a fun, cool product (which is what she represents), she... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/992 Wed, 16 Oct 2013 09:35:47 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/992-why-should-they-listen-to-your-pitch-9-key-tips PowerPoint has some amazing drawing tools that let you create all kinds of illustrations. But sometimes it can be frustrating when you group text with an object to create an image because when you go to make it bigger or smaller the text remains the same size. That's because you're just resizing the text block, not the text itself. Bummer, right? Well, guess what - it's possible to transform text into scalable graphics using the "paste as picture" command. Before you think... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/866 Wed, 28 Aug 2013 05:11:13 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/866-the-best-powerpoint-trick-you-don-t-know-about You need to create chemistryï?½with your staff as a manager, with your team as a project leader, with your boss, with your customer, with your strategic partners. People believe people they like... [Just as many roads lead to success in the workplace, many different personalities attract followers. But the following traits seem universally to attract people and open their minds and hearts...] http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/558 Tue, 02 Apr 2013 09:31:00 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/558-increase-the-likeability-factor-to-make-your-message-matter Mask