Last week I talked about how to build rapport with your audience and keep them engaged in what you’re saying.

This week I’m going to share with you 10 tips for managing your content.

Often when you are presenting you want your audience to remember what you’ve said. Research shows that it takes only 20 minutes to forget 60% of what you are told unless you deliberately set aside time to review what was said or you use the information you have been given soon afterwards.

So these tips are designed to make your presentation more memorable:

1.    PowerPoint is a great tool for creating and delivering content in presentations. However, creating many slides full of text is what gave birth to the phrase, ‘death by Powerpoint’. To help you reduce the number of words you use, map out the key topics, sub-topics and messages in your presentation and then write down key words for each of them. Stick to keywords on your Powerpoint slides and avoid sentences. That way you’ll avoid overloading your audience.

2.    Remember that PowerPoint is mainly a tool for making your presentations visually interesting. Words by themselves are not visual. So make full use of its fabulous ability to help you include, colour, photos, videos, graphs, and other visual effects.

I remember one of my clients was a technical expert and he resisted putting pictures into his presentation because he thought it would reduce his credibility – somehow it wouldn’t look academic enough.

What I helped him discover is that his audience could understand better what he was talking about when he added visual elements and so his credibility increased even more. Of course it does depend what pictures you choose!

3.    Some of my clients have tried to use the PowerPoint slides as a memory aid – so the slides are for them them rather than their audience. That can lead to a very boring presentation for your audience as you read out exactly what they can see on the slides.

If you need more words to help you remember the content, how about putting them in the ‘Notes’ section of a power point slide so that only you can read them? Even better is to rehearse the presentation so you only need the key words to guide you through it. Then you’ll be able to move around freely and express yourself more naturally – your audience will really warm to that.

4.    If you really feel that a lot of words are needed, make sure that the bullet points appear one at a time otherwise you’re audience (especially the more visual people) will be tempted to read them all at their reading pace which may be faster or slower than you are presenting – a disavantage of that happening is that you can lose connection with your audience.

5.    Use headings to guide your audience through your presentation. You can add sub titles if the topic of the heading covers more than one Power Point slide. This will help your audience understand and remember your presentation more easily.

6.    That was the first 5 tips. Here’s number 6. To guide your audience through your presentation and make it more memorable follow the example of television news:

• Begin by briefly telling them what you will tell them – in the news that would be the headlines
• Then tell them – give them the content – that’s where they go into more depth and bring pictures, stories and interviews on TV
• At the end briefly tell them what you’ve told them – on the news they repeat the headlines.

7.    So now we’re at tip no. 7.

If the Powerpoint slides are going to be projected onto a screen, check what they will look like because they often look more faded and less clear than on your computer screen and so some fonts and colours you’ve used may be hard to read. Choose colours and fonts that look clear, bright and sharp even when projected.

8.    Here’s a little known tip for no 8. Keep in mind that some men are red/green colour blind so avoid using the two colours together if distinguishing between the two colours is important to your message.

9.    Remember that there are effective low tech ways of organising and delivering content. Flip charts and coloured pens can be very effective and because they are used less often these days, you can avoid the association and groans that may come with…Ohh no, another PowerPoint presentation!!!

Flip charts are also great for making your presentation more interactive and keep your audience’s attention – for instance you can gather ideas, thoughts and questions from your audience onto flip chart pages. You can tear off the pages and stick them to the walls with blue tack. At the end of the presentation you can check with the audience if all their questions have been answered. That makes your audience feel you’ve been really responsive to their needs – that’s a great rapport builder.

10. And finally, there are loads of other ways to manage and deliver your content such as webinars, teleseminars, teleconferences, CDs and DVDs that might be more suited to what you have to present. Remember to explore those too.

So, there are many ways to manage your content. I’ve covered 10 of them today very briefly, these include how to get the best out of PowerPoint and how to use low tech methods too.

If you want to find out more about confident and skilful presenting go to www.buildingselfconfidence.co.uk

If you are interested in how to improve your sales presenting and conversion rates, please go to www.TheAccountabilityClub.co.uk

In my next post  about presenting confidently,  I’ll be talking about techniques to help you manage the area you’ll be presenting in to enhance your presentation, including a mysterious technique called ‘stage anchoring’.

In the meantime, good luck with your presentations. I’d love to know how you get on.

1.   Managing Your Audience

Hello, this is Madeleine Morgan from GrowU.

This is the second of a four post series on presenting confidently and skilfully. Last week I talked about four ways to manage yourself, build your confidence and create a confident impression.

This week I’m going to share with you some ideas for managing your audience and keeping your audience interested.

Because, most of the time, we get by in life with the reasonable communications skills most of us learned very haphazardly from parents, the playground and other things we’ve picked up randomly from life experience, we sometimes under-estimate the special communications skills we need to learn for career and business success.

This quotation from David Gordon gives us a useful and challenging warning:

He said: ‘Just because you are making a noise in my direction don’t assume you are communicating with me.’

Maybe you have some experiences that help you understand the value of those words such as – lost sales, failed interviews, luke warm responses to work presentations and audiences who just didn’t ‘Get it’.

