It's not what you do that counts...

As an entrepreneur building your connections through socialising and networking, how many people ask you this question: "So what is it that you do?"

How do you respond?
Do you sigh and reel off your standard response? I wouldn't blame you if you did. After all if I were to answer that honestly, it would sound something like:
"I listen and observe people, I type keys on my computer, then I stand up and talk to people."

Here are a few others ways I could answer it:
* I am a presentation skills coach (my job description)
* I am am CEO of Light the Spark (my position)
* I coach people who want to improve their presentation skills (what I do but not really what they want to know)

If I leave it like this, the person listening will make their own mind up about how I could help them (or why they don't need to talk to me anymore!).

What people actually want to know is the answer to this question:
How do you help people like me?

Think about it.
People do not spend money on diet food - they spend money to feel better about themselves when they look in the mirror, or to be able to climb a flight of stairs without being out of breath.

People don't hire a dating coach - they spend money to find someone they can spend the rest of their lives with (and to avoid excruciating dates with totally unsuitable people)

People don't hire a presentations skills coach - they spend money to make sure that when they make that sales pitch, they get the sale.

So work out what it is that you do that helps people. And the next time someone asks you "what do you do?" give them a powerful, succinct summary of who you help and how their lives improve by working with you.

Let Your Audience Teach You

Today's blog is inspired by a quotation I recently posted on Twitter by Marva Collins:
'The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.'

To be a great teacher or trainer you could do worse than let your audience teach you. To do that, you must create opportunities to interact with them, and them with you.

The more you can interact with your audience, the more you will learn from them. They will spark off new ideas in you and enhance your teaching a thousand fold.

Teaching is not about filling someone's head with facts - such as the seven different leadership styles.

Teaching is about inspiring people - about setting off a spark in them - a curiosity to learn more, to observe others, to reflect on their own experiences, to help them see through new eyes the world that has always been around them.

One of my favourite lecturers was a man who rarely gave me information, or answers. He almost always posed questions and let us debate our views. When we stated our point of view (so confidently, awaiting his agreement, for him to validate our position), he normally responded with a counterpoint- another question. He made me think more deeply, made me go beyond the obvious, the superficial and really work things out for myself.

He sparked more thoughts in me than he could ever have managed by telling me things.

Ask questions.
* Open questions.
* Controversial questions.
* Challenging questions.

Treat all your students as teachers and you will be amazed at how much more everyone will learn as a result.

Beautiful Simple Images combined with Powerful Words

This is a great example of a mid-week pick-me-up.
What's not to like?

* Beautiful, simple, high quality photographs of gorgeous scenery that echo and enhance the phrases
* Touching, inspirational words that really connect with all our lives - who hasn't ever felt like quitting and needed support to keep going?

In just two minutes, without rushing, this presentation speaks to us personally (notice the prevalence of the word "you" in the poem).

Please post your comments below - what would you improve?

What Does Your Typeface Say About You?

I am a big fan of fonts - from my earliest days tracing over letters and fonts from a hardcopy catalogue, I still love to explore and experiment.

I choose fonts that appeal to my own personality - quirky perhaps, avoiding the predictable. Although in presentations it pays to use something like Arial or the words take on a life of their own when you play it back (been there!)

This is a great video about typefaces, looking at how different restaurants might use typefaces in their signage and menus to represent the food style.

The presentation uses a great combination of strong visual elements, music, matched words and the big daddy of them all - repetition, repetition, repetition.

Present Material to Suit the Way Our Brains Work

This presentation by Garr Reynolds (of Presentation Zen fame) shows how Dr. John Medina' rules on how the brain works should drive our preparation of presentations and workshops.

Rule #1 - Exercise boosts brain power.
So why do we tend to present to people who are sitting down in one of the most passive physical conditions in the world?

Rule #4 - We don't pay attention to boring things. So why do people still design presentations that are slide after slide of bullet points?

Rule #10: Vision triumphs all other senses. And a PowerPoint slide full of words or text doesn't really count here!

I was so inspired by this presentation and the lessons I can learn as a presenter, I bought the book...!

Brain Rules for Presenters

View more documents from garr.

Learning Through Play

This is a great talk about the creativity, the ingenuity, the inherent desire to create new things and try new things within children. To my mind, we need Tinkering Schools for adults - with no set agenda, with plenty of raw materials and allow ourselves to just play and learn as we go.

We need to give ourselves space to let our imaginations fly, without the rigid rules or expectations we frequently place on ourselves.

How can you use this?
Do you have space in your workshops to give people time to tinker?
Do you have too many rules about what a workshop is or is not?
Could you invite people to a workshop where everyone present teaches in small bursts the very best of what they know? Where there is no set agenda, no learning journey laid out in advance?

Using PowerPoint for Comedy

Comedian Tim Lee is a fantastic example of how to use PowerPoint to great effect.

He uses very simple visual information to enhance his humour and create a more complex story than would be possible using just words, as in traditional stand-up.

Presenting is all about playing to your strengths:
* You are great at talking, describing, body language, gestures.
* PowerPoint is great at diagrams, photos, graphs, visualising complex data.

So when you are thinking about what to put on your slides - let PowerPoint do the things you cannot do!