There must be more guidance available on the subject of Public Speaking than almost anything else and most of it is disappointing. As usual there is much theory with little practical help for those who must speak in public. There is even less concrete guidance available for those who must speak publicly in English and who are not mother-tongue speakers.

This podcast aims to address this balance today by looking at a ridiculously simple technique to help you in this difficult area.

If you put into any search browser – and search for public speaking, you will have a list not as long as your arm but as long as your leg. One of the reasons why there’s a lot of guidance for it, is because there’s obviously a great demand. People hate speaking in public.

I thought about doing this podcast because recently I was with a client working with him on a presentation that he was about to give to his executive board. Our conversation revolved mainly around the structure of the presentation as opposed to his ability to speak in public. He’s a very accomplished speaker in his own language and his English is at an extremely high level. There were one or two things which came up during our discussions which were over and above the usual type of guidance that he had heard on public speaking.

The reason being is because he had done a few courses on public speaking in his own mother tongue language and yet  noticed a couple of things that I was telling him which were new. They were new because they were based upon the guidance needed to tackle this particular subject through a second language. Which is what we’re trying to do at Being Professional in English.

Oh and the presentation he gave went very well, so well in fact that he did not even go past his first slide! Bottom Line First.

 

Public Speaking

* The Situations:

* Presentations

* Speeches

* Meetings

* Videoconferences

* Teleconferences

* Negotiations

 

What is Often and Not So Often Given Guidance On

* The Usual Checklist:

* Preparation

* Your Helping Aids

* Body Language

* The Non So Often Mentioned:

* For Presentations: The Point of Power

* For Meetings: Seating Dynamics

* Special characteristics for Non English Mother Tongue Speakers

* Your Talking Speed

 

Speed of Delivery

* Evolution of a Learner

* Slow to Moderate to Fast

* Confidence and the Fear of Pauses

* What is the Correct Speed?

* What Retains Your Audience’s Attention

* Demonstrates Your Professionalism

* Almost Everyone Will Tend to Speak too Quickly

* Take a Break. Do You Agree With Me So Far?

* Yes, I Get It !

 

The Technique That Works

* Everyone’s Natural Pace is Different

* Face to Face Session better !

* Record Yourself and Measure

* In Meetings:

* Go Slow to Show Your Professionalism, Command

* In Presentations:

* Vary Speed to Stop Monotone Production

* The Means:

* A Piece of Paper !

 

Shownotes:

Leading on from the podcast on Increasing Your Value, this podcast offers an example of actually how to read books in a manner which will allow you to embed the knowledge gained and introduce it into conversation.

This is crucial for everyone, but more so for non mother tongue speakers of English when they must develop relationships in an international enviroment that is still English.

I give exact instructions on how to gain the most from the time you spend educating yourself and hence convert this knowledge into increased performance.

 

Quick Reminder of “Increasing Your Value”

* Knowledge for Effective Small Talk

* Professional Conversation Topics

* Opportunities to Demonstrate Your Value

* Study Do Not Just Read

* Underlining and Note Taking

* Final Summary

* The Points of the Author

* Did He Transmit This

* Do You Agree

* In English or Your Mother Tongue

 

Outline of Book

* Who Wrote the Book

* Jeffrey Pfeffer

* Robert Sutton

* What Made Them Write it?

* People Knew what to Do but Did not Do it

* Stanford Professors not Doing What they Taught

* What Type of Book is it?

* Long Term Research Based.

 

Major Points of the Book and Do I Agree

* Talking Rather than Doing

* tendency to Confuse Discussion with Action

* MBA’s and Consulting World Are Also to Blame

* Eight guidelines

* Why Before How: Philosophy is Important

* Knowing Comes from Doing and Teaching Others How

* Action Counts More Than Elegant Words and Concepts

* There is No Doing Without Mistakes: What is The Company’s Response?

* Fear Fosters Knowing-Doing Gaps, So Drive Out Fear

* Beware of False Analogies: Fight the Competition Not Each Other

* Measure What Matters and What Can Help Turn Knowledge into Action

* What Leaders Do, How They Spend Their Time and How They Allocate Resources, Matters.

 

Interesting Quotes

* P32: He didn’t agree to do it, he agreed it ought to be done

* P37: How to overcome the tendency to substitute talk for action? Impose a real deadline with real measures.

* P53: In the world of management common sense is far from common

* P60: The test of language is whether it generates constructive action

* P106: The willingness to thoughtfully decide when the experience of the past is more a burden than a blessing requires substantial effort and constant vigilance but it has tremendous payoff.

