Eye-to-Eye

One of the most charismatic of personal traits - and perhaps one of the most overlooked - is Connection...with a capital 'C'.

Too often we look in the general direction of the person or people we are addressing, rather than making proper eye contact and speaking directly to them.

Of course, when presenting to an audience it's impossible to make good eye contact with everyone, but even raking the audience with your eyes doesn't cut it as well as pausing and really looking at a sector of the audience. From their perspective it will feel very much as though you are addressing them and only them.

And what about the occasions when you're not actually making a formal presentation - just being yourself and going about your daily life? You're still onstage and pitching yourself to the world, so you really should be doing much the same things as when you ARE presenting.

Try this the next time you stop for coffee or sit in a restaurant for a meal: when your waiter or the barista or whoever gives you something MAKE EYE CONTACT and SPEAK TO THEM DIRECTLY.

I'm not talking about engaging people in conversations, just about breaking through the barrier of mumbling 'thanks' and looking in the general direction of someone who is helping you and instead actually taking a look at that person and thanking them properly.

Try it out, and you'll soon recognise that charisma is about much more than how much you spend on your clothes or how well-known you are.

For a Job Well Done

I'm currently working with a number of smaller businesses, mostly owner-run concerns with few staff. Some of these are recent start-ups, some are well-established, but they are all at risk of falling into bad habits born of the tough financial situation in which we find ourselves.

In the case of the more established businesses, they have generally put any ideas or thoughts of growth on hold, while the start-ups are cautious about committing money to anything but the barest bones of business necessity.

Leaving aside all the arguments for and against spending on staff, marketing, web development, personal and professional development and many other aspects of running a successful business, there is one area of spend that rarely gets mentioned and is often overlooked completely:

Reward.

If you are an employee, you expect to get paid, and if you do well and your company thrives you may well expect to be rewarded over and above your wage - even if it's just a token gesture or even having the boss buy you a couple of beers. Corporate days out are a great way for a business to repay the hard work of its team. Tax efficient too, as there are allowances for such things which can make it a cost-free exercise once the tax bill has been taken into account.

But if you run your own business with few or no staff; working long hours, weekends and holidays just to keep yourself afloat...and you SUCCEED in doing just that, don't you deserve a reward too?

Too many times I see people driving themselves into the ground, and taking as little as possible from the business; just enough to pay the bills, but not quite enough to feel that it's all worth it.

These people are working for a tomorrow that may never arrive, and they are driving much of the joy out of their lives.

If you recognise anything of yourself in this picture...STOP!

Ask yourself the question: would the business collapse if I took a half day, switched off my phone and played a round of golf? Would I lose customers if I kept a weekend free to spend with my family?
If you're not sure - why not ask your customers?

We do no favours to ourselves or our clients if we are working at less than our full potential, so it's vital that you reward yourself for your efforts, just as you would reward your staff, or expect to be rewarded were you to be an employee.

It needn't be anything grand or expensive - it might just be a matter of "That was a job well done. I'm going to buy a really nice bottle of wine to have with dinner instead of the usual plonk." or give yourself a box of chocolates. Take a walk in the country. Really - whatever makes you feel as though your life isn't entirely and solely devoted to work.

The Earworm

This might seem a little 'off-topic', but I think it's important - certainly important enough to want to give you the opportunity of trying out a technique that I've passed on to a few people, and have found myself using often.
I think nearly everyone gets the occasional 'earworm' - you know...when a few bars of a tune get so lodged in your head that you think it'll never disappear...and it always seems to be a tune that you hate or that's so inane that you probably should hate it.
My simple little mind trick for you then:
Picture the tune in question as an old vinyl record, playing on an old-fashioned record player. Get a clear impression of the label, with the tune's title visible and (if you can follow it round and round). See it revolving as it plays directly into your brain.
Now, in your mind's eye, stop the record, and start turning it in the other direction, so that it plays backwards.
That's it. Your earworm has now gone.
Don't worry about getting the speed wrong, and don't fret about hearing any secret messages in there...unless you're a real conspiracy theorist, or you were a  really keen reader of the Daily Express in the 1960s.

The Art of the R.A.P.

There's been a bit of a lull in posts lately, for which I apologise. The principal reason for my absence is a house-move. We finally decided we'd had enough of London and moved our home to the South Coast. I never thought it would be a quick and easy affair, but it's proven to be even tougher than I had anticipated.

One side-effect of the move has been that I've had to put some serious effort into building a network of people and businesses in and around the West Sussex/ Hampshire area to help consolidate Profile Training as being something other than a purely London-centric business...while still giving our London clients the kind of help and service they deserve.

In immersing myself in the local business community and in various networking groups, both formal (4Networking and the local Chamber of Commerce for example) and informal (attending trade expos, chatting to people in various social gatherings etc.) I've rediscovered the joys and tribulations of random access presentations.

"What the...?" I can almost hear you say.

Go back and read it again: Random Access Presentations. I expect I'll write a book on it sometime soon.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I work on the principle that every communication is a presentation, which of course means that every conversation one has with a new acquaintance at a networking meeting or wherever is - and should be treated as - a presentation.

The Random Access bit is simply that you don't have much control over who is going to join your conversation or engage you in one-to-one chat, and it's also impossible to know if that person might be important to you or your business, either directly or as a connection to someone else, so everyone has to get the best from you, and that means the best possible presentation and the best possible attention to THEIR presentation.

Listening to someone else and asking good, directed open questions, so that they can expand on their own theme is an essential business skill. You learn more about them and their business, and they in turn feel that you have given them something back - a fair hearing. They are going to remember you for the right reasons after the event is over, and may well go on to be your best ally in building or reinforcing your business.

So...what's the most important part of a Random Access Presentation (it's also the hardest part to master)?

It's LISTENING rather than rehearsing what you want to say next!