Presentation Skills - Three Points and Your Out!

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Before organizing your presentation keep reminding yourself that Less is More. Also consider that most presentations have far too many concepts, and the concepts far too many details..

You should be able to put the gist of your presentation into one sentence or “headline”. What would the headline of your speech be? Think about it. Start by writing a few full sentences to describe your overall theme. Edit out the superfluous adjectives, and then see if you can combine the sentences all into one. Then make that sentence a phrase. If you can’t put all that into one headline you may have to simplify your idea.

It’s also probable that you’re audience has never heard your idea before. Though old news to you, its very likely something new to your audience. If you’re on a traveling road show giving the speech over and over again, no matter where you go on the whistle-stop tour, it’s always their first time. Don’t forget that.

Most presenters end up using the “kitchen sink” approach and tell their audiences all they can, about everything they can, in the short amount of time allocated to them. Therefore it becomes a race to spew out as much information as possible as quickly as possible, essentially a self-serving data dump. How disheartening for the audience.

Your presentation is about your audience, not about your finishing everything you want to say as quickly as possible. And its certainly not about your demonstrating the breadth and depth of your knowledge, even if the CEO is in the back of the room. Although we’d like to believe it, nobody can recall everything that you say anyway.

So choose to make your headline important, relevant to your audience, and to the point. Once they have the headline, they have a context into which to put your supporting evidence. But if they’re still trying to figure out what your main point is while you’re trying to offer them proof, the impact of your evidence will be highly diluted.

And speaking of points: Keep it to three. Humans have an amazing ability to remember things that come in three, and forget things more complicated. The rule of three is a principle in writing that suggests that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of things.

No matter what your topic, either break your supporting data apart or put them together to form three main components. Repeating those three components often will lead to not only greater comprehension, but much greater retention, too.

So an argument that is broken down into three concepts, each supported by three solid sources of evidence, becomes an argument that your audience will find very easy to buy into, even it they don’t see the simplicity of the symmetry.

J. Douglas Jefferys is a principal at

PublicSpeakingSkills.com

, an international consulting firm specializing in training businesses of all sizes to communicate for maximum efficiency. The firm spreads its unique knowledge through on-site classes, public seminars, and high-impact videos, and can be reached through the Internet or at 888-663-77

Call Center Trainings

Hani Masgidi

Training is the key for any business success, as it prepares you to take-on the challenges with a lot more skill and belief and when its matter of creating good impression on the customer who is of other nationality, other culture and creed, the role of training gets even more pivotal.

Call centre training is the most crucial part to make the experience of your caller rewarding and to get repeat on sales, otherwise, you won't get a second chance to create your first impression. The key areas which need strenuous training are product knowledge, technology and speaking soft with skill.

Special soft skills trainings would be highly required for your call center team before handling international customers. Starting with the accent, make the heavy and localized accent affordable for the US or other developed nation caller, who are money rich and time-poor, they do not want to take too longer in understanding the alien accents. You will need to train your call center team through accent-neutralization and by arranging smooth and easy to adopt monikers. With this you can overcome the challenges faced by your call center with your international customers.

The difference in cultures, should be highly considered as it is the most difficult challenge call center team might come across. Customers always have high expectations on the customer service representatives. They are in some sort of problem while they are calling, some credit card payment issue, discrepancy on a bill, want to get assistance for computer problem or are seeking delay in their already bookings for airlines, they are all calling you with high level of frustration and the agent ahs to be trained to handle such situations with cool head and a lot of common sense.

These already offended callers are not ready to relieve anyone who is short of words, solutions and way-out for their everyday problems, all the agents should go strenuous in-house training before they are exposed to callers that how compliance can be achieved. US based customers expects the rep to offer a certain level of empathy, put thoughtful questions across, use relevant words and get hold of the problem smartly. Whereas, reps of under developed countries show sympathy which is offending for the callers who are expecting sincere support.

Training can give customer service raps more word choice and way forward to lead the conversation ahead, they can present a confident gesture about offering sincere responses in the manner that echoes with your customer base. The more technology savvy your customer service reps are, the more their chances of converting a call into long-term relationship exist. Train the reps with all the innovative technologies to make them feel good about everything. This will improve their confidence and they will show better performance.