With that in mind here are some useful tips:

Let’s start with some useful questions for you to answer about your presentation:

a.    What is the purpose of my presentation – to inform, engage, enthuse, educate, impress, persuade, sell, get referrals? How will I achieve this?

b.    How will I know if my presentation has been successful? Remember that presentations are more about how the message is received than about ‘broadcasting’ to your audience. The acid test of the success of your presentation is the action your audience takes as a result of it.

For instance, do they buy something from you or adopt a new way of doing things or bring you referrals or…? If your audience enjoyed your presentation but didn’t take the action you intended them to take then you need to rethink your presentation. I remember listening to a presentation on how to get more business by referral. He gave lots of useful tips but ended the presentation with a funny but irrelevant joke. I can’t remember the tips but I do remember the joke.

c.     How can I establish rapport with my audience? This is important because people are more open to accepting your ideas if they know, like and trust you. Some ways to establish rapport are outlined in the points below.

d.    What experience/knowledge/skill does my audience have in relation to the topic of the presentation? What do I need to do to ensure they understand and so feel engaged?

Through you (your body language, voice qualities, ability to summarise, live explanation, question answering etc) and PowerPoint, Role Play, Music, Video, Audience Participation etc. you have the opportunity give your audience a valuable, easily understood and interesting visual/hearing/feeling experience of your topic and make it easier for your audience to make use of the content of your presentation in the way you intended, e.g. to remember and implement.

e.    How does my audience best understand and recall information? How should that influence my presentation style?

Research shows that while spoken and written communication is important most peope also need more help:

• 40% of people understand and remember information better when it’s presented visually – with pictures, graphs, diagrams, video etc.
• 20% of people best understand and recall information that is heard, especially when it is said with a variety of voice tones/speeds/expressions. This may also include other sounds such as music, sound effects etc.
• 40% of people prefer to be ‘walked through’ information step by step and/or have a practical/tactile/emotional experience of it.

f.      Make use of metaphors and stories. We naturally learn and understand by comparing what we do know to something that we don’t know. Metaphors can help your audience understand in an instant what would take many more words to explain. For instance, when people ask me what I do I often compare the life and business coaching I do to what a sports coach does – like a sports coach I help my clients get great results through helping them improve their skills and/or changing their mindset. When I explain it this way people quickly understand the value of the coaching relationship in creating success.

They say, ‘Facts tell, stories sell’. Telling a story can be a great way of opening up your audience’s mind to consider new ideas and information.

g.    What is the audience’s purpose in being there? What do they think they are there for? You may need to find out or explain that. Then you may need to explain early on in your presentation how your presentation fits with their purpose in being in the audience.

h.    What is important to your audience? How will you address their key concerns, interests, etc.? For instance, are they interested in technical excellence, ‘green’ issues, innovation, exam success, in doing a good job and being seen as professional? Your audience will be most attentive and engaged if you are showing them how to achieve what’s important to them.

i.      What are the beliefs and culture of your audience? How will you take that into account? For instance, are they suspicious of your profession? Are there common beliefs you’ll need to influence them to change?

j.      Sometimes you have the unhappy task of delivering bad news. There are ways to do this in a positive light – for instance state what has been learned from mistakes.

Apparently a manufacturer once intended to create a hard glue that would stick things together permanently. The formula turned out to be too weak but another use was found for it and Post-it notes were born!

Are there any advantages to some of the setbacks that have been experienced?

k.     When you have good news to report, make the most of it. For instance if you’re reporting on progress, mention the deliverable and then put the icing on the cake by mentioning the benefits and outcomes of achieving that. For instance, if a new website has been created for the project, what has that achieved in terms of marketing the project or how is it being used for the benefit of users? Case studies are useful stories to include here.

l.      Handling questions – this is a huge topic but here are some tips.

• The best time to handle an awkward question is before it is asked because this gives you more control over the presentation and shows you are well prepared. That means you need to think about the difficult questions you think will be raised and give information that answers them in your presentation.
• If you can’t answer a question at the time you can say that you will find the answer and get back to them within an agreed timescale.

• Sometimes it’s suitable to throw the question over to the audience to get suggestions and ideas.

So, there are many ways to manage manage your audience and keep them engaged. I’ve covered 12 of them today very briefly.

If you want to find out more about confident and skilful presenting go to www.buildingselfconfidence.co.uk

If you want to find out more about sales presenting go to www.TheAccountabilityClub.co.uk

Next week I’ll be talking about techniques to help you manage the content of your presentation and avoid what has been called, ‘Death by Powerpoint’.

In the meantime, good luck with your presentations. I’d love to know how you get on

It’s a vital skill for your career – interview procedures for management posts increasingly include a presentation assignment for you to do to demonstrate your communication skills. Certain job roles will include presenting and in many companies it can be a great opportunity to increase your visibility, your credibility and so your salary. Business success often depends on how well you present your business to clients and referral partners.

Whether your purpose is too educate, sell, influence, inform, impress, motivate or entertain there are 4 parts to delivering a confident presentation:

1.    Managing Yourself

2.    Managing Your Audience

3.    Managing Your Content

4.    Managing the ‘Stage’ or presentation area

In this post I’m going to cover Managing Yourself

They say successful people live in a town just south of Arrogance called Confidence. A confident presentation raises your credibility with your audience and makes them more willing to listen to you.

