Powerful Presenting For Leaders

Last week, David did two very different talks. Both had a really positive outcome but both also had polar opposite starts. The first talk started with a lot of love for David in the room. Welcoming, engaging and fun. The second talk, two days later, started at sub zero. The audience was ice cold. The only difference between the two was the pre-frame. In this episode, David explains how to get your...

PLEASE NOTE: This episode talks very briefly about the abuse that David received at the hands of his mother and bizarrely, how it got him a major book deal resulting in a #1 bestselling book. David has just received a batch of his new books from the printers and while he could use them, there is just enough wrong with the printing for him to not be able to do so. In this episode, David explains ho...

David recently coached a guy going for a major job interview. The company made various stipulations. David told his client to ignore them and do something different. In this episode, he explains how, in a competitive environment, it is critical to do something different to what everyone else is doing.

You'd think that after 25 years of speaking, David would be drilled in the art of everything speaking, including the pre-presentation preparation, maybe the most important thing of all. In this episode, David explains how he was thought he was being the guest of honour at a ceremony only to be introduced as the speaker and have to produce a 20 min presentation 5 seconds later. If only he had prepa...

Marginal gains has been around for many a year now and is de rigeur in sport. But the same can definitely be applied in presentation skills. In this episode, David explains how applying marginal gains to get a different pillow made a massive difference to his speaking.    

JK Rowling used to grab spare minutes while her baby was asleep to write Harry Potter when she was a single Mum. Jeffrey Archer writes from his home in Mallorca from a purpose-built writing room overlooking the Bay of Palma with no distractions. Which is best? Both. In this episode, David explains how to manage the process of writing a presentation whether it is all in one go or piecemeal. 

Managing interruptions is where every leader earns their presentation stripes. Being able to handle hecklers (rare but happens), disruptors (less rare), objectors (relatively common) and people interrupting with questions (very common) is difficult. Yet, it is one of the areas that leaders almost never prepare for. In this episode, David shares how he got some weird and wonderful interruptions fro...

When leaders present, they fret over a ton of stuff like their voice projection, whether their slides are formatted properly and the engagement level of the audience. Question is - should they be fretting over this stuff? Answer - yes! But the challenge I have seen with leaders is that in focussing solely on all these elements, they lose sight of the REAL reason they are presenting at all. In this...

Information is cheap as chips. It is a commodity that we value little because of how easy it is to come by. Delivering information makes you look cheap as chips. What is valuable is INTERPRETING information. In this episode, David explains how, as a leader, you should let others deliver information about sales, products, acquisitions, etc. Your job is to float over the top scooping that informatio...

When your words are always the same, they have an equal value and that value is zero. But the question is this - how far are you prepared to go to make your words valuable? David did a talk recently where he pushed the attendees so hard that he 'lost' two of them.  In this episode, David goes through why he did it and whether the price he paid was worth it.

David is launching an online business and best practice is to launch fast, fail fast and adapt. But not David. Nope, he has been spending too much time making all his material perfect. In this episode, David explains how and why the best way to quickly improve your speaking is to drop perfect. Get it done, get it delivered, get the feedback and feed that back into v2.0 of your speech.

David did a LinkedIn post on his bodybuilding recently and got ten times the usual number of views. Ten times! A quick flick back through his feed shows that this is the usual response. On the one hand, it is annoying that all the great business content he posts does not receive the same views but at the same time, he now knows what people are interested in. In this episode, he explains how to use...

David loves watching other people who have to stand up and deliver to a live audience for a living. Last week, he saw Jimmy Carr, a stand up comedian in the UK, do 2 hours of material and he was sensational. David loved the entertainment but he also popped on his speaker and presentation skills coach hat to learn from what he saw. In this episode, he shares the lessons he learned about delivery, p...

Mark Cowgill is a remarkable guy. He is a Director and Co-Founder of Exa Networks in Bradford and he booked David to do presentation skills coaching for him and his team in 2019/20. David asked Mark to give him a video testimonial once the lockdown dust had lifted. What transpired was a 90 minute chat between two business colleagues who have a shared passion for and understanding of the astonishin...

In 2009, a client booked David to go to Aspen to teach his kids memory and exam techniques. While there, he got the chance to speak to a teacher in the local school. He was utterly shocked at their process to help underperforming students. Problem is, David sees leaders who are underperforming with their presentation skills doing exactly the same thing. In this episode, David shares what he learne...

Multiply 10 x 10. Got it? Of course. Now multiply 13 x 76. Struggling....? Still struggling....? 😂 Trust me, we are all the same and the reason is because of a concept called mental economy. We shut things down that take up too much mental energy. But so do your audiences. In this episode, David goes through two concepts that will have a huge impact on your ability to retain the attention of your...

Chris Voss is a Masterclass presenter and former FBI negotiator. David heard an interview with him and the guy had some very interesting approaches to managing situations that are highly counter intuitive but has the experience to back up having implemented them at the highest level (think state terrorism hijacking negotiations). In this episode, David goes through just one of his concepts about h...

When a challenger arrives to tell us how shit we are at something, everyone's instinct is to tell them to get stuffed. Or get defensive and justify our actions. But neither of the above are the right course of action if we want to realise our true potential. In this episode, David explains how someone properly pissed him off with a couple of challenges and how grateful he is that they did.

As a leader, you are used to facing one way in your organisation and everyone else facing the other. You are the boss, the big cheese. It is the same in speaking whether it is an internal or external presentation. The fact that you are the best in the room is not in doubt. That is why you are speaking and everyone else is listening. But at the same time, you cannot let your ego take over and you h...

David recently read an interview with a former head of Toastmasters who was also a former speaking World Champion. In it, he said that erms and ahs SHOULD be in presentations and that getting rid of them is a bad thing. In this episode, David explains why this guy was totally wrong and goes even further, saying why it is critical that you not only get rid of them in your professional talks but als...

Audiences love to be part of your presentation and a great way to include them is by asking questions. But managing an audience is also like herding cats. Asking them a question will lead to them potentially chatting amongst themselves or even worse, shouting out something really inappropriate that knocks you off balance. In this episode, David goes through three simple rules you must follow when...

This is the third episode in a three part special recorded after doing an exit interview with a client David worked with doing 6 sessions over 8 months. In this episode, David explains what he learned that will make him a more effective presentation skills coach in the future but also what you can take away to be a better presenter as a leader.

We can never assume what a client is thinking and it is dangerous to do so. As always, the best course of action is to ask. David did just that with a client after coaching him for 6 sessions over 8 months. What he heard was amazing. In this episode, David is shocked to find out exactly what the client got out of their time together - and how much more he would have been prepared to pay!

After doing 6 sessions over 8 months with a remote client, David did an exit interview with him. What the client shared has transformed the way that David will approach his leader speaker coaching in the future. In this first episode of a three part special, David shares why and how the client chose him and why it matters so much to you as a leader improving your presentation skills.

Well, it's been a while, as the saying goes!! Finally, David is back face to face with audiences and while it has been a fabulous experience on some level, it has also brought up some challenges. In this episode, David will share both the pleasures and the downsides of being back in front of an adoring crowd, his vision of how presenting will be in the future and how leaders can adjust their speak...