As a crux, the rep should be given adequate knowledge of the content they are supposed to handle, they should be given ample training in receiving calls in safe-simulated environment to get confidence and skills, a detailed perspective of the country which has most potential prospects for the call centre and last but not the least, an ongoing coaching to make their skill, their excellence.

Your One Stop Call Center resources and call center trainings

Four Questions, Sharper Thinking

Here is an article by Tom Stevens for all the call center managers that are called upon to present at conferences. Hope it helps!

Four Questions for Sharper Thinking and Focused Presentations

How do you even start to organize ideas?

Perhaps you have a complex business you need to describe to potential customers or investors. Maybe your department needs to continually justify its existence to corporate powers that be, or you have to present material about a complicated subject to people from different backgrounds.

What is a Solution?
Here’s a technique for organizing your ideas so you can present a topic meaningfully, whether you have one hour or are limited to one minute. Succinctly answer these four questions: what, why, how, and so what?

    * What means, what is it? what is the objective? what is this about?
      • Why includes questions like, why are we here? why is this important? why now?
      • How questions include, how is this going to get done? how does it work? how do we make it happen?
      • So What deals with long-term implications, a follow-up to why. Why will this matter in the long run? What happens if we don't?

Order is not important, but being sure to answer all four questions is. Here's the key that makes this method powerful: answer each of the questions — what, why, how, so what — with one sentence or phrase each. Voila, you have a succinct summary, that also serves as a framework that can be expanded to whatever level of detail is required.

Why is this a powerful technique?
First, it helps reach people who think differently than you do. Some people are not ready to take in information until they know how something will happen. Others feel it’s much more important to know why, and still others need to know the what in great detail. Everyone has a bias toward one of these questions. Cover them all if you want to ensure connection with everyone.

Second, that bias often extends to the information we present others. How many times have you seen someone give a great overview of how a process works, but fail to mention why it is important - or start giving directions about how to do something, but not say what they are talking about. Answer all four questions to make sure all important information is communicated.

Third, this is a way to be brief but still convey key information. There are many settings where you just aren’t going to get the hour, or the day, that you may feel you need to do justice to the topic. If you can do one sentence each to answer what, why, how, and so what, then you have a powerful summary that provides clarity.

How can you use the four question technique?
Introducing a Topic. If you are giving a longer presentation, briefly covering the four questions – or at least mentioning that you are going to cover them – helps ensure everyone in the audience is on board.

Summarizing Information. Skill at summarizing information is valuable for communicating clearly. The four question model offers a framework that help you articulate critical pieces of information succinctly.

Organizing Complex Information. For example, a unit within a large corporation carried more than a dozen major initiatives. Team leaders spent a retreat day articulating, in one sentence, the what, why, how, and so what for each of their projects. By the end of the day they were able to craft a one page summary of their unit’s efforts, which became a very useful tool for strategizing, priority setting, and communication.

WWHSW in Action. A manager knows her project can make a big difference to her company, a large life-sciences corporation undergoing rapid change. She knows the success, and funding, of her project depends on getting it on the radar screen of key executives. With that in mind she works diligently on a presentation scheduled for an upcoming company leadership meeting.

The day of the meeting she sits through a long series of presentations where every speaker seems to have too many powerpoint slides and goes over time. The meeting winds down and apologies are made that there isn’t enough time for the manager to talk about her project. Undaunted, she stands up and says “I can tell you about the project in sixty seconds.” That alone grabs everyone’s attention. True to her word, she summarizes her project in one minute in an impressive way everyone can remember - and does!

So what?
Although this tool is simple, it is incredibly powerful. When you present complex information so it feels complete, connects with people who think differently, and is concise, then you communicate with impact. There are few competencies more helpful toward giving you an edge in building influence and enlisting others in the achievement of goals.

by Tom Stevens (c)2008
Tom Stevens helps individuals and organizations create brilliant futures and make a difference. To contact him, visit www.ThinkLeadershipIdeas.com

When and How to Intervene

Here are a few tips just in case you ever run into an unpleasant situation at your call center where an intervention is needed.

When and How to Intervene

Picture this: You’re running a regular, non-eventful meeting when…

Scenario One: Suddenly, as if some invisible button has been pushed, unexpected emotion erupts from the group.

Or…Scenario Two: You suddenly sense a strong feeling of resistance from the group. No one says anything about it, but you can’t shake your own awareness of “push-back.”

