Craigstrachan.com – Keep talking!

If you want to see a brilliant and inspirational speaker, you have to get tickets to see Ben speak. I have been twice, an it is an incredible inspiring presentation! He will be in Cape Town and Johannesburg in Jan 2011. It is worth every cent.

For details, email Johleen@symphonia.net, or goto www.symphonia.net.

Benjamin Zander, world renowned conductor and speaker on leadership, captivates and inspires with his unique style.

Benjamin Zander

Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, is a world renowned speaker on leadership. He has presented at the World Economic Forum many times, and was the opening keynote speaker at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2009.

Benjamin Zander’s presentation takes an audience on a journey that offers a startling new perspective on leadership. Through stories, music and concepts it causes a radical shift in perception. This is not a speech, it is an experience!

In this new model of leadership, the conductor sees his job as awakening possibility in others. The orchestra is a group of highly trained individuals poised to coalesce into an effective whole. Passion, creativity and the desire to contribute are basic human instincts to be released.

World famous conductor, Benjamin Zander uses the metaphor of the orchestra and a life-time of experience conducting, coaching and teaching musicians to work his magic to overcome barriers to corporate productivity. This presentation sources fundamental changes in organizations.

For more information see www.benjaminzander.com.

CAPE TOWN

Dates: Tues, 25 January 2011
Registration: 08:30 – 09:00
Time: 09:00 – 13:00
Venue: TBC

JOHANNESBURG

Dates: Fri, 28 January 2011
Registration: 08:30 – 09:00
Time: 09:00 – 13:00
Venue: Vodaworld, Midrand

Hi all

Just a quick note to let you know that I recently contributed to an article for Destiny Man Magazine.The article is about common mistakes we make when speaking in public, and on how to avoid them. You can read the article online here.

Craig

Do you want free publicity? Then use these tips.

1. Website –crucial; keep it simple. Free!
2. Community adverts in newspapers; consistent. Call the editor and ask him for lead times; make friends!
3. Facebook page
4. Community papers – tell them success stories
5. Advertise at venue (do they have a newsletter); leave back issues of the magazine at the venue (with contact details)?
6. Members – advertise at businesses
7. Speak to district and see what they can give you.
8. Download free flyers from the Toastmasters International website
9. Guest list; add everyone who contacts you to the guest email list (ask them if you can add them to the list)
10. Follow up immediately to guests that have attended and that contact you
11. Ensure club details are correct with WHQ!

I just gained a new client because her current service provider takes too long to get back to her.

Not because my product is better, or because I am more skilled. It was simply because I am a better communicator than her previous supplier.

• How effective is your communication?
• What business are you losing because of your communiucation skills?
• How can you improve your communication with your clients?

I have been using Microsoft Office 2010 for a few months now. When I closed Word the other day, the following dialogue appeared on the screen. Basically Word had made a list of words that I commonly use that are not in the Word dictionary, and gave me the option of uploading them to their spell check database.

I am sure that they are using the community-gathered information to add new words to the dictionary to make for an ultimately better product.

This is a simple and elegant way to make a better product, and to have happier customers.

• What are you doing to make your products better?
• How are you involving your customers?
• Is it easy for your customers to provide feedback?

You often hear me speaking about the value of impromptu speaking, and why learning to speak off the cuff is as important as learning to speak prepared.

Here is a great resource; an entire website dedicated to the art of “table topics”, or speaking impromptu.What I like about the site is  that he gives you a lot of templates, or outlines you can use for practising unprepared topics.

Here is an example:

Split Personality

Number of participants: Two

The majority of the information we convey doesn’t come from what we say, but from how we say it. Bodily gestures are a large part of this. The goal of this template is to separate these different aspects of communication between two people. One participant does the talking, the other does the gesturing.

There are two ways to use this template. Either one participant talks, and the other creates the corresponding gestures, or one uses gestures, and the other talks about what the gestures are indicating.

Doing this effectively requires a reasonable amount of cooperation from the participants. It can weaken the delivery if both participants end up gesturing (once you do it, it can be a difficult thing to put down temporarily!). This should possibly be made clear to the participants.

It’s interesting to see the different ways people can take this, sometimes you may have one participant controlling the flow of the entire topic, while others will work together to figure out how the talk or story will evolve.

The purpose of this template is to give people the chance to carefully consider what their gestures are saying to an audience.

Thanks to Andrew William’s for creating the resource.

Last week, I ordered a couple of cases of wine from Getwine.co.za. When the wine arrived, Getwine alse gave me a free 100g slab of Lindt chocolate. They didn’t tell me about it when I ordered, they didn’t tell me in the delivery note, the driver didn’t mention it.

It was just tucked quietly away inside one of the boxes. That is also not the first time they have done this.

• How do you give unexpected gifts to your customers?
• How do you keep your customers loyal?
• What do you do to get your customers to tell everybody about your great service?

I am often asked for my views on keeping the stories in a speech completely accurate as to what happened, as opposed to embellishing the story to make a great speech. My response is that while you need to be true to your stories, you must also be true to your message. Make sure that your audience remembers your message.

But it can be a fine line between embellishing a story to make it a great story, and telling an outright lie.

Darren la Croux has written a great blog post on this subject, explaining that your stories should at least be “Based on a True Story”. He says,

Have you ever noticed that Hollywood blockbusters always start off, “based on a true story?” They never start, “this is exactly how it happened.” If they told it exactly how it happened, we’d be bored!

Are you perfectly accurate when you tell your stories? The truth is important, yes. I’m not saying to lie or make things up. I just want your stories to be so memorable that people walk away clearly understanding your message.

If you are unsure how to approach this issue in your speeches, read his post; he gives a very clear an concise answer.

Gary Bailey

Some tips I picked up from Gary (ex goal keeper for Manchester United) at our Toastmasters conference. Enjoy!

Manchester United:

• Is a $1 billion business
• Has 300 million customers
• Delivers weekly to its customers

The principles of a good soccer team apply to business as well…

• Be tough- learns to takes knocks
• Build on gratitude
• Appreciate staff and all those around you
• Things go wrong for everybody at some time
• It’s how you deal with life, not what happens to you that is important
• Plan for the future
• Don’t send emotional emails because there is no emotion in email
• Make time for others
• Raise your energy
  • Body; food & exercise
  • Spirit; helping others
  • Mind;
  • Emotions;

Ali Bacher and ,me

Dr Ali Bacher spoke at our Toastmasters conference in May. Here are a few lessons from him.

1. Return correspondence within 24 hours
2. Brevity – 2 pages (both speaking and writing)
3. Workplace structures are meaningless (my version is that titles are meaningless)
4. Look after quality people that make it happen
5. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys
6. Keep your door open
7. Promote performers
8. Give responsibility to people you have confidence in
9. Give small gestures of appreciation
10. Be honest – never lie
11. Never break your word
12. Always settle out of court
13. Never record your feelings at the time, wait until you have cooled down
14. To learn respect, set the example
15. Fly economy class with your staff!
16. You have a responsibility to transfer your skills
17. Things don’t just happen; be proactive