The Power of having a Coach or a Mentor by your side

On Saturday mornings, I get up early, meet up with my running & walking group and do a 7km walk. Sounds easy but I didn’t realise I am not a particularly fast walker especially when by myself.

In fact, Whether it is to do with my fitness or just that I am only 168cm, for what ever reason to me doing the 7km in about 81 – 84 minutes is my normal walking speed, that is about 12 mins per km.

When I walk with others, who may be fitter or simply faster walkers, my time can improve so much. I’ve even done a 10mins a km walk coming in at 70mins. To me this is a great success, it’s an improvement of about 20%! To the other walkers, this is straight forward but that’s because of their experience.

It can’t help make me think that it helps so much to have someone walk by your side.

To have someone, who has been there and done that, to help get you going just that bit faster. Not only is there the camaraderie of doing the work or exercise with you, they keep you focused and task driven. There can be talk along the way and actually keeping the speed up is fine as your mind is on the topic of conversation!

Having a coach or mentor by your side can help you make larger strides ahead than you first imaged, that is what happens. The coach will help keep you on track. The coach will help keep you on the agreed path rather than diverting off to a distraction. The coach will help you focus on what is important. If some negative self-talk happens, the person by your side will shatter that self talk and keep you positive !

So whatever your undertaking, it is walking, running or being in business, a coach or mentor is so valuable in helping you to make the undertaking you desire.

There certainly is power in having a coach or mentor!

Adrienne McLean is a BookYourselfSolid® Certified Coach, SpeakersTrainingCamp® Internationally Accredited Instructor and the Principle of The Speakers Practice. Offering marketing discovery audits, online training programs, Public Speaking for Professionals, Effective On-Camera Presenting workshop and much more.

Email on adrienne@thespeakerspractice.com.au or ring on 0414 367 960

The Power of Practice!

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It’s through Practice, that people who give presentations can work on their presentation to give maximum impact to their audience. It’s one thing to talk about what you want to speak about, its another thing completely, whether your audience understands the points you are delivering.

Even the most experienced presenters practice their speeches, fine tune their messages, understand the timings of their presentations so their audience really gets the most out of attending and ultimately wants to hear more and wants to do business with the presenter.

So , what is the Process of Practicing a Presentation?

PREPARE – this is where you gather your information, write your presentation, look at your objectives for giving the speech and what your message is. Use stories that are yours , this will help you to remember what goes next. This is where most of your time is spent. The SpeakersTrainingCamp® has a wonderful structure that can really help you to look at every aspect of a presentation.

REHEARSE – you have your presentation ready, now to get your delivery smooth and confident, you need to rehearse a number of times so that you really feel that you know it inside out. Then you can present your speech not relying on notes, you can have them there ,however, it really helps your presentation if you are not glued to your notes and you are looking at your audience.

AUDIENCE
– you are delivering your presentation to inform, inspire and guide your audience. You can make a difference with your presentation – whether it’s an important presentation to an executive committee , a work group or its a social presentation. Your presentation is for your audience.

CONNECTION
– Practicing your presentation will give you the opportunity to maximise your connection with your audience. The more confident your presentation, the more you know your message, the more authentic you are, the more eye contact you have with your audience, the more you know about your audience – the better your connection with your audience and the more you will be successfully able to get your message across.

TIMING – Always ,and I mean , Always respect the timing of your presentation. Know your presentation, and by going through this process you do now, Know how long it takes and suite the timing to what is expected. You may be given 20mins, then , have your presentation going for 20minutes. This point is really important. Speakers that think they can go on for hours instead of minutes loose their audience’s respect as well as credibility. By practicing, you can fine tune the timing and increase your confidence.

IMPROVE – Professional speakers practice and improve their presentations so that they can confidently present their speech and achieve maximum impact. Don’t wing it, practice and Improve then you will get maximum impact from your presentation.

CONSOLIDATE
– Now you have Prepared, REhearsed , thought about your Audience, built a Connection wtih your audience, worked at the Timing, Improved – all these tasks have Consolidated your presentation so that you can really achieve what you would like from your presentation – and that is Impress them!

EXCEL – when you follow this process , you will Excel and do your best. Ok, there’s always areas to work on ,however, by continuing along this path of Continuous Improvement and Practice of your Presentations , you will Excel! this is the Power of Practice.

Consider joining The Speakers Practice – Speakers Forum. Attendees are like-minded Business People who are wanting to promote their businesses by speaking to networking groups, associations ,etc. We discuss presentation skills , present current speeches and get audience feedback on delivery, objectives , on how we understood the message, and so on.

Enjoy your Presentations, Practice your Presentations and appreciate the Power of Practice!!

How to build a community on LinkedIn globally -Business Success Strategies interview with Anna McAfee

Building on-line communities is important now. Connecting with people is vital for building trust and connections. Anna McAfee, Co-Founder of LinkedIn Local really discusses the importance of this and how the LinkedIn Local community has grown internationally.

There are some gems of information in this interview. The special part is Anna’s advice on her most recommended business success strategy. Anna has some really valuable advice.

Here’s the full interview – takes just on 30 mins. Enjoy!

Adrienne McLean helps professionals to get more clients, move forward and build confidence to get the sales flowing in with developing presentation skills, building confidence to speak to camera and work on business development ie marketing & sales. Ring Adrienne McLean on 0414 367 960 or email on adrienne@thespeakerspractice.com.au for more details.