Or…Scenario Three: You notice that Bill has his arms crossed over his chest and is rolling his eyes as others talk. 

Have you been there? Is there a “right” thing to do in these instances, and if so, what is it?

The Facilitator’s Internal Process

Successful facilitators are as aware of what’s going on inside of them as they are of group dynamics. This awareness helps them make decisions about if and when to intervene.

Before we go any further, let me define my terms. The three-stage process I will describe is equally relevant to teaching as it is to facilitating. In this article, I’m focusing on the process of facilitating a group so that it can develop its own solutions. A great facilitator can be considered a “process expert,” while a great teacher is a content expert first.

So, when I speak of facilitation, I am talking about the process of facilitating group dynamics toward some end product. We facilitate when we run a meeting, lead a strategic planning process, or run a brainstorming session. We facilitate when we ask, not when we tell.

From the time a great facilitator steps into the room in which s/he will facilitate, s/he “tunes in” to a three-stage internal cycle. When a facilitator is aware of these steps, s/he can responsibly and aptly fulfill the facilitator role.

Three Stages of Tuned–In Facilitation

Stage One: Practice “CEU,” or Cellular Environmental Awareness
Great facilitators allow themselves to acknowledge all the tangible and intangible aspects of the facilitation environment. How does it “feel?” (Is the room set up in a way that adds or detracts from a feeling of open collaboration? What attempts have been made to “de-institutionalize” a sterile environment?) What hints about their emotional states do the participants give as they walk in? What do you see, hear, and feel throughout the meeting?

The act of facilitation has been described as “following the “chi” (or energy) of the group. A facilitator practicing CEU uses every fiber of his/her body to perceive the group’s shifting dynamics throughout their interaction.

Stage Two: Diagnose
As you notice behavioral shifts, changes in the “feeling” of the meeting, or verbal hints, ask yourself: “What’s going on?” It is this internal, ongoing acknowledgement of dynamics that enables the facilitator to make the right choice: to intervene or not to intervene.

An example: Susan notices that Pat and John, who are sitting next to each other in a meeting, often speak to each other in low tones. Susan asks herself “What’s going on?” Pat and John could be laughing at her or at the meeting itself, they could be processing information to understand better, they could be discussing last night’s episode of “Survivor…”

Susan realizes that Pat and John will play unique roles in the changes under discussion, so when she thinks, “I bet they’re talking about THAT…” she feels she may have gotten it right. The sense (call it a guess) of “I believe THIS is going on…” is all there is to Stage Two.

Three essential reminders at Stage Two, the Diagnosis Stage:

• Your diagnosis is yours alone. It may be off the mark.
• Your diagnosis guides your actions. Your actions impact the group.

You are not obligated to go to the next stage.

Stage Three: Intervene

In the example above, Susan will only intervene if she gets the feeling that “Something needs to change.” Ingrid Bens, in Facilitating With Ease! defines intervention as “any action deliberately taken to improve the functioning of the group.” When the facilitator intervenes, s/he holds up a mirror to the participants so that they can see and understand their own process better. Though the decision to intervene is made internally, the intervention is external.

Here are some questions to ask yourself while deciding whether to intervene:

• Could this situation go away on its own?
• Is it necessary to stop the action? Why?
• What impact will intervening have on the flow of the meeting? The environment?
• What will happen if I do nothing?

Here is some helpful language when intervening:

• I’m noticing that…
• Let’s stop for a moment and look at what’s going on.
• It strikes me that…
• I’d like to suggest…

A tuned-in facilitator is a good facilitator. Using a popular metaphor, the role of a facilitator is to orchestrate the process of the group. Without awareness of his or her own internal process, a facilitator is reading from only half the musical score. 

Read more articles about Facilitation Skills. Learn about Guila Muir’s Facilitation Skills Workshops.

Guila Muir is the premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com

© 2007 Guila Muir

 All rights reserved.

Customer Service Training Remains Inadequate

Most organizations still do not provide comprehensive, let alone adequate, training in today's marketplace. A recent report by the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) said that only 27% of service and support staff spend more than 5 days on annual ongoing training.