1. Unfortunately, surveys show that many people experience the same emotions and physical reactions as they would if they were swimming in shark infested waters! If you are one of those people, you are not alone.

A survey carried out in America found that people were more afraid of presenting than of dying!

My clients have included a director of FTSE 100 company worrying about whether his words would affect the company’s share price, owners of small and medium sized businesses presenting at networking meetings, managers in technology companies presenting to funding bodies, sales people, teachers and many others.

Many of them have been confident people in other areas of their lives but somehow when it comes to presenting they find it tough to stay calm. And the bigger the audience the bigger the nerves.

Some found they were okay once they got into the presentation but for others the whole thing was an ordeal.

Apparently when we are babies there are only 2 fears we’re born with – a fear of loud noises and a fear of falling. All the other fears we have in life are learned. So, the good news is that if fear of presenting is learned, it can also be unlearned.

So here are 3 of the many tools I use to help people tame the butterflies and getting them to fly in formation.

a.     I often use NLP and hypnotic techniques to help people overcome presentation nerves. You can also use some self-hypnosis and put yourself in a positive trance by remembering a time when you really felt confident. Think about it until you start to feel those confident emotions strongly again. Then walk on ‘stage’.

b.   In the days leading up to your presentation remember to rehearse. Do this in real life – out loud -  and also in your head. In your imagination, see the presentation turning out well. Why does this work? Well your mind works best when you focus on what you do want, rather than what you don’t want.

Your mind is a bit like a travel agent. If you said to a travel agent, ‘I don’t want to go to Birmingham’ your travel agent would have to ask you where you do want to go in order to help you. It’s the same with your mind. If you fill your mind with fears and thoughts about what you don’t want to happen, there’s little room for it to focus on how to get you the result you do want.

In fact you confuse your mind when you are nervous. Let me give you an example.

In a second I’m going to give you a command. I want you to notice what you had to do to follow that command. Okay, here’s the command: ‘Don’t think of a pair of sunglasses!’ Did you notice that you had to think of a pair of sunglasses to even process that thought? That’s because your mind finds it difficult to process negatives. So if you say to yourself, ‘I don’t want to make a mistake’ or ‘I don’t want to forget my lines’ you programme you mind to think about mistakes and forgetting rather than correct action and remembering.

c.  Breath deeply – deep, long and slow breaths are hard-wired in our nervous system to relaxation. If you are too nervous you tend to forget things, on the other hand, a certain amount of adrenalin helps you perform better.

If these confidence tips don’t completely cure your nerves, seek the help of anNLP trained presentation skills coach.

Here are some other tips for managing yourself during a presentation:

• If you are trying to convey a positive message when your body language and voice qualities are not positive, it’s your body language and voice qualities that will be believed. You can’t see me right now but if I say, ‘I erh feel umm confident’ how much do you believe me when I use that tone of voice? Not at all! So, keep your tone and body language upbeat.
• Because our body language and voice tones affect our emotions you will also feel more upbeat. Try it now. Check that     no-one can see you. Now, smile or laugh for no reason whatsoever. Did you notice yourself feeling happier?
• Your body language needs to enhance your message so use gestures that are relevant to what you’re saying. Avoid random arm movements, swaying on your feet etc. because they are distracting. Hands held in front of you with palms together or facing upwards can look weak, defensive or needing to please someone. Pointing at your audience can    seem aggressive.

• A good presenter’s stance is to stand with your feet hip width apart, your weight evenly balanced on both legs and with your knees slightly flexed. If you imagine an invisible string pulling your chest and the crown of your head upwards your back and shoulders will automatically be straight and you will look confident.

• One authoritative way to use your arms and hands is to move your hands down and outwards in a spreading movement with your palms facing down or angled downwards. This is known as a ‘Levelling’ gesture and it says things like, ‘This is the way it is.’ You often see TV reporters using it.

•  If you want to convey certainty or a positive message avoid words such as ‘quite’, ‘reasonably’ and ‘fairly’ – for instance, avoid ‘fairly successful’. Say it was successful or if you want to qualify the success give specific details.

• Avoid using a voice tone that goes up at the end of a sentence, unless you are asking a question, because it can sound doubtful.

Your image

Apparently people make 11 judgements about us in the first 30 seconds of meeting us. What we wear contributes to their assessment of us. There is a saying: dress for the job you want rather than the job you have. Whether you are interested in clothes or not they are a language that conveys certain messages. Here are some translations:

1.  If you want to create an authoritative look follow the example of people in authority and wear the deepest colour suit that suits you, a white/cream shirt or blouse/top and plain tie/scarf. Remember how Obama and Cameron are dressed on formal occasions – dark suit, white shirt and dark red or dark blue tie.
2.  Invest in an image consultation to find out what really suits you. I remember coaching an area bank manager. He was in his thirties and enjoyed being fashionable. At the time chunky things were popular, such as wide collars and large knots in ties. The trouble was that he was very slim and so he looked swamped by his clothes as if he was a boy in man’s clothing. Because I’m trained in spotting these things I could advice him to wear narrower ties and collars that suited his build. Most people wouldn’t be able to pinpoint that reason why he seemed less professional and authoritative but they would certainly get that impression all the same.
3. A tip for the men - red tie draws attention to your mouth which can be handy when you’re presenting.  Talking of ties,   the best length is touching your trouser waist. If you make the tie shorter or longer it directs attention to your                  stomach or, unfortunately, much lower down and gives you less credibility.
4. If you wear a different colour jacket from your skirt or trousers you will look shorter and fatter. If you wear the same colour jacket and trousers/skirt you will look taller and slimmer.

