If you are in business or you have a job, you do presentations, period. If you have an online business, off-line business, retail store, wholesale firm, profit or nonprofit organization, does not matter, if you are in business, you are presenting multiple times a week.

Customer service professionals, managers, lawyers, insurance professionals, doctors, dentists, salespeople, entrepreneurs, coaches present all day long.  You either conduct internal presentations, for your coworkers, board of directors, subordinates, or you conduct external presentations for your clients, business partners, media, financial community, etc.

You can call it persuasion, influence, sales, sales presentations, educational training, workshops, the fact is, if you are in business, at some point, you are doing a presentation.  You may be using different vehicles such as face-to face meetings, phone presentations, webinars, group presentation, video conferencing, skype, or a simple conversation (that is presenting), but they are all presentations.

Every business day, you have to present your offers, ideas, point of views and the audience will say either yes or no (sometimes they say “yes” and that becomes a “no” later on and vice-versa).  I believe that everybody is in the influence business, either we are influencing or we are being influenced, and presentations are the major vehicle we use to get our points across. What is fascinating for me to see, is that in spite [...] Continue Reading

One of the beliefs that I teach about influence is that “influence is automatic, either you are influencing or you are being influenced” regardless of the environment, the intention, the state of mind you are in, or your company.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in my hometown Porto Alegre (Brazil) and my mom,  my sister and I were relaxing in a coffeehouse, people watching, sipping  “cafezinho” (expresso) and having fun. We were talking about work, family, vision and one thing lead to another and the conversation ended up in a story that has influenced me deeply-and I want to share that with you.

My mom was talking about one of my cousins that I had heard about when I was growing up but I had never had a chance to personally connect with him.  This man was extremely successful, he had his own successful company and he was one of these people who “lives to work”.

The problem wasn’t that he worked so much, but the fact that he was really selfish, really into himself, a person who put business and deals above real friendship.

According to my mother , he was a person that knew a lot of people due to his business success, but he hardly took the time to connect with people. Years passed by and my family never heard [...] Continue Reading

Everything can be reframed! Is the cup half empty or half full? Is this a crises or is this an opportunity? Is this a failure or just a lesson to be learned? Are you fearful or are you excited? At one point or another, everybody in the self-development, coaching and training industry utilizes this concept of reframing, or changing the frame of reference.

Reframing is the strategy to change the meaning of something (an event, experience, news, situation, etc.) by creating another frame (reference point) to it. Basically, reframing creates a new and different interpretation that reaches a different conclusion. It allows you to feel and behave in a different way. It is a very powerful tool for mastery if one is committed to a successful and enjoyable life.

A basic example of reframing can be someone who attempted to do something and he or she did not get the desired outcome. In his or her mind, the outcome was a failure. Well, someone can help that person to reframe the meaning of that event, and instead of labeling it a “failure” how about labeling it as “one more way you have learned how not to do something”, or “one more way you have learned how to do something differently”, or “getting one step closer to your goal.” Get my point?

Now, every [...] Continue Reading

One of the most overlooked skills in both personal and professional development is the ability to present. Last week I had two conversations, one with a lawyer and one with a business executive (who happened to have an MBA). Here is how my conversations went… I asked both of them how long they went to school (to obtain the MBA and JD degrees). Both said around 6 to 7 years. I asked them if they have to do presentations regularly for their clients and coworkers. Both of them said yes. The next question was, “How important is it for your career to be able to deliver powerful and influential presentations?” Both said, “Very important!” Finally, “During those 6 or 7 years of schooling, how many presentation and public speaking classes have you taken?” Both responded, “One class!” Here is my point… Does it make sense to have several classes about presentation skills and influence if your career will depend on how well you communicate your message? Of course it does, but most universities have not caught on to that yet (good for me, because that is one of my specialties).

I have been teaching and coaching people to execute persuasive presentations for almost 7 years. I am the founder of the program called Influencing From the Front, the only program that [...] Continue Reading

“Few great things are accomplished by one person alone.” I am sure you have heard this saying before. I would say that the majority of people I have met in my professional life would agree with this statement. The logic behind it is very simple: any big accomplishment that you want to achieve in life is going to be with the help from other people, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Think about that for a second. In any field, I do not care if it is in sports, entertainment, politics, education, business, or spirituality, at some level, someone is going to help you during the process. In sports, you have coaches, mentors or athletes that inspire you. In business you have your mastermind group, your role models, partners, employees, and associates. In education you have someone who came before you and wrote books, you have teachers and discussions with other people.

Now, I am not discounting the fact that for one to be able to achieve great results in life, one must have individual characteristics such as goal-orientation, self-determination, leadership, drive and a strong work ethic. These traits are prerequisites. Besides those traits, leaders who achieve greatness are masters at creating and cultivating relationships.

What I have found is that people in general are very good at creating relationships, finding something [...] Continue Reading

I am sure most you have read this article that has been all over the news last week (if you have not, here is the article I got from Yahoo news). It was interesting to me to see Bill Gates using such a powerful presentation prop to drive his point home. I am sure he got the attention of the entire audience (and from people all over the world). Even though I do not think that Bill Gates is an outstanding presenter, I do give him a ‘10’ on this presentation for his creativity! I love it!

Gates Makes a Point 
Release the hounds! Actually, make that mosquitoes. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and one of the world’s wealthiest people, made headlines this week when he released a cloud of mosquitos at a techn ology conference. The philanthropist was pointing out the dangers of malaria for the world’s poor. “Malaria is spread by mosquitoes. I brought some here,” he said. “There is no reason only poor people should be infected.” Fortunately for the terrified attendees, the mosquitoes were malaria-free. [...] Continue Reading

Do you want to change something in your life?If you are like 99.99% of the people alive (I would say more like 100%), you have something in your life that you really want to change. Think about it. What is one thing in your personal or professional life that you want to change?

If you do not feel inspired today, let me give you some ideas: Would you like to change how you feel on a regular basis? Would you like to change your income? Would you like to change the way you look (gain or lose weight)? 
Would you like to change careers? Would you like to change your job? Would you like to change a specific behavior in your personal relationship? Would you like to change where you live? Would you like to change some of your relationships?

Even though I do not know you personally, I would say if you were 100% honest with yourself you said yes to at least one of these questions. After 2,500 presentations and almost 7 years practicing executive coaching, I have not found anybody who does not want to change anything.

There could be several reasons why human beings always want to change (the need to grow, contribution, fear, personal dissatisfaction, ego, etc.), but that is not the issue of this article. [...] Continue Reading