Beyond that, it was found that 82% of new hires feel they do not receive much training in customer service skills, compared to only 18% who feel they do. What an exposure for a company to have–not only to not provide sufficient, robust training, but to have the majority of employees feel they weren't provided with enough training, so they don't have the tools necessary to do their jobs!

In another study the good news is that it's reported that nearly half of US employers plan to spend more time and money on training in 2008 Novations Group Survey). One of the top categories of training is Customer Service, followed by Technical Training, Interpersonal/Teamwork, Communications, on down to Basic Skills.

The part of this study that concerns me is that employers 'plan to spend more time and money.' Like me, I'm sure you've heard this before. Let's make sure the feet go where the mouth leads. As they say, talk is cheap, let's get those training initiatives implemented.

After all, in today's competitive environment, what separates one company from another is not their product or service, but rather, their customer service.

And who has that awesome responsibility to deliver this world class customer service? Yes, your front lines who feel they haven't been trained enough in customer service skills.

In a recent Training Magazine Study (November/December 2007), the training delivery methods reflect the following from year 2006 to 2007:

2006 2007
Instructor Led 62% 65%
Online Self Study 15% 20%
Virtual 14% 10%
Other 9% 5%

Where do you fit in the above stats? Are you taking great care of your employees so they can take great care of your customers?

If not, I suggest you make this a priority. Create a training initiative today!

Invest in your people. Start now.

Rosanne Dausilio, Ph.D., customer service expert, provides needs analyses, customer service training; authors Wake Up Your Call Center, Customer Service & the Human Experience, Lay Your Cards on the Table, Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch Tips Newsletter at www.HumanTechTips.com

What Everybody Should Know To Be An Effective Public Speaker

Many managers (call center and others) will say that they would rather have a root canal than speak in front of a conference. Here are a few tips for you to use if and when it is your turn to take the podium.

Public speaking is not easy. It is a challenge, both an art and a science and to deliver a good speech it has to be effective and make an impact on your audience. These are the steps which you need to take to ensure you make this impact.

Public speaking is not easy. It is a challenge, both an art and a science and to deliver a good speech it has to be effective and make an impact on your audience.

These are the steps which you need to take to ensure you make this impact:

You need to be prepared

You need to understand fully what you are talking about. Research and familiarise yourself with the topic and make sure you are presenting only one main idea, so that your audience are not sidetracked when listening to you and therefore forget what you are presenting. A good way to check your take on the topic, is to see if you would feel confident in answering any questions that you might get asked after your talk.

Make sure your speech is organised into a logical sequence. This will make it easier for your audience to follow and understand you, therefore keeping them interested. They will also find it easier to remember. If you also back your speech up with solid evidence it will help to add credibility to your talk.

The two most important parts of a speech to help captivate your audience are the introduction and conclusion. The introduction is the first contact the audience will have with you and needs to be strong and tempt them to want to listen. The conclusion of the speech will sum up your talk and be the last part that the audience hear. This needs to remind them that you were a great speaker and one that they would recommend to others and come to see again themselves. Therefore it is a good idea to write down on paper, your opening and closing words. It is also good to add real life stories as much as possible into the speech, as they go down well too with the audience.

Once you have your speech outlined and your notes written out, you need to practice your speech, to make sure you are happy with the content, the flow of the words and check whether the timing is correct, ie. fits in the timescale allotted to you. Also, the more you practice, the more confident you will feel when you deliver. To make sure you don’t just read from your notes when you present, outline the main points on you sheet that you will need to prompt you. That way you can scan the whole room whilst you present your speech, involving your whole audience whilst speaking loudly and clearly.

You should now be ready to go out a give the speech the audience want to hear and you can be proud of!

Andrew Rondeau transformed himself from a $4 an-hour petrol-pump attendant to a highly successful Senior Manager earning $500k every year.

Discover how you can remove your fear and reduce your stress of being a new manager by receiving Andrew's free Management e-Course and report: http://www.greatmanagement.org/

How to Inspire Learning Across the Generations

Call Center Trainers: we are sure you have noticed that your trainees span the generations. Here is an article on the subject you may find insightful.
 
It's a known fact: not everyone learns the same way. We all have our preferences for how we like to learn new things. Then why do we insist on teaching or delivering training to everybody using the same approach? Because it's easy and less challenging. Effective? Definitely not.
 
