Posts Tagged ‘Presentation Skills Training’

Improve your investor pitch

Pitching to investors? How to make a difference.
Posted on 27th November 2017 in Investor Pitching

This is your time to shine and show the best of you and you only get one chance.

Investors and VCs have made an initial judgement about you from your plan. This next step when they get you in to meet you is all about finding out who you are as a person, almost like a first date. If you are successful they are going to be working together with you for a number of years so they want to get a sense of you. It’s about chemistry and who can work well with who. Are you compatible with this person or are they going to drive you mad? Investors look for people who will make good partners, who are open to feedback and don’t get too defensive. They want to see YOU and YOUR personality. They DO NOT want to watch you read through a power point presentation. They can do this themselves.
Investors are going to be judging you from the moment they see you to the moment you open your mouth and start speaking. They want to see how passionate and enthusiastic you are about your proposed business and the industry you have chosen to work in. How much you genuinely know and have experience of. Are you dying to do this business and work hard with strong, solid commitment to the project?
  • Do you have the charisma to sell ideas and products?
  • Do you have the charisma and energy to lead and inspire teams?
  • Have you got the stamina to take this business through into the long term?
  • Are you calm under pressure, solid and trustworthy?
  

Your investor pitch has got to communicate the best of you.

REHEARSE, REHEARSE, REHEARSE
Consider first how you want to be perceived. How do you think an investor wants you to come across?
If you are a very exuberant, bubbly person with oozes of energy you most likely need to tone down the excitement and balance your exuberance with a calm presence which shows you are serious and committed to business.

If you are a serious character who is more process driven, you most likely need to practice speaking with energy and enthusiasm as you want to inspire this investor audience.

If you are a softer character, who can be emotional, you need to prove that you have the strength to drive a business through the ups and downs which all businesses go through without losing control.

Looks aren’t everything but first impressions are so carefully choose how you present yourself. If you would never where a suit and tie then don’t start wearing one now as it won’t look or feel like you. Most people can’t get away with dressing in a white t-shirt and jeans as Mark Zukkerberg but you can dress as the smartest version of your best self. Dress to impress in the most relevant way to you and your business.

How to do your best performance

  • Be the best of yourself
  • Look the part
  • Be enthusiastic
  • Be calm
  • Be considered
  • Show strength
  • Show charisma
  • Show flexibility
  • Show stamina
  • Don’t rely on powerpoint
  • Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse
Overall you’ve got to get the investor to trust in you and to like you. You’ve got to create rapport to get them to invest in you. A CEO who lacks a skill based competency such as a financial or technical can overcome this through training or by hiring the right complimentary talent, but character is less malleable.

 

TRUST BEATS COMPETENCY. COMPETENCY BEATS LIKE. LIKE IS WHERE IT BEGINS.

 

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

Storytelling tips

Storytelling Tips: Learn to Tell Your Story…
Posted on 27th July 2017 in Keynote Speeches, Public Speaking, Theatre & Drama

Storytelling is one of the the oldest and most alluring forms of communication. Human stories, engage emotionally as opposed to offering flat, technical, esoteric text or speech which most people will struggle to relate to. We identify with characters, scenarios and emotional responses. Journeys or adventures in other words.

All drama, stories and journeys require characters meeting challenges. Sometimes they overcome these obstacles, sometimes they don’t. What is intriguing and alluring for us – and why we love to watch films, TV drama and theatre – is how characters overcome their obstacles. Many different strategies may be used. The “How” is of more intrigue than the “What” much of the time.

Tips for Effective Storytelling

  1. Have a central or key message. Sum up what it is you want the world to think or do differently as a result of hearing your story. Just like a presentation or keynote speech there has to be a point to your story.

2. Be distinct. There are only so many different storylines out there. Some within drama and theatre assert there are only six or seven staple stories whatsoever. Yet the plethora of films on offer, for example, would have us believe that there are many more storylines. The lesson is to be purposefully as distinct as possible in the way you tell that story. There are filmmakers and artists who, even with the backdrop of

3. Be bold. Don’t be a lame facsimile of what has been done many times already or of what happens to be flavour of the month. Storytelling works best when someone takes a risk. Don’t be afraid to shock your audience..!

