The Speaking Club: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking

There is lots of information out there around how to use slides in the right way, and indeed I covered this in great detail in podcast episode 082 The Seven Deadly Slide Sins and How to Avoid them.  But what there isn't much on is the answer to the question of whether you should use them in the first place, which is one I've been asked a lot recently. So, in this episode I want to give you my defi...

Jackie Brennan spent over 30 years building a career in the construction industry. She was dedicated, career focused and ambitious and worked her way up to become a senior leader. But after returning from an overseas contract, she decided to take a rare short break before the next one. Something happened in that time at home that turned her view of her life upside down.  Despite having every inten...

It's no secret that telling stories is the single most powerful tool you can have in your speaking and marketing. But not all stories are created equal.  There are some that are simply a series of events pulled together into a narrative arc that certainly meet the definition of a 'story'.  And then, there are the others …  … the stories that get into your head and your heart and cause you to feel...

For 20 years Shelley Purchon taught people from all over the world to improve their English. Then she decided to turn the tables. She now helps English speakers to adjust the way that THEY communicate, so that people who didn't grow up with English as a mother tongue can understand them more easily. Shelley learned the hard way how it feels to try to understand a foreign language when she moved to...

How lucky are you? Does it matter if you are lucky or not when it comes to success in business and speaking? What if you've been looking at the matter of luck in completely the wrong way. In this episode, I'm going to show you that you can increase your chances of being lucky, and as a result create more success for yourself.  Lucky people leave breadcrumbs for us to follow and I'm going to be sha...

Chances are all the films you love, all the books you devour, have pulled you in because you can relate not only to the character and their journey, but to the underlying messages that apply universally to all human beings.  There are recurring symbols and motifs weaved into the fabric of stories from 'The Three Little Pigs' to 'Harry Potter', that signal, repeat and reinforce the themes that writ...

Dr. Clare Roberts has gone from being a clinical psychologist in the UK, to a YouTuber in Florida. Her YouTube channel, Generation Calm, which she juggles while still being a full-time homeschooling mum, now has 25,000 subscribers and over 2 million views. Her channel helps people looking to better manage their mind and live a more powerful life. She posts videos on stress management techniques, a...

In this show I'm going to be sharing an important distinction you need to make when you're creating your talk. This is something that comes up regularly when I'm working with people on their signature talks, because it's an easy trap to fall into. The problem is that if you don't recognise and address this distinction, you could invest time and money to produce a talk that doesn't get you results....

Dr. Clare Roberts has gone from being a clinical psychologist in the UK, to a YouTuber in Florida. Her YouTube channel, Generation Calm, which she juggles while still being a full-time homeschooling mum, now has 25,000 subscribers and over 2 million views. (At the time of recording in January 2022) Her channel helps people looking to better manage their mind and live a more powerful life. She post...

Peter Roper has ridden the rollercoaster of business success.  After many successful years in a corporate career, where he was responsible for a company turning over £38 million, Peter set out to create his own business in 1996.  The journey as a business owner was not easy and led to some of the biggest challenges of his life, and the greatest insights about business success.  Alongside his busin...

When peoples' attention spans are so short you can't afford to lose your audience by making your message complicated or confusing. That's why in this episode, I'm sharing four of the biggest mindset barriers that get in the way of your message landing with impact and what you should do to combat them. I'm also aiming to shatter one of the big myths that really winds me up and in my opinion will al...

For 17 years Marcus Cauchi did sales all wrong, but then he discovered a different way to sell that not only led to amazing results but also created an amazing customer experience.  Marcus is a 35+ year sales veteran who teaches sellers that they get further when they learn to collaborate, not manipulate, and serve others instead of serving themselves.  Over the years, he has helped companies gene...

This week, the tables have turned and I'm the one answering questions on Graham Allcott's Beyond Busy podcast.  I was chuffed to be a guest on this great show and to share a bit more about my life and experiences relating to speaking, performance, storytelling and my time in the corporate world.  I talk about the time I was failing in my corporate job and the valuable life lesson I learned. How I...

As more people recognise speaking as the powerful marketing tool that it is, the number of aspiring speakers has grown exponentially. This means that competition for speaking gigs is incredibly high. So if you're a speaker or business owner wanting to build your brand and audience any ideas that can help to give you the edge are really valuable. That's one of the two compelling reasons I asked Ben...

I'm a strong believer that structure and systems actually set you free and enable you to be creative (even if you think you aren't). That's why I've developed processes and frameworks to underpin my speaking and marketing courses, programs and coaching. In this pre-christmas show, I want to give you the gift of one of my favorite business storytelling frameworks, which I've seen get brilliant resu...

Investing your time to build a professional network could give you one of the biggest returns, both in business and life. That's because as our life and career changes and develops we never know when we might need someone in that network. My guest on this show is author, speaker and coach Stefan Thomas and he believes that putting effort into building and sustaining relationships at scale, over ti...

In this show I'm celebrating 200 episodes by sharing a case study interview.  Speaking to an audience offers so many benefits, including building your brand and authority and helping you stand out from the crowd, whether that's in a corporate environment or as a business owner. So, when Kaye King was offered the chance to do a 45 minute keynote talk to an audience of 80 of her dream customers, she...

Not all conversations are of equal importance. There are some that become pivotal to our life's purpose and success. But how do we know which ones they are and how should we prepare for them? That's where this show and Sarah Rozenthuler come in.  Sarah is a chartered psychologist, dialogue coach and leadership consultant with over 15 years' experience consulting to many of the biggest profit and n...

In this show, I'm talking about one of the biggest reasons speaking is ranked higher than death in people's fears. I became consciously aware of this thing in my early forties, and it's something I've struggled with all through my life, and still do today. The trouble is that I'm not alone. This is a struggle I see affecting so many people, and in a lot of ways it's worse now than ever before. The...

Getting traffic to your website or speaker page is important for getting sales and bookings. The trouble is that for most of us, how to get Google to notice us via search engine optimization (SEO), can seem like a mystical dark art that is beyond our understanding.  That's why I've brought Graham Baylis onto the show.  If you imagine the internet as the wild west, then Graham would be considered o...

You've probably heard many people share the importance of building networks and relationships in business.  You may also have heard myself and some of my guests talk about treating your speaking and marketing like a conversation.  The trouble is that 'just having a conversation' is easier said than done, and there are a number of things that can get in the way of us being good at this.  First of a...

Kaye King has had a long career in marketing, working for big brands like Kenco, Hilton and the Nationwide Building society. But when she left her corporate job to start up her own marketing consultancy, she found so many myths around marketing for small business owners. These myths were causing fear, confusion and overwhelm and ultimately stopping them from having successful businesses.  Today, K...

There is no doubt that stories are the most powerful vehicle for getting your audience to buy in emotionally to your message. BUT you have a limited amount of time to get your story across before their attention starts to wander.  Even TV, movies or books that you have chosen to engage with, have a finite time to grab your attention, before you switch off, and in the world of speaking and marketin...

One of the main things I teach people is how to get and keep peoples'  attention. That's because in today's world attention is more precious and valuable than gold.  Social media companies employ genius minds to work out better ways to keep us 'in the matrix', and all of us are bombarded with notifications, information, entertainment and choice. So... not only is it harder to get peoples' attentio...

I wanted to do something a little different with this episode and that's to add in some video content, so that you can see my teaching points in action.  Every month, as part of my regular newsletter, I do a talk spotlight. I share a link to a short talk and my analysis on what is good, or could be done differently to increase audience impact and engagement.  In this show I'm sharing some of these...