* P245: If you agree then implement it

* P246:If you complain about the present but do nothing about it you lose the right to complain

 

One of the consequences of global competition is the constant stream of people becoming able to do what only we could do just a few years ago.  At an individual level we can both wait and try to compete on price i.e. lower salaries or benefits, or we can try to improve our value, what we offer to others and the companies we work for. And if you think this is not valid for you, you are mistaken. Even if you were correct, my stance would be true certainly for your children. So it is best to prepare them now for a very different world than the one you work in.

This Podcast will offer guidance on how to achieve an improvement in your value in the most effective manner possible; reading.  It will discuss what type of books to read and in which language.  When to read, finding the time, and how to read.

Has Mark gone mad?  I don’t think so, but I could understand some of you thinking that as he’s dedicating a Podcast to try to explain to people how to increase their value and doing it via reading.  Since most of this Podcast talks about the ‘when’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ to read you would be forgiven for thinking, that I’ve actually gone mad, that you don’t need help in doing that.  Well we’ll see as the Podcast goes on.

I have a few points to make, we have three today.  The first one is sort of two combined into one, why and what to read, the second when to read, and the third, probably the most surprising for most of you, how to read, which mainly talks about the difference between reading and particularly reading for enjoyment, and studying.  Please try not to turn off the Podcast now that you’ve heard the word ‘study’, it won’t be that terrible I promise you, and the benefits are tremendously great.

Why and What to Read?

* Improving Our Value

* Effective Small Talk

* Building Relationships

* Suitable Topics

* Important to be known to Offer Value

* Difference between, social and knowledge value

* Increase Knowledge Base OK but How?

* Television, Radio, Reading?

* Reading what: Articles, Newspapers, Magazines or Books

When to Read

* “I never have any spare time”

* Television

* Travelling

* Waiting

* Before Sleeping

* Always Carry a Book

How to Read.

* Study Do Not Read

* Taking Notes

* Underlining Important Passages

* Final Summary

* The Point of the Author

* Did he Manage to Transmit this?

* Examples or Quotes

* Did you agree

* In English or In Your Mother Tongue

* Balancing Act Between Time and Efficiency

Without wishing to sound old fashioned or to be a grumpy old man, the decline of letter writing has also been accompanied by the loss of a wonderful behaviour, the writing of the Thank You Note. So much so that if done correctly today it can have a tremendously positive effect upon our relationships with people.

In the last few days coming up to Christmas, I have received quite a few requests from people as to how they may write Christmas Greetings, Seasonal Greetings, particularly via email and these requests really brought to mind, at least to me, the idea of writing ‘Thank you notes’.  The reason I say this is because most of the people who ask me about what to write in Christmas Card emails, wanted to add something in it regarding what had happened during the year; you know to thank a customer for their orders or examples like that.  So I thought about ‘Thank you notes’ and I thought it would be quite a good Podcast to write, particularly now, if I manage to publish this today, today’s the 22nd of December, then maybe some of you might be able to use it now for Christmas or in the New Year when you come back.

This podcast will discuss why you should consider writing thank you notes, when it is best to send them, using which medium and finally as always with CPE Podcasts a template that you can use.

 

Do We Really Need Guidance on This?

* A Lost Behaviour

* Introduction of Email has led to Gains and Losses

* Speed of Communication and Vast Mailing Lists

* Correct Structuring and Thank You Notes

* Conversations When Young

Hours Spent Writing Thank You Notes as a Child

Time Spent Also as an Adult

The Best Time and Medium

* The When

* After Every Dinner

* After Every New Meeting – Can Add Confirmations

* After a New Contract or a Great Year

* Never Ever Too Late: Particularly for Something Substantial

* Using What Medium

* Paper Better Than Email

* Greater Impact

* Personal

* unusual

* Email Better When?

Structure

* Introduction: Dear X

* 1° Line : Thank you for dinner yesterday.

* 2° Line (Personalised) :  It was great to speak to you about your plans for next year especially regarding your enthusiasm for growth in 2012.

* 3° Line (Repetition) : Thank you again for a wonderful meal.

* Ending : Best regards,

* Your Name : Mark

 

[custom_headline type=”left, center, right” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h5″ accent=”true”] This Podcast Answers These Questions [/custom_headline]

Is there one simple manner to reduce waste of time at work?

How to change your mindset to think of the listener?

How to reinforce this mindset change with your people?