4. Be succinct. Hemingway’s classic six word mastery of storytelling manages to conjure characters, challenges and context that reside only in our imaginations. “For sale. Baby Shoes. Never Used.” Just like the very best advertising copy.

5. Be curious. Don’t set out to re-hash whatever others are doing. Instead follow your innate curiosity. What is it that occupies your thinking at the moment? How does that relate to your business objectives? Is your thinking congruent with those objectives?

6. Be aware that great storytelling evokes images, sounds, memories and emotions in the audience. And people tend to buy based on emotion, not cold, hard logic.

7. Do portray a problem-solution through your storytelling. Remember we watch drama to see how characters deal with situations and how they try to reach their objective. Think of your business as such a character within a landscape of narratives.

Storytelling is a Transferable Skill

Storytelling can work wonders for keynote speeches, presentations, pitches… It can be the difference between merely turning up and going through dull slides and being remembered because you had a story.

“Drama is like a dream. It is not real. But it is really felt.”

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

Elevator pitch effectively

Elevator Pitch… How to Pitch Your Idea Effectively…
Posted on 4th August 2014 in Change Management, Communication Skills Training, Executive Coaching, Investor Pitching, Leadership Development, Presentation Skills Training

The elevator pitch strikes many of us as fairly hackneyed and cliched these days. Perhaps we still find it too salesy and pushy as a speculative approach to a potential investor or client who we’ve just bumped into and best left to Americans who generally don’t have the same fear. They, when compared to us Brits at least, can happily steam ahead with their elevator pitch whenever they want. Or so it seems.

There are various approaches to making a favourable impression within just a couple of minutes and that after all is the best you can hope for in a short space of time. So perhaps that should direct your thinking with respect to an elevator pitch.

3 Approaches to the Elevator Pitch

Some choose to give a mini, condensed presentation complete with introduction, middle and ending all within two minutes. A lot for the listener to take on board, can feel stilted and really what are the chances of them remembering all the information that you tried so keenly to cram in.

Others go straight to the heart of the issue knowing that time is pressing in the perfect elevator pitch. This has the advantage of stripping away that which is largely unnecessary given the context but unless very careful in the initial approach, you could come across as overly direct and robust.

Possibly a more effective approach is to establish a two way conversation. After all, dialogue succeeds where monologue fails. This approach favours beginning a natural conversation where you introduce yourself and give just the headline of your idea, project, whatever and then ask an open question and use whatever time there is, regardless of how little, to listen. Remember that it doesn’t need to be over the top flashy or a dramatic performance. Read your audience in the moment – how are they feeling right now? Tired or energised? Adapt your energy to match them and you’ll have a much better chance of being remembered for the right reasons.

Dialogue Succeeds where Monologue Fails…

Do this all in an unhurried manner. In other words aim to have the most effective beginning to a fuller conversation. Far easier for you to do and much better for the recipient. This way, if your idea or pitch was truly of interest, you’ll leave them wanting to know more – which is exactly what you want.

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

Art & Business

Art and Business – An Interesting Relationship
Posted on 18th March 2013 in Art, Change Management, creativity, Employee Engagement, Film, Theatre & Drama

Art and Business are polar opposites right? Making money surely has nothing to do with a purely artistic endeavour?

At Dynamic Presenting, we believe there is a much closer relationship between art and business than perhaps many would readily accept. Of course everyone knows that art is a huge business, epitomised by characters such as artist/entrepreneur Damian Hirst who has arguably made making money his principal art form much like the average hedge fund manager does. And after all, hedge fund managers have been most keen to acquire the type of conspicuous, seemingly over-priced art that Hirst has produced.

Learning From each Other…

We would go further – art and business can and should learn a lot from each other. Theatre companies, actors, writers, painters, sculptors, stand up comedians, dancers, film makers… et al could all further their respective causes by observing business people. Artists could learn a lot about organising their work, finances, marketing, setting goals etc. Similarly corporate folk most used to using the logical and strategic quadrants of the brain could through improvisation and artistic freedom learn to innovate and think differently – how often do we read business articles where company heads bemoan the lack of innovation in their ranks?

