I was scheduled to deliver a presentation skills program this past Tuesday for 8 people.  When I got to the venue, I was informed there was only going to be 4 people attending.  Since practice is such a big part of our program I thought “Great!” this will give the participants more time to practice.

My “Great” idea of more practice was met with a little less enthusiasm from the participants.  I said they could choose to deliver their presentation one extra time if they wanted to.  I made it clear it was a choice.  After lunch each participant was given time to make revisions to their presentation that they had delivered in the morning.  I was very impressed with the progress each person had made from their original presentation.  The power of practice was evident.

Surprisingly each person was eager deliver their presentation one extra time to further fine tune their message.  At the end of day we debriefed the day and each participant agreed that the real key to delivering a powerful presentation is practice.  Everyone agreed that in the world of athletes, that  only with practice was how they improved, yet they  all said they rarely practiced their presentations prior to taking this program. They committed that in the future they will run through their material as many times as it takes for them to be comfortable.

I think one participant summed it up best with their comment on the evaluation form:  “Class was great because we were able to review presentation 3 times.”

I  was having a very casual conversation with the VP of Sales  from one of our pharma customers.  He was sharing with me his observation of their sales team during a recent sales conference.  His group has sales offices across Canada and there was representation from each of the provinces at the conference.  Most of the sales people were women.   He was disturbed by the fact that he could tell which province the sales rep came from by the way they were dressed.  He said he couldn’t help but think that as an organization they spent thousands of dollars every year on their company branding and what message was the reps sending when they were wearing mini-skirts and showing too much cleavage.

I shared with him that one of the Alliance partners does an excellent job of taking both groups and individuals through a personal branding process.  His eyes lit up and asked me to introduce him to the partner.  They ran the program a month later.  He was delighted with the new professional image projected by the sales people.  The participants commented on how much more confident they felt.   This program goes beyond just the physical appearance and helps people connect with their authentic self and define who they want to be known to be.

I too have gone through this Alliance partner’s branding process and I know what they mean by more confident.  Actually a friend who I hadn’t seen in six months  met me for lunch after my process was completed and she said it was not like it was a “new” me, it was more like the “real” me.