So, there are many ways to manage your self in order to feel and convey confidence – the 4 we’ve covered today are: positive rehearsal, body language, voice qualities and image.

If you want to find out more about confident and skilful presenting go to www.buildingselfconfidence.co.uk

And if you want to find out more about sales presenting go to www.TheAccountabilityClub.co.uk

The Confidence Coach

As a result of being one of the Chat Room guests on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire recently, it got me thinking...

We discussed 2 topics I thought were related. One was about how we felt about lending money to friends and family – could we live by the motto, ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’? The other was - what was our worst experience of having someone to stay in our home?

So how are those related, I hear you ask?

Well, what I realised was that those situations tend to be dilemmas for us if we’re not sure how, confidently, to set wise boundaries with people. Or if we are uncomfortable about dealing with people’s upset, or even our own guilt, when we do set boundaries. In fact that’s at the heart of many relationships we find difficult.

A common question my clients ask is, ‘How can I tell/refuse/ask……without upsetting them?’

The answers lie on lots of different levels. But here are a few ideas:

Remember that you can’t please all of the people all of the time. People become upset for lots of reasons – many of them you couldn’t be expected to guess. Instead of avoiding a conversation for fear of upsetting someone, get skilled at communicating effectively with that kind of person/situation and dealing with any upset that comes up.

For instance, if someone is upset about something you’ve asked them for or refused to give them, avoid becoming defensive. Try to have an open discussion about the real issues rather than about the emotions and the way they were communicated.

After all, if you avoid asking someone for something or to do something for fear of upsetting them, you never give them an opportunity to say, ‘Yes!’

Remember that you have a right to ask and they have a right to refuse. At the same time they have a right to ask you and you have a right to refuse!

Wouldn’t life be easier if we could be direct and assert our right to just ask or to just refuse?

For one of my coaching clients that belief system I’ve just described about asking and refusing just didn’t fit.

She came from a culture where if a member of the family asked for financial support she would give it, few questions asked. For instance, she was supporting a nephew to go to a very expensive college in the America and a cousin who kept wasting money and then finding himself on the breadline.

At the same time she had financial difficulties of her own because her business clients were late paying for her services.

Her belief that she should help her family was so strong that she felt guilty about refusing her family even though she had made her own luck in life and she was feeling very stressed by the financial state of her business.

The situation could only get worse because she was training her family to treat her like a bank.

One perspective that helped her was to realise that she could be more helpful to her family by asking curious and open questions that helped them realise how they could help themselves more. I call it ‘teaching them to fish so that they can feed themselves for a lifetime’ rather than ‘giving them fish which might feed them for only a day’.

The ‘win’ for her family members was that they enjoyed feeling more successful and the ‘win’ for her was she felt good about helping them find out how to be resourceful. She could also feel loved for herself rather than for her money.

Where in your life could you be creating a win-win by ‘teaching someone to fish’?

When you’re having family and friends to stay, think about how you can create a win-win situation.

I like to feel relaxed when people come to stay. One way I can be relaxed is by not having to second guess everyone’s needs. So for instance, I tell them that if they feel like having a hot drink, feel free to make one – they don’t have to wait for me to ask (Of course I do ask sometimes too). Or if they wake up before me and feel hungry – feel free to go and make some toast or get some cereal. My guests feel relaxed too because they don’t have to follow my routine all the time. Of course, we also plan to eat meals together as well.

How can you make sure that visits from your family and friends are win-win ones?

Please let me know how you get on or if you have any questions.

With 2012 here, I thought I’d give you a free tool to help you get clear about where you are in your life, where you’d like to be and how to get there. Just email me and I’ll send it to you.

Have you ever wondered why companies choose to make workers redundant rather than cut salaries? After all, it doesn't seem to make sense to get rid of the people they've invested in recruiting and  training when, if they keep those people employed, the company will have the talent to take advantage of rising demand when we pull out of the recession. Why not renegotiate the salaries and keep their team employed? That would also be a better outcome for employees and their families than facing redundancy.

Well studies show that employees' morale goes down when their salaries are cut and they respond by working less. Many people live up to and beyond their salaries so a general salary cut would also spread  misery. Business owners and managerment teams use redundancies to get rid of people who are not pulling their weight or who are destroying team morale. So employers prefer a small number of employees to be miserable by making them redundant than by upsetting the majority. Studies also show that redundancies boost the productivity of of the employees who remain because they are more motivated to prove their value. Apparently most workers would rather keep their salaries than save their colleagues.

What if there was a better way forward where employees and employers could win? I've got some recession surviving and thriving tips for you whether you are an  employer or an employee.