[custom_headline type=”left, center, right” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h5″ accent=”true”] Description [/custom_headline]

[columnize]

Say no to wasting time at work in our jobs: Have you ever found yourself in the situation where you are listening to a presentation, a meeting brief or simply someone speaking and you have absolutely no idea where the conversation is going? Have you ever wondered why people at work did not seem to give your ideas and recommendations the attention they deserve? Have you ever wished for more time to complete your tasks at work or better still to spend more hours in the day with your family? This podcast offers guidance on how to resolve these questions. It helps to be more efficient at work so as not to waste time in our jobs, concentrating first of all on the change of mindset that is required and then as always with Being Professional in English podcasts providing concrete and practical tools to put these solutions into action.

[/columnize]

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][prompt type=”left” button_icon=”arrow-right” target=”blank” title=”Fits Your Objectives?” message=”If you found the content of this podcast might fit with reaching your objectives then click the button to talk to BPiE and Mark will contact you with 24 hours.” button_text=”Let’s Talk” href=”http://www.being-professional-in-english.com/contact-us-page-2/”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Shownotes:

I often try to convince people of the merits of using the telephone to communicate with people rather than sending an e-mail. But often the person they are trying to contact is unavailable and so they must leave a message; a voicemail.

Given that very few organisations offer guidance on how to leave a professional and effective voicemail many people leave the same type of messages that they would do in their private lives. This leads to much wasted time in ineffectual telephone tennis.

This podcast aims to provide the guidance needed and if you consider how many voicemails you will leave over your lifetime, this podcast alone while save you a tremendous amount of time. Time you can spend on yourself or on your family.

 

The Basics

* Why Do We Use Voicemail

* Not Everyone Has a Secretary

* To Allow Non Face to Face Voice Communication

* Conversation Must Progress

* Stop Playing Phone Tennis

* Joint Objective to Reach an Objective

* Treat Them Like E-mails

* Always Professional Content – Same As Emails!

* It Is Not Private They Are All Stored

* Only Talk about Work Topics

* Duration is Brief

* 3 Minutes is the MAXIMUM

* 1 Minute is Often Too Long

 

The Components

* One Word Greeting

* Their Name

* Your Name

* Your Message

* Remember to Progress the Conversation by…..

* Answering Their Questions

* Asking Your Own Questions

* Making Suggestions or Recommendations

* Your Number

* Every Time

* Prefaced with ‘My number is….’ to Alert the Listener

 

 

Shownotes:

As I mentioned in part one I am sorry that I had to split this podcast into two parts. In this second part I am going to enter into the discussion of exactly which steps I would recommend to help you remain in control with telephone calls that you make.

In the future I will discuss telephone calls you receive and different aspects of that slightly more nerve raking activity but in this particular podcast I to discuss the linguistic issues which allow you to remain in control with every single telephone you make.

The fortunate thing about telephoning is that it is possible to predict it. This is one of the reasons that people say they are really nervous about making a telephone call and especially receiving a telephone call because they think they can’t predict it. And that could put them in trouble on the telephone and it is mistaken, you can predict it and I am going to show you how.

 

Why Use the Telephone

* Impressions Count

* World is made of impressions not of facts

* Too Much Emailing Done – Don’t Hide

* Relationships Count

* The New Economy World

* The World is Flat

* Videoconferencing is Increasing in Use – Practice Now

* Stepping Stone to Use the Telephone First

* Relatively Easy to Predict

 

The Five Stages ‘You are in Control’

* Greet and then Identifying Yourself

* Good morning. This is Mark Olding

* Ask to Speak to Someone

* Could I speak to John Taylor, please?

* Start with Small Talk

* How are you?

* KNOW THY PEOPLE = know what to ask.

* Explain the Purpose of your Call

* I am calling about the presentation

* Could you tell me what you thought of it?

* End the Call hopefully with Action Points

* So I will organise the meeting for tomorrow

* Thanks. Goodbye

 

Repetition of the Language Used

* Good morning. This is Mark Olding

* Could I speak to John Taylor, please?

* I am calling about the presentation

* Could you tell me what you thought of it?

* So I will organise the meeting for tomorrow

* Thanks. Goodbye

 

 

Shownotes:

Most people never have to negotiate or give a presentation on behalf of their company. Few are  required to run meetings or manage projects. Only those involved with international sales need to communicate outside of their language. So what are the professional skills that the majority of people need to know?

Interaction with international colleagues and managers, e-mailing and telephoning are the three major categories. And it is of course the last one that of telephoning which causes people the most anxiety.

This podcast breaks down into easy learnable steps how to make a telephone call in English. It will take away the anxiety that is usually associated with this skill and allow you to demonstrate that you are indeed a highly competent professional who is not restrained by the lack of English.