Dynamic Presenting aims to build a bridge between art and business in order to nurture healthy dialogue between them. We adapt exercises from theatre rehearsals in order to energise and develop the presentations, pitches, speeches and communication of business leaders.

Ajaz Ahmed makes some interesting points in his Guardian article about the sometimes uneasy overlap between art and business

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/oct/16/bridging-gap-art-business

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

Bespoke Leadership Development

Leadership – It’s Something We Can All Do
Posted on 18th February 2013 in Communication Skills Training, Leadership Development

Leadership development is a fascinating growth area of study and research. Every day there are a million blog posts, tweets and updates on Facebook and LinkedIn around the broad notion of leadership and developing necessary skills to be deemed good at it. There are more “Top 10 Tips to become a CEO” than anyone who is actually working to become a CEO would have the time to read.

We at Dynamic Presenting have been guilty of getting in the mix and piling it all on the heap as well. Some articles and posts out there are very informative, engaging, sometimes amusing. Others are just repetition of well known nuggets of wisdom.

Do Leadership

When it comes down to it though, leaders simply have to DO leadership like an actor has to turn up on stage regardless of how rehearsals went and deliver what they have to. They have to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in, in whatever way they deem best. Just like learning to drive, there’s no point turning it into an academic exercise insisting that theory is all important. Get behind the steering wheel and get going. Each time you stall, you will learn more about your own resilience, determination and creativity than through any studied means.

Dynamic Presenting’s Bespoke Leadership Development

That’s why when we deliver bespoke training courses for our clients, we focus on their specific needs in the moment and are more than happy to change up our day’s agenda if that will yield greater benefits. We also place the accent very firmly on DOING many practical exercises…repeatedly.

See how Dynamic Presenting’s bespoke communication and presentation skills training could benefit you.

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

investor pitching for social entrepreneurs

Investor Pitching Skills for Social Entrepreneurs
Posted on 11th May 2012 in Communication Skills Training, Investor Pitching, Keynote Speeches, Presentation Skills Training

Dynamic Presenting provided a series of workshops on investor pitching for social entrepreneurs. Sartaj Grewal advised entrepreneurs with social, educational and community based business ideas on how best to pitch to potential investors and win start-up funding. The focus was on communicating personal stories and emotional selling.

Village Capital – Pitching for Investment

Village Capital is an incubator program, started in 2010, which has been run in New Orleans, Boulder, Mumbai and San Francisco. It has been cited as “#1 Trend to Watch in 2010” on Change.org; featured in Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine and Beyond Profit. So far, the program has incubated 82 entrepreneurs selected from over 500 applications and developed amongst other skills, their investor pitching ability.

The first European Village Capital, was hosted at Hub Westminster, as a twelve week program designed for entrepreneurs to accelerate their for profit social businesses. In workshops focused on fundraising, marketing and designing for impact the 16 participants will develop the core skills needed to attract investment and scale their businesses as well as receiving mentoring and coaching from our team of experienced advisors.

At the heart of Village Capital lies the belief that entrepreneurs benefit from building peer networks for review and support. The program culminates in peers selecting two entrepreneurs that receive investment prizes of £50,000 each.

The next Village Cpital Programme for Spring 2012 will be announced shortly. For enquiries email hello@hubventurelabs.net

Nominet Trust Accelerator

www.nominettrust.org.uk

Nominet Trust’s project partners can take advantage of our Accelerator Programme delivered by Merism Capital

The programme delivers a seminar series which includes topics such as “scaling up a social enterprise” and “pitching for investment”. Project partners also benefit from access to mentors and experts who can help them address specific challenges facing their organisation.

