Some tips for effective presentations

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Attending a presentation the other day, I was reminded of some of the common mistakes presenters make. Here is what came to mind, and what you can do to enhance your presentation skills. Text heavy slides: Boring and difficult to read. There’s no need to fill the screen with your information. Use an outline format, with … Read more

Good customer service starts with the incoming call

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How many times have you called a business and encountered the “voice mail tree”? Remember how many layers you had to go through to finally reach a live person? I’ll bet more than once you hung up in frustration. You know that good customer service starts with having a person answer the call.

Now consider this: If your company employs that system, known as an Automatic Call Distributor, your customers and prospects are probably encountering the same situation and acting the same way, by hanging up.

I faced that one day, and it was not fun. Needing some information about my cell phone account, I called my provider. (I should note that I have switched carriers for an unrelated reason, but this incident still offers a lesson.)

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Overcome fear of public speaking with proper strategy

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For many people, the fear of public speaking ranks right up there with undergoing a root canal procedure or facing a tax audit.

That’s too bad. Eliminating your fear of speaking in public is not as difficult as you might think. Plus, the skills and confidence you gain are useful in today’s competitive, customer service-oriented marketplace.

Whole courses are devoted to public speaking. We can only touch on the fundamentals here. The rest is up to you. If you follow these tips, your speaking anxiety will diminish and you will be more confident in front of an audience. Indeed, you will actually enjoy speaking in public.

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Review your professional life to help improve satisfaction, performance

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Now that we’re about seven weeks into the new year, it’s a good time to take stock in where you are professionally. Review facets of your life to see if any tweaking is needed. Some areas to consider include:

Professional goals Review your life goals for this year. To what extent are you where you should be at this stage? Have you accomplished what you should have? Why, or why not? Don’t be too rough on yourself. There’s time to get back on track. Also, perhaps certain goals were too aggressive. Consider adjusting those goals.

Much like with a diet, your goals must be realistic. You should be commended for setting lofty goals, but make sure they are reasonable. Otherwise you’ll give up, and that’s worse than not trying at all.

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Hosting a webinar? These suggestions will help ensure smooth sailing

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Having attended and hosted a number of webinars in recent weeks, I’ve developed a number of suggestions on how to host a webinar successfully.

This is an abbreviated list. I’m focusing on some of the mechanical or logistical aspects of the  webinar. For a more thorough discussion, see “Create a successful webinar.”

1. Test the webinar platform, even if you’ve used that webinar service before. Deliver a short, say three-minute, test webinar. Essentially a dry run, it gives you the chance to familiarize yourself with the features. Watch the recording. Are any changes or corrections needed?

I use Anymeeting.com, and felt up until recently that I knew it pretty well. Anymeeting changed some facets late last year. As I was preparing for a webinar in January, I realized the changes affected how the program worked. It took me several tests to become acclimated to the changes. Give yourself time to become comfortable with the platform before hosting a webinar.

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