 

 

Why Use the Telephone

* Impressions Count

* World is made of impressions not of facts

* Too Much Emailing Done – Don’t Hide

* Relationships Count

* The New Economy World

* The World is Flat

* Videoconferencing is Increasing in Use – Practice Now

* Stepping Stone to Use the Telephone First

* Relatively Easy to Predict

 

The Five Stages ‘You are in Control’

* Greet and then Identifying Yourself

* Good morning. This is Mark Olding

* Ask to Speak to Someone

* Could I speak to John Taylor, please?

* Start with Small Talk

* How are you?

* KNOW THY PEOPLE = know what to ask.

* Explain the Purpose of your Call

* I am calling about the presentation

* Could you tell me what you thought of it?

* End the Call hopefully with Action Points

* So I will organise the meeting for tomorrow

* Thanks. Goodbye

 

Repetition of the Language Used

* Good morning. This is Mark Olding

* Could I speak to John Taylor, please?

* I am calling about the presentation

* Could you tell me what you thought of it?

* So I will organise the meeting for tomorrow

* Thanks. Goodbye

 

Shownotes:

According to sociologists people make up their mind about others within the first 45 seconds of meeting them. Fortunately in the professional world you are sometimes offered the opportunity to remedy any mistakes that you may have made during this very short period. But I often ask myself, why make your objectives any more difficult to reach by making a poor first impression?

This podcast is the second in the series of guidance on professional presenting in English where I wish to concentrate on the key element of the presenting introduction, something which I briefly discussed some weeks ago in the podcast “the first 60 seconds”. This podcast will explain why and then as usual for CPE podcasts will explain how to really grab your audience’s attention.

Why make your objectives any more difficult to reach my making a poor first impression?

This is a question which I often find myself asking some of my clients when we discuss presenting of proposals or reports, or negotiations. In fact first impressions are so important that we do really need to consider them for all of the competences that we need to use as professionals.

I am sure that when you are speaking your own mother tongue language you take great care with the first impression you give. When you are presenting yourself in a second language and in this case an English, your concentration your…your energy is…is elsewhere.  It is with the construction of the language and when you have an environment of a presentation, negotiation, meeting an important public event it’s very difficult to keep your mind on this first impression.

This Podcast will help you by giving you a concrete and simple technique to use.

 

Why Introductions are so important

* Impressions Count

* World is made of impressions not of facts

* The bar or the shoe example

* Looked down upon because of language

* First impressions are particularly important

* Interviews

* Presentations

* All the professional competences we know

* The 45 seconds you have

 

Why ‘This is timely because…’ is the key line

* As a professional always think if you add value

* Peter Drucker

* Why should these people be here in front of me?

* Can I justify the next 30 minutes of their time?

* Presenting

* The proof of why they are there

* Grab their attention at the beginning, easier to keep

* Holding their attention by putting it in terms of their benefit

 

 

 

Shownotes:

One of the most difficult situations to deal with in a professional manner is how to run a meeting in English when some of the participants are actively criticising an idea. It is difficult because of the need to confront people in a public arena while remembering to keep the meeting effective.

Few people know how to do this when using their mother tongue language, so the ones that can manage this in second language stand out greatly from the crowd.

I don’t know about the people listening to this podcast but I cannot remember how many times I have been in meetings with people and some of the participants there have continued to criticise many of the ideas that were brought up in that meeting.

I have always felt that this created a terrible atmosphere within the meeting, with people trying to score points on the other and even if the atmosphere was not damaged by this type of behaviour, very rarely did we finish the meeting with some sort of action point, with some sort of solution to whatever the problem that we were trying to sort out. So if you are in a position where you are running a meeting and you’re doing it in your second language learning, in English it is really difficult to try to tackle these people while remembering to keep the meeting on course to arrive at an effective ending with some decisions with some action points and so on so forth.

This podcast gives guidance on how to tackle the situation, professionally in English.

 

Reasons not to do things

* People are usually against change

* The tendency for talk to replace action

* Companies are usually against change

* The present is a perfect imitation of the past

* Good aspects : Mission statements

* Not so good aspects: adapting in the new economy

 

Reasons to criticise

* Easy to see problems

* Little energy required

* Pessimism sounds profound

* The majority of people repeatedly criticise

* Largely harmless in university

* Many examples of such careers

* Around senior management

* Toxic to the workplace

* Courageous professionals discouraged

* Smart yes, action orientated no

* Stay away from these people

 

The meeting environment

* Never criticise someone in public

* You may need their help

* You have seen the agenda, so call them before the meeting

* If you are running the meeting be a leader

* You don’t need expensive leadership training

* Common sense approach

* Reframe the criticism

* How do you solve the problem you described so well.

* Hold people accountable: For another podcast