A less daunting approach to facilitate students' learning preferences is to find commonalities. When we look for what is universal among individuals, we can start to think about deliberate approaches to creating a transferable learning environment.
 
Whether you lead a classroom at a corporate office or local community college, your students are probably from two to three, or maybe even four different generations. We propose capitalizing on this opportunity to incorporate the perspective of various age groups in your class experience.
 
Here are six things you can do to inspire learning across the generations.
 
  Know your audience 
Let's say your class consists of learners who range in age from 18 to 81. You mention group work and half your students roll their eyes.
 
It's important to know your audience because there are many different ways to deliver information, and you need to know what method works best with which audience. Ask yourself, "Is this the generation that likes to work collaboratively or would they prefer to fly solo?" Or "Is there more than one way to get the same results?" While one group may think that group work is the way to go, consider offering participants the choice of working independently or in groups, especially if the range of learners spans a many generations.
 
Increase learning opportunities exponentially 
As educators, we often have to deliver a huge amount of information in a limited amount of time. We might spend five minutes on introductions before diving right into the materials. What would happen if we allocated more time for participants to get to know one another?
 
All students come to the classroom with a wealth of knowledge and information from their lifetime of experience. Once they are comfortable sharing their own information, you have multiplied the learning opportunities exponentially.
 
Practice classroom feng shui 
When students walk into your room, do they feel like they are back in grammar school? Are the desks arranged like those in Little House on the Prairie, where all eyes face the instructor? This setup creates an environment that isolates participants and limits interactions. If you want to excite, motivate and inspire confidence, then set up your room in a way that encourages creative thinking.
 
Many room configurations are possible depending on the type of training and learning activities, the level of formality desired, and the number of participants. To encourage interaction, arrange the seats in small clusters of no more than eight or ten people. Five is optimal. Remember, unless your furniture is nailed down, students can help the instructor move the furniture if your lecture or program requires more than one configuration.
 
Give them a break 
Did you ever notice how there is a commercial every eight minutes on television? One reason is because people need a rest. Encourage interaction every eight minutes. For example, instead of reading a list of facts, get the group to relay what they already know about the topic, and then add what they didn't include.
 
Encourage your students to interact with you as well as other participants. Remember, they already come with a lifetime of experience and knowledge.
 
Tap the power of questions 
If you've been teaching the same lecture or workshop for years using the same curriculum, is it time for a facelift? Look at your materials and determine if they include powerful questions that stimulate new ways of thinking and possibilities. A few tweaks can refresh the look of your program.
 
Use different methods of delivery 
Be willing to work with more than one medium. People learn in different ways. With all the various technologies and media available, it's easy to forget that some people still learn by reading books. At the same time, remember that there is a large audience, which regardless of their age, learn by doing and by hearing. Learn from your students.
 
Consider taking your show on the road. Team assignments outside of the classroom encourage interaction. Learning by doing is a powerful methodology for all generations.
 
Those trainers and educators who connect with students from all generations will inspire a lifetime of learning. And in the world of education and training, it doesn't get any better than that!
 
 
About Roberta Matuson
Roberta Matuson is an expert at creating intergenerational harmony at work. She's President of Human Resource Solutions, a firm that provides consulting and training to resolve intergenerational conflicts and help companies capitalize on the unique generational perspectives of their workforce. She has appeared on FOX's "The O'Reilly Factor" and has been quoted in The New York Times, Boston Globe, and many other national business publications.

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The Smell of Coffee: A Potential Learning Tool?

Ok Call Center Trainers! What do you think? Do you agree with Guila?

Even those who don’t drink it have been known to swoon, “I love the smell of coffee!” Recently, scientists at Seoul National University found that the mere smell of coffee wakes up the brain—at least in rats.

A recent study published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry shows that coffee’s aroma changed the brains of sleep-deprived rats. Not only did brain activity increase with a mere whiff, but the levels of some brain proteins changed in ways that could calm stress.

The moral? Trainers, presenters and facilitators, consider piping in the smell of coffee during your sessions. (Or at least always keep a good pot going!)

Read articles about Presentation Skills. Learn about Guila Muir’s Presentation Skills Workshops or Individual Coaching.

Guila Muir is the premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com

© 2008 Guila Muir. All rights reserved.
You may make copies of this article and distribute in any media so long as you change nothing, credit the author, and include this copyright notice and web address.

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