First of all, here are 5 secrets for recession proofing your career if you want to avoid redundancy, stay employed and thrive in difficult times:

1. Whatever expertise you have and whatever industry you're working in, look out of niches. What I mean by that is      areas where there is a lot of demand for people with skills, knowledge and experience and few people who have it. For instance, with one of my clients we identified that her company in the pharmaceutical industry was losing business because nobody was really skilled at putting effective teams together to bid for certain projects.  I shared with her some useful skills and she soon started to earn more bonuses for extra business the company gained. She was also able to fast track her career and later got promoted from business development manager to director of business development.
2. Recession Proof Your Career: Use Social Media tools like Linkedin to help you  get known for that expertise - it's free! If you don't know how to use Social Media for promoting yourself click here.
3. Successful people take charge of their  personal development - emotional intelligence and great communication skills can give you an edge over your more your difficult or less communicative colleagues. There's a saying that we get hired for our technical/professional skills and fired for our communication skills!
4. Take up every course opportunity related to your professional and personal development that your company offers you. When you gain more knowledge and skill it's like putting money in your bank account. Training is a valuable perk in your employment package.
5. Then, create a personal development budget to fill in the  gaps especially, if your company doesn't provide training. Private Life, Career and Executive Coaching is a great 21st century resource. It gives you the opportunity to talk about and get skilled in handling challenges you may not be able to talk about, or get the personal attention you need, at work. Life, Career or Executive coaching can help you get more clarity, focus and direction on how to:

• manage your anger, stress and procrastination and stay confident and motivated
• be more assertive and avoid aggressive or passive reactions to colleagues, clients, suppliers and bosses
• deal with difficult people, get the best out of others and create win-win situations
• get more recognition and reward for what you do
• make the right career choices and choose the next career steps for  you
• convert any training you've received in presentation skills, leading, managing, influencing and negotiating into mastery
• develop the confidence and skill you need to fast track, or downsize, your career or get back into work after a break

3 tips for Managers and Business Owners to help you survive and thrive in the recession:

1. Focus on building your team's morale to increase productivity and help you keep your talented people. I'm not talking about fixing up expensive outward bound team away days that are difficult to measure in terms of return on investment. I'm talking about the more every day things.
2. For instance, make sure that when someone does a good job they get the recognition they deserve and everyone hears about it. Weed out team leaders who make their team's life hell because of their poor leadership skills. If you want to keep them, give them 1-2-1 coaching with a coach who is skilled at changing people's attitude - it's 80% more effective than training in getting results.
3. Positvely and inspirationally engage your whole workforce in the task of helping your company to thrive rather than deciding things in high level meetings and handing down the bad news. A business owner I coached created weekly meetings where his team expressed their achievements, discussed their ideas for recession-proofing the business and brought referrals they had gained from tapping into their networks. Morale and productivity went up and the business owner tapped into resources in his team he didn't know were there before. For instance, his whole team, in effect, became his sales force and business development team because everyone was more aware of their potential to grow the business.

They say obstacles arise when we take our eyes off our goals. Let's keep focussed on creating a rewarding present and future.

I wish you health, wealth and happiness

Warm wishes

Madeleine

Madeleine Morgan uses NLP, coaching, personality profiling and training skills to help professionals, managers and business owners to create more rewarding lives, careers and businesses.

She is based in Cambridge UK and works locally, nationally and internationally in companies and at her coaching practice, face-to-face, over the telephone and on Skype.

She has over 20 years coaching and training experience and has worked with corporates, charities, SMEs and government organisations as well as 953 private clients who are mangers, professionals or business owners.

I like to reward action, so if you take the action to contact me I'll offer you a free no obligation Discovery Session to help you clarify where you are now, where you'd like to be and how to bridge the gap.

madeleine@growu.co.uk

mm@buildingselfconfidence.co.uk

01223 426392

The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton has got me thinking about what makes a confident and fulfiling relationship.

Whether you’re totally indifferent to the royal wedding or a raving fan, it seems obvious that Kate and William are, in many ways, living the romantic dream. They’re wealthy, good looking, confident in each other’s love and make a great team.

It may be tempting to think that their kind of relationship is only for the privileged few. And it’s true that few people will have royal weddings but it’s also true that living the dream romance is more possible than most people think or experience in real life.

My own experiences of relationship pain, disaster and happiness gave me a passion to share with others what I’ve learned through experience and training about how how to create fun, passionate and happy relationships even when the relationship involves people with totally different personalities.

I’ve found out that many people are experiencing more pain than they need to just because there are some secrets, tools and strategies to creating a happy relationship they need to know – and are rarely taught.

Here are some of those secrets.

7 secrets to a confident and passionate relationship:

1.    Confidence in Relationship Secret One - Choose someone who shares many of your hopes, values and dreams about life and relationship – it’s hard work in a relationship if you and your partner have very different ideas about what you want out of life. You’ll get caught up in resisting each other’s attempt to try and change each other. Know what you want and find out what they want, early on.

Nowadays people have more opportunity to find out if they are compatible before they get married than ever before. Yet 50% of first marriages and 75% of second marriages end in divorce. How can that be?

