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After our last newsletter several people asked 'So how did the conference speaker wake up his audience for the graveyard slot'? So here is the answer...

By way of background, the conference was about pre-pay mobile phones. The subject of the presentation was the need for an international standard for the way pre-pay phones are topped up with credit. It varies a great deal from one country to another. The audience came from all over the world.

Mike began his presentation by asking his audience to see if they had a Visa or MasterCard. He said 'if you have, please hold it up above your heads.'

The audience did exactly as he asked and the effect was threefold -

Firstly, his audience took a few deep breaths and shuffled around

Secondly, they learnt something - namely that everyone in the room had one of the cards

Thirdly, they were left wanting to know why they had been asked to undertake the exercise

The latter part of the presentation linked back to the exercise, when Mike pointed out that everyone in the audience had confidence in being able to pay for goods and services around the world using global payment card schemes. Then he asked "wouldn't it be nice if your customers knew that topping up their phone could be that easy?..."

So now you know. But, what are the best ways of 'grabbing the audience's attention' that you have seen? Email us with the details and the best one will win a bottle of champagne.

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what to say and how to say it

Ingrid and Christine talked to the analysts at some length before devising an entirely customised three-day programme. Each day was divided into three parts; working with Ingrid to improve the way they each spoke, working with Christine to improve the structure of their presentations and finally, a practical session to put all the theory into practice.

Recognising that everyone's needs are different, time was set aside each day for all of the analysts to speak to both trainers on a one-to-one basis.

Martin Brampton, Research Director of Bloor Research said "We were looking to provide support for our analysts who are increasingly invited to speak at seminars and conferences. As a result it was important that the training was entirely geared to this type of speaking engagement. I am delighted to say that Ingrid and Christine provided exactly what we needed."

Bloor Research is one of the world's leading IT analyst and consultancy organisations, providing independent expert IT research and advice. To find out more visit their web-site at www.bloor-research.com.

If you think that any of your staff would benefit from working with our voice and speech coach, give us a call on 0845 456 7094.

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From left to right Christine, Claire and Ingrid, the girls at be clear

rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

This is the view of Michael Geary the CEO of Efonic plc. Christine had worked with Michael and his Chief Technical Officer, John Carlisle, to prepare a presentation about the company. So a couple of days before Michael and John were due to give the presentation for the first time, they put aside an afternoon to practice, with Christine as their audience.

"John and I had already prepared a list of questions that we thought might be asked" said Michael, "however, Christine came armed with her own list of some 30 questions which she proceeded to fire at us. By the end of the afternoon we were a lot more confident of our ability to handle any unforeseen questions and also any changes in the length of our presentation time, the venue and so on. It really was time well spent".

Efonic plc is a company that specialises in providing businesses with an evolutionary, low-risk way to move to a three-tier IT architecture.

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Contact be clear on 0845 456 7094 or enquiries@beclear.co.uk