The sessions are led by a variety of speakers with specific expertise in different areas. Spring 2012 sessions are:

  • The Impact Investment Landscape
  • Measuring Social Impact and Value
  • Assessing different business models
  • Investor pitching
  • Company structures and due diligence
  • Growing pains
  • Marketing
  • Exit strategies from the investor and organisational perspective
Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

public-speaking-fear

Fear of Public Speaking – The King’s Speech
Posted on 10th May 2012 in Film, Keynote Speeches, Leadership Development, Public Speaking, Theatre & Drama

Whatever your misgivings about public speaking, spare a thought for poor old George VI.  He was a highly private man called to a highly public role during one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history.  George spent his young years in the shadow of his glamorous elder brother Edward until he was crowned king in 1936.

The nascent technology of wireless radio had forced new responsibilities on to the King.  Before he had been expected to address occasional select gatherings of worthies and notables, now he was expected to address the nation.

Weight of Expectation

When called upon to address even a small room full of people, many of us feel the weight of expectation sitting on our shoulders and the terrible dread that we might mess things up in front of an audience. This is quite literally the stuff of nightmares: to be exposed in front of our colleagues as not quite up to it. With this mind it is little surprise that many people do everything they can to avoid any public speaking engagements. However, as we journey through our careers becoming more senior, the prospect of giving presentations and speeches increases considerably.

If it’s possible to get that worked up about a small presentation, one must suppose that George’s anxieties were of a different order given that he had to address the British public on the subject of war, a task made infinitely more gruelling by the fact that he had a stammer. This would seem to be fate demonstrating quite clearly that if nothing else, she has a sense of humour; our first war-time monarch of the broadcast age had a stammer!

Tackling the Fear

If you have seen Tom Hooper’s excellent ‘The King’s Speech’, you will of course know all of this already and without wishing to spoil the film for anyone yet to see it and do see it – it’s terrific,George VI tackles his fear of public speaking by consulting a speech therapist, Mr Logue, who turns out not to be a doctor but an actor. While the King is initially horrified to discover the man he thought to be a nice respectable doctor is in fact a member of one of the least reputable professions going, the acting profession, he is won around eventually. 

You may find your mind wandering down the same tracks as the King’s and wonder to yourself what possible use an actor could be. Well an actor’s job is to connect with audiences, if you’ve ever been to the theatre or cinema and found yourself captivated by a performance then you know what I’m talking about.  As Mr. Logue demonstrates in The King’s Speech, the skills actors use can be taught, even to someone as unprepossessing and in the grip of public speaking fear as George VI.

Dynamic Presenting

That in a nutshell is the whole point of Dynamic Presenting, to analyse your style of presentation, pitching and public speaking to locate weak spots and to help supplement these with skills and techniques which have stood the test of time.  So if you want a consultation fit for a King, even if your problems aren’t quite on the same scale as George VI’s, drop us a line and we’ll start with a chat…

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

Public Speaking - Steve Jobs

Public Speaking – Famous Quotes from Renowned Speakers
Posted on 10th May 2012 in Keynote Speeches, Presentation Skills Training, Public Speaking

The prospect of a public speaking engagement can be a real terror for many of us. Here are some words of wisdom from those who have been there and done it time and again and with style.

“People judge you by your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality.

Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” — Steve Jobs

Public-Speaking-GerogeBernardShaw-Dynamic

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” — George Bernard Shaw

Public Speaking Bill Gates

“What I do best is share my enthusiasm.” — Bill Gates

Public Speaking - Steve Martin

“Some people have a way with words and other people … uh … not have way.” — Steve Martin

Public Speaking - William Safire

“Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.” — William Safire

Master of Arts - Michelangelo

“If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” — Michelangelo

The paralysing fear of public speaking…

…or glossophobia as it is otherwise known ranks highly among the demons that we truly fear. It may be soothing to know that nearly all successful and impressive speakers have at one time or another also succumbed to that fear. It seems a natural human predisposition that evolves after a certain point in childhood – in other words it is learnt and adopted behaviour.

In order to counter this fear, time must be invested in effectively collating information, structuring content and crucially rehearsing the final delivery of any speech, pitch or presentation. It really is a piece of theatre so think of yourself as a showperson putting on a spectacle for an audience that really, desperately needs entertainment – not too hard to do when we think of how many dull, stolid business presentations we all sit through on a regular basis.

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication