Before I became a successful professional speaker and executive speech coach, I was one of San Francisco’s top men’s hairstylists.  As I said on 60 Minutes – and if you’re on 60 Minutes someday, you WILL tell EVERYBODY – “I used to work on the outside of peoples’ heads, now I work on the inside, […]

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I first had the honor of speaking at the Ragan Speechwriters Conference in 2003. It was an exciting experience and I made many new friends, including John Howze who kindly allowed me share his “best of” conference notes with my readers.  Consider how you might incorporate some of these ideas into your public speaking and […]

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This is a follow up to my post on how you can solve “who cares?” syndrome in your sales presentations. We discussed the importance of asking good questions in order to discover how a client can benefit from your product or service. With that, here is a strategic approach to several aspects of asking questions […]

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Selling isn’t about you or your products, it’s about how the prospect will benefit. To be persuasive, you need to appeal to the other person’s rational self-interest. People make decisions for their reasons, not yours. Here are some quick reminders to help them make those decisions in your favor. Forget your company history or industry […]

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What to do when you’re losing your audience… Are there a lot of yawns and sleepy eyes in your audience? Use these tactics to pep up your talk and keep your listeners’ attention. Audience members’ attention will fade over time unless you take specific steps to keep them engaged.

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