The Presentations Japan Series

Chris Anderson is a curator for TED talks and so far there have been a billion views of TED talks since they started forty years ago. He wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review titled “How T…

In the sales world, it is well known that as buyers the first purchase we make is the salesperson serving us.  We decide we like and trust this person and therefore allow them to extract our money in…

I attended an online presentation recently and the presenter was from one of the HUGE social media companies and the presentation was very different from the norm.  He was using his company’s interna…

“Urgent – we need help” is the type of text message you love as a training company.  It means the “why now?”, part of the question has a train wreck answer that you can fix.  In this case and in many…

As speakers we have a tremendous amount of things to concentrate on when presenting.  Is my speaking speed at the right cadence?  Am I being clear with what I am saying?  Are the audience able to fol…

The Japanese idea of Shu-Ha-Ri is a combination of three characters – 守破離.  I first came across this concept when I was living in Australia and studying karate there. It is a very typical concept in …

Contemplating this title you may be thinking “I am not boring”.  You would be a rarity in business then, because think about how many interesting business presentations you have heard in your life to…

As a presentations trainer, I can appreciate the difference between class participants when they cross that bridge and begin to display confidence when they are presenting.  Nerves and fear drive mos…

We have been asked to speak or we have punted a chance to speak to an audience.  We will have a message in mind for the talk and we begin the process of constructing the talk.  Unfortunately we are n…

The date has been set for our presentation.  Naturally, we are pretty busy with work, so we borrow that Toyota production line mantra of “Just In Time:” and leave it all to the last moment to cobble …

In Part One, we explored the mental barriers around linguistic perfection which are holding Japanese businesspeople back and denying them the chance to have “executive presence”.  Once we have cleare…

As a training company we are often asked to assist with helping Japanese executives to have “executive presence”.  This term is a broad descriptor, but essentially we all understand what they are tal…

As Covid slowly declines here in Japan, things are slowly getting back to a semblance of normality.  Imagine my surprise, to be asked to apply for a spot in a Chamber of Commerce pitch contest, with …

Remote work is a sticky concept.  Bosses may prefer to have people under direct supervision in the office, but the masses have voted with their feet and headed home.  Tokyo commutes are a shocker.  C…

I teach presentation skills to businesspeople.  In the first class they do a simple self-introduction and this is where we instructors can tell the skill level of the people in the class.  A recent c…

This Japanese saying the “frog in the well doesn't know the ocean” is a favourite.  When I think about its application to presenting, one of the issues we face is we are all living in small wells.  W…

I am a hoarder.  I never throw anything out and this habit spills over into preparing for my presentations.  I always keep previous presentations and I plunder earlier slides for content I can use fo…

I was listening to a recent episode of Victor Antonio’s Sales influence Podcast show and one of his guests was quoting some research which showed that assertive and arrogant salespeople did the best …

How do we want to be perceived when we give our talk?  What constitutes the personal and professional brand we are creating?  How can we master the first impression?  Often we are not thinking about …

Recency is a simple concept to understand.   It basically means that we are all simple beings and we tend to remember best what we heard last.  Given this is so simple, you would think that presenter…