Most people will have experienced being in an unnecessary meeting at some point in their working lives. Some may have traveled across the country to attend a one hour meeting which could have been a much more efficient conference call. But have you ever considered how much these meetings could be costing your business? One study revealed that the average worker in the UK spends 10 hours 42 minutes each week preparing for and attending 4.4 meetings. Another survey revealed that employees found 56% of meetings unproductive, with 66% admitting …

By Jean Gamester, Toastmasters International
12 years ago I needed I to get over my fear of presenting to the project teams I was leading and joined a Toastmasters club.  I realised we learn to be better speakers through going through cycle after cycle of observing, feeding back and trying out.
My years of learning and leading led me to consider doing postgraduate research, but I imagined being stuck at a desk alone, feeling miserable.
I was delighted to discover action research which involves working with other people and the kinds of …

By Karen O’Donnell, Toastmasters International
Business presentations can have many pitfalls but a well-crafted presentation put together with the audience in mind can have a massive impact on your sales success.
Here are my top tips to help you avoid the pitfall and make more sales at the end of your presentation:
Get prepared
All too often speakers put a lot of preparation into securing the pitch and little thought into the actual presentation.
Top Tip:  Once your presentation is written, put time into practising it with a colleague or coach.  Don’t practise with …

By Sudha Mani, Toastmasters International
We can prepare and practice an excellent speech or presentation but things can still go wrong. The positive news is that there are ways to handle most situations that will help you to continue with your presentation and get well-deserved praise or applause when you have finished.
An issue can arise primarily from 4 situations: technical issues, challenging audience members, those moments of brain freeze and the pressure of a Questions & Answer session. Let’s look at these in turn.
Technical issues
Even when you’ve arrived early to test …

By Nigel Oseland, Toastmasters International
Some of the most challenging talks to deliver are technical talks. There’s important information to convey, that in itself may not be very ‘sexy’ and yet the audience needs to hear it and absorb it – without falling asleep!
I love going to conferences, dare I say I am a conference junkie, hence I attend and speak at around 10 conferences each year. The conferences I go to are usually academic or technical in nature where the speakers present their latest research, ideas and innovations.
In my …

By Sarah Henley, NextUp Comedy
We love to laugh and we love to watch comedians at local comedy clubs, and at special events like the Edinburgh Fringe. We also watch comedy TV series, Hollywood movies and, particularly as busy parents we find our favourite comedians on YouTube when we have time to relax.
Comedy is a tough business to be in but new avenues are opening up to help comedians to earn money and develop their careers.  It is possible that breakthrough comedians catering to a wider range of tastes will find …

By Karen O’Donnell, Toastmasters International
The classic image of a common vision and purpose is the beauty of geese flying in formation.  In a small business, when we are in a similar supportive environment, a team has the potential to be actively engaged and adopt the business vision and purpose.  This clearly will impact the bottom line.
An interesting question is how many employees are this actively engaged. A recent Harvard Business Review survey of business leaders showed that this is less 25%.  However these actively engaged people are more productive, …

The Mums Enterprise Roadshow, has confirmed that their two-day event in London, will now be taking place on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd February, 2019 (instead of 28th and 29th September 2018) in its new London home, Olympia London.
The decision to postpone the event for a further four months is a result of a company restructure, which will see Mum’s Enterprise Roadshow evolve from a Limited Company into a Community Interest Company.
Lindsey Fish, Founder and CEO Of Mum’s Enterprise Ltd comments, “The purpose of Mums Enterprise is to change the …

By Kay Heald, Toastmasters International
If you’ve been labelled as shy there’s a good chance you won’t relish the challenge of giving presentations.
All the way through school and beyond I blamed my aversion to speaking to groups on being shy. However, I now know that what I thought was ‘shyness’ for all those years was actually a predisposition to ‘introversion’.
Shyness and introversion are not synonymous. Introversion refers to a particular way we energise ourselves. Whereas extroverts are energised by being around people, introverts can also enjoy the company of others, …

When presenting or pitching it is vital to stand out. Particularly for a small business we need to grab attention if we want people to notice, remember and be persuaded by what we say.
Here are three opportunities for contrast when giving a speech or presentation:
Contrast in content
In most business communication, the goal is to persuade your audience to adopt your call to action.  This might be to buy your sales pitch, support your recommendations etc.  Effective persuasion requires contrast in content.
Evidence-based information, e.g. statistics, track record or a reinforcing quote …