My experience of coaching over 900 clients is that they either ignore the instinct they have that this person is, at best, only 80% right for them. Or, a lack of skills and knowledge, some of which are mentioned in the tips below, kills off the chemistry.

2.    Confidence in Relationship Secret Two - Be quick to praise the things you love and appreciate about them.

We’re brought up to think that people only improve and change if we criticise and point out when they make mistakes.

Yet, think about when you were a baby just taking your first wobbly steps.

Imagine if we’d been surrounded by people who had told us we were doing it all wrong, that we were underachieving and would probably never walk based on the evidence of our first struggles. I wonder how many people would still be crawling into middle age! Or be going into therapy because of a walking phobia.

I bet for most of you, the people around you praised everything about what you tried to do to walk – even when you lost your balance and sat down with a bump on your backside – for the 100^th time. Maybe that’s why the majority of the people on the planet can walk!

Choose someone who is generous with their appreciation of you too. Be each other’s fan club!

3.    Confidence in Relationship Secret Three – Talk about the things that bother you about your partner and the relationship.

You might think this tip is contradictory after what I said in tip 2.

Yes, if your partner has done or said something you don’t like, talk about it!

Avoid suffering in silent resentment because it kills off love and passion in a relationship. Avoid being intimidating, critical and interrogating while at the same time avoid being a victim, placating or distant. There are secrets to having those difficult conversations - the next 2 tips will help.

4. Confidence in Relationship Secret Four - When your partner wants different things from you, or has a different opinion, be willing to talk calmly about your differences. We are usually brought up to debate and that can be fun. But if you hold your ground too fiercely or reluctantly give in, you miss opportunities to understand each other better.

There’s a middle way. Sometimes it’s more loving, and exciting, to find out more about why they think the way they do before you bring your contradictory ideas. Avoid dismissing their ideas and wants too quickly – then they’ll be more willing to listen to you too. Have a win-win conversation.

5.    Confidence in Relationship Secret Five - When difficulties come up think about your part in creating the situation.

For instance, if your partner is treating you badly, is there some way in which you’ve ‘trained’ them to do that either by ignoring their needs and wants or by trying to please them too much?

If you’re not attracting the right people into your life, what do you need to learn and change that will help you attract the romantic partner of your dreams?

The great thing about doing this is that your part is the only bit you’re in control of, the bit you can change and have power over. When you realise what you can do to change a situation, that’s very empowering.

We’re emotionally wired to go into flght/flight reactions in the face of relationships difficulties so I know this tip, while simple, is difficult to follow. My clients find that when you talk with an experienced relationship coach who can help you get the perspective, awareness and skills you need, in a supportive and objective way, it helps to speed up the journey to relationship success.

The next tip will also help.

6.    Confidence in Relationship Secret Six – Heal the past. Most of us have had difficult relationship experiences - parents who have shown us very conditional love or ‘unloving’ behaviour, painful divorces and relationship breakups.  We carry hurts from past relationships, sometimes without even realising it. This is baggage from past relationships can be too great a burden for your future ones.

Many clients I work with on their relationships have been through difficult childhood experiences, divorces and relationship break ups. They find they are slow to have confidence and trust in new relationships, even when they meet a really great partner, and find themselves sabotaging the relationship, without meaning, to in all kinds of unconscious and frustrating ways – big and small.

Once they’ve come to the point where they don’t want to be a hostage to the past, I’ve helped them clear the past, their confidence in relationship has increased and it’s easier to have the fun, passionate and loving relationship you really want.

7. Confidence in Relationship Secret Seven – Make Sure You Have Healthy Self-Esteem and Confidence.

My clients discover that when their confidence increases they attract other people with healthy self-esteem and confidence – like attracts like. Confident people make better relationship choices. Confident people are less likely to feel jealous and insecure in relationships. They don’t need to be right all the time and they don’t put up with poor treatment. They hold themselves and their partner to a higher standard.

All this may not sound very sexy but actually, long-term, physical passion and chemistry last longer when you follow these 7 secrets to confident relationships. 

I wish you all the love, fun and passion in your relationships that you can handle.

Warm wishes

Madeleine

PS: I like to reward people who take action to create more happiness in their lives. So, I’m offering you a free Discovery Session where we can explore where you are now in your life and relationships, where you’d like to be and how you can get there.

Contact Madeleine or phone 01223 964516 to book your session.

"Madeleine is an exceptional coach. Over the years I've received coaching from some of the biggest names in NLP, business and personal development. In my estimation she's up there with the big boys.

Very quickly she expanded my thinking way beyond the limits I had set for myself and not only gave me practical step-by-step advice that moved me forward in my career, my business, my personal relationships and my personal development. She also revealed to me the things I was doing in my head that were preventing me from enjoying the success I'd already achieved.

In a very short time, and as a direct result of Madeleine's coaching:

- My confidence soared

- I secured an interview for the job of my dreams

- I got really clear on a part-time business I wanted to build

On top of all this, the process, wisdom and expertise she brought to the coaching allowed me to make changes in myself that deepened my relationship with my girlfriend, improved my interpersonal skills with colleagues at work and most important of all, given me an ongoing realisation that this whole journey is exciting and enjoyable. Ben Green,  Manager

The Confidence Coach

The Coaching Room, 44 Chesterfield Road, Cambridge, CB4 1LN

I was listening to breakfast TV yesterday morning on the BBC and heard about a new charity called Action for Happiness.

