Fabio Capello is the Italian Manager of the English international football team. He’s very Italian. And when he started the job there was no doubt that his English wasn’t up to the job. Now he’s been doing the job for four years, he’s a little better, but caused a furore this week by suggesting that…
It’s all about knowing your audience isn’t it? If you don’t know what will ‘fit’ for them, you’re almost always forced into a detailed presentation- or an overview presentation as Olivia Mitchell has usefully labelled such a thing. It’s a real dilemma for presenters, illustrated by the following example. I was working with a UK based…
I’ve mentioned Orwell before- See here. And it’s still my view, as a speechwriter and presentation coach, that if more speakers followed these rules than the kind of stuff we tell them on training corses, the quality of corporate presentations would improve beyond measure. They’d be- Shorter Simpler Easier to understand For a simple explanation…
It’s a question I’m often asked by clients- “what’s the best way to sell an idea in a sales pitch?”. The honest answer is, obviously, ‘It depends on who’s in the audience’ but in reality you often have to choose an influencing strategy as you start to prepare your pitch. Most people only have one…
Here’s a great article from Ian Brodie on how to drive your business development through your website- A must read for all of us who think that “build it and they will come” is a just a cheesy line from a Kevin Costner movie, not a credible web-based business development strategy. We did, they didn’t……
I saw an article the other day that said 30% of new publishing contracts for business textbooks are being offered to bloggers, on the basis of their published work online. Makes sense doesn’t it? A blog shows a potential publisher that you can write; you do write, and that what you write has interest to…
We’re restoring our house. A beautiful, but bedraggled victorian place, in Oundle, UK. The previous owner lived here for thirty years and spent virtually nothing on maintenance. Unfortunately he was a DIY enthusiast and had very little skill. We bought the house for its potential and saw past the tacked-up, bodged and home-made titivations that…
As a bloke who has built a few businesses up from nothing to sale, starting with no brand, no clients, no capital, no support and often, no idea how hard it is, there are just a few things I have learned that are worth knowing. There are also many that aren’t, such as- Coventry (in…
I got it for Christmas. From my wife. She loves me. I was indifferent, to him. For an Englishman, Lord Sugar of Clapton, as he is now, is unmissable, ubiquitous and often unintelligible. He’s the ‘Donald Trump’ of our little island and he’s become the (grumpy and sometimes curmudgeonly) face of the ‘self-made-man’ in the…