Why would there be the need for such a charity? Well, it seems that the richer our society gets the unhappier we are!

That’s weird isn’t it? Surely we’ve got more to be happy about than ever – even with the recession on we still have a great material standard of living compared to millions of people in the world. We enjoy greater physical safety and there are more safety nets if our personal world falls apart than in many countries

Part of the BBC report showed various members of the public giving their ideas about what would make them happy. Their answers included: a bath, a fulfiling career, that it would suddenly be Friday afternoon and time to go home from work.

It struck me that all of their answers were around ‘I’ll be happy when…’ None of them were about how they could be happy in the moment. We can all relate to that. I know I feel more upbeat when the sun shines.

The trouble with the kind of happiness that depends on certain events taking place is - what if they don’t? Are we dooming ourselves to be unhappy for no good reason?

Here are some great antidotes to unhappiness my clients find really helpful and that you can start to use immediately:

• Build your confidence so that you can bounce back quickly after a setback.
• Learn how to create win-win discussions so that even if someone wants something different from you, or has a different opinion, you don’t have to get defensive and argue with friends, family, colleagues or clients.
• Practise speeding up the time it takes for you to turn your attention away from a problem and towards a solution.
• Keep a gratitude diary – find reasons to be happy and write down all the small and big things you are grateful for. If you can’t be reasonably happy, try being unreasonably happy!
• Express gratitude – let your family, friends, clients and colleagues know what you appreciate about them. Include yourself – you need to be your own best friend
• Have a motivating reason to live. My motivating purpose is to help people create even more abundance in their lives – an abundance of the good things in life such as joy, confidence, health, fulfiling relationships, love, rewarding careers and businesses and wealth. When I remember it, I feel very happy and it keeps me going even when I experience setbacks.
• Choose to spend your time with positive and supportive people. For instance, weed out any negative ‘friends’ and see a life or business coach regularly to help you get perspective, clear sense of purpose, master your emotions and clear the way to overcoming challenges and achieving your goals faster.

All these things are within your power and give you control over your life and level of happiness.

Create a happy day!

Warm wishes

Madeleine

PS: I like to reward people who take action to create more happiness in their lives. So, I’m offering you a free Discovery Session where we can explore where you are now in your life, where you’d like to be and how you can get there.

Email Madeleine at mm@buildingselfconfidence.co.uk or phone Cambridge 01223 964516 to book your phone, Skype or face-to-face session.

PPS: You can download a free confidence mini-course from http://www.buildingselfconfidence.co.uk

"Madeleine is an exceptional coach. Over the years I've received coaching from some of the biggest names in NLP, business and personal development. In my estimation she's up there with the big boys.

Very quickly she expanded my thinking way beyond the limits I had set for myself and not only gave me practical step-by-step advice that moved me forward in my career, my business, my personal relationships and my personal development. She also revealed to me the things I was doing in my head that were preventing me from enjoying the success I'd already achieved.

In a very short time, and as a direct result of Madeleine's coaching:

- My confidence soared

- I secured an interview for the job of my dreams

- I got really clear on a part-time business I wanted to build

On top of all this, the process, wisdom and expertise she brought to the coaching allowed me to make changes in myself that deepened my relationship with my girlfriend, improved my interpersonal skills with colleagues at work and most important of all, given me an ongoing realisation that this whole journey is exciting and enjoyable.

Ben Green, Marketing Manager

The Confidence Coach

Have you ever asked for or just been given someone’s opinion – perhaps about a task you’ve done at work, some clothes you’ve bought, a dish you’ve cooked, a presentation you’ve made or an idea you have?

Was that opinion ever negative and critical?

Did you feel your confidence was undermined by it?

If so, I’ve got some great secrets for dealing confidently with feedback to share with you.

Just recently I’ve been delivering various training and group coaching sessions in confident presenting, confident leading, confident in personal relationships, confident selling and building self-confidence, in addition to my 121 work with clients. One thing I learned early on about delivering coaching and training sessions is the value of getting feedback.

In my early days of training I used to look at feedback sheets with a mixture of dread and excitement. I looked forward to the praise, especially if I felt it had gone really well.

But, part of me was worried that I had unwittlingly messed up and that someone would say something critical which would then play on my mind.

Then I began to realise that the feedback forms were designed to encourage people to give balanced, constructive and quality feedback. So, whatever the feedback was it would be useful – if it was praise then I would know I was on the right track and if it was critical then I’d know what to change to make it better next time. This gives me even more confidence for the future.

The trouble with most situations in life is that we can’t give out forms that encourage people to give balanced feedback.

So, here are some secrets I’ve learned to make sure I get quality feedback that has built my confidence with colleagues, clients, family and friends and the occasional difficult person.

Use these tips and they will help you build even more confidence in your life. In fact, you’ll never dread critical comments again! J

• Feedback Confidence Secret 1

I’m careful about who I take notice of – I only ask for feedback from people who are ‘qualified’. These are people who are willing to give balanced, constructive and quality feedback. That way I can feel confident about asking them.

• Feedback Confidence Secret 2

I ask those people curious questions so that it’s easier for them to give me balanced, constructive and quality feedback e.g. What do you like about….? What would make it even better? What makes you think that…?

• Feedback Confidence Secret 3

If they haven’t waited to be asked and have just fired off some critical comments, I ask those questions in tip 2.

• Feedback Confidence Secret 4

I give balanced, constructive and quality feedback so that I can be a good role model for people around me of how I would like to be treated.

They say feedback is the breakfast of champions. Getting quality feedback has definitely helped me go from strength to strength.

I’d love to know how you get on with these tips.

Have fun!

Warm wishes

Madeleine

P.S. You can download more valuable confidence tips at www.buildingselfconfidence.co.uk

P.P.S. If you'd like to find out more about how to fast track your journey to natural confidence, please email Madeleine at  mm@buildingselfconfidence.co.uk to book a free discovery session. We explore where you are with your confidence, where you'd like to be and what resources are available to bridge the gap.

Madeleine Morgan is a qualified Life Coach and NLP Master Practitioner based in Cambridge CB4 1LN UK

Let's  be honest, sometimes that criticism is fair - it's just poorly worded and delivered feedback.

Sometimes it's just spiteful.

I'll be suggesting some ways of dealing with badly delivered feedback in another post. For now I want to share with you a helpful way of thinking about the spiteful stuff.

There's story about how Buddha thought about criticism that I thought you would find uplifting:

A man met Buddha on the street one day and began to call him mean and ugly names.

Buddha listened quietly and thoughtfully until the man ran out of criticisms, and had to pause for breath.

"If you offer something to a man and he refuses it, to whom does it belong?" asked Buddha.

The spiteful man replied, "It belongs, I suppose, to the one who offered it."

Then Buddha said, "The abuse and vile names you offer me, I refuse to accept."

The man turned and walked away.

Have a serene day

Warm wishes

Madeleine

P.S. You can download more valuable confidence tips at www.buildingselfconfidence.co.uk

P.P.S. If you'd like to find out more about how to fast track your journey to natural confidence, please email Madeleine at  mm@buildingselfconfidence.co.uk to book a free discovery session. We will explore where you are with your confidence, where you'd like to be and what resources are available to bridge the gap.

Madeleine Morgan

Life Coach, NLP Master Practioner and Trainer

"Over the sessions I had with Madeleine I learnt a lot about myself through her personality quiz and a lot about how to manage the challenges I was facing at work. She was very patient and helped me make a big career decision. Madeleine is warm, caring and a great listener. I couldn't have made my decision without her!" Jo Brewin, Teacher

Cambridge, CB4 1LN

Then this “Natural Influence” workshop is designed for you

Discover how to stop these people holding back your business, professional or personal life.

Take away tools and strategies that will help you:

• make your personal relationships a joy
• get the best out of your team and your colleagues
• make dealing with demanding clients more relaxing
• and make your career or business more rewarding

Among many other things you’ll discover how to:

• § Discover how to handle people’s aggressive behaviours assertively
• § Resolve conflict and create win-win outcomes
• § Prepare for challenging situations and avoid escalating them further
• § Develop rapport and motivate others quickly and easily
• § Deliver difficult feedback confidently and skilfully – without appearing to nag or criticise
• § Read special clues in the body language, voice tones and words people use
• § Get the best out of people who are not like you

 100% Money Back Guarantee 

If by the end of the workshop you feel your knowledge about how to influence difficult people has not improved, I will refund your money in full. All I ask is that you return the workshop materials.

Where’s the venue?

St John’s Innovation Centre – Milton Road, Cambridge

What time and date?

9.30 a.m. – 12.30 or 1.30 p.m. – 4.30pm or 6p.m. – 9p.m. Wednesday 1^st December

 So what is your investment to attend?

Early bird price of £107 + VAT (full price £147 + vat), if you book before Friday 26^th November.

 You can bring an additional guest (friend, family member, colleague or team member who is not on my mailing list – perhaps that difficult person J) for £97 + VAT per person.

 Places are limited to 4 per session so hurry and book yours!

 How do I book?

Call Madeleine Morgan on 01223 426392 or email madeleine@growu.co.uk to confirm your booking or find out more.

 What my clients say:

“Thanks for making it so useful, informative and lively.” Vicky Faupel Cambridge Network

One of the most powerful lessons I learnt is how to deal with difficult people – an invaluable seminar run by Madeleine. This was thought provoking, structured and fun! Aegean Thompson, Director Event Wishes

“Madeleine is an exceptional coach and trainer. The process, wisdom and expertise she brought to the training allowed me to make changes in myself that deepened my relationship with my girlfriend, improved my interpersonal skills with colleagues at work and most important of all, given me an ongoing realisation that this whole journey is exciting and enjoyable.” Ben Green, Marketing Manager

 “I found the workshop very interesting and motivational. I’ve got more tools to create something better than compromise or win-lose situations. I can create win-win outcomes.” Justine Fairweather, Credit Controller, Whizzle It