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This workshop is for all employees, at all levels of the organization, who must communicate effectively. Participants learn a communications technique that not only helps them create more compelling and persuasive presentations and proposals, it also helps them develop critical and creative thinking skills. It is presented in a fun, interactive format that enhances teamwork and collaboration.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The Five Temptations of a CEO. Six Thinking Hats. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. The Four Love Languages.

You’ve seen hundreds of examples of this ‘framing’ technique, but have you ever thought about how you can take advantage of it to bring clarity and power to all your presentations, proposals and strategic discussions?

Distilling your arguments to a manageable set of key points is the foundation of clearer communications, more compelling presentations and proposals, and more productive conversations and discussions. What’s more, it’s a thinking habit that everyone can learn.

In this keynote/workshop, participants learn The Essential Message ‘Bananas’ technique – a 5-step process to help them create a logical framework around any subject. Participants brainstorm and improvise with sample topics, and then practice with a real opportunity to help you improve results in your organization.

This workshop is fun, highly interactive and most importantly, it helps raise the productivity of everyone on your team!

Key Take-Aways and Tools:

• The 5 categories that can be used to frame all topics.
• A methodology to help you simplify complex recommendations and proposals.
• Reverse Benefit Analysis™ as a brainstorming tool to discover fresher and more compelling key points.

This workshop is for all employees, at all levels of the organization, to leverage their skills and strengths for personal fulfillment and to more directly benefit their team and the company. Participants use counter-intuitive techniques to discover the unique value they bring to the table for the benefit of the team or organization, empowering them to be more effective, resilient and engaged in their career. Delivered in a fun and interactive style, this workshop also supports team-building and collaboration.

As Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875–1961) said, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

The truth is that what makes you different is the basis of your self-confidence, the strength of your personal brand, and ultimately, your success in life and business. That’s why discovering your authentic competitive advantage is your best career and business-building strategy.

That's also why participants come to this workshop to discover what sets their business apart from others; or, to discover what sets them apart – personally – from others with the same title or role.

This is a highly interactive workshop with group exercises that are hugely fun and entertaining. There are moments when people are howling with laughter and there are other moments when people are deep in thought and reflection.

Key Take-Aways and Tools:

• What makes you different as a person is what makes you better; in your business, in your career and in your life.
• A deeper understanding of what sets you apart, both personally and professionally.
• Clarity of the unique value you bring to the table for the benefit of your team or organization.
• Appreciation and respect for the unique contribution of others.

This skill-based keynote or workshop is for everyone in an organization who ‘sells’, including salespeople, proposal writers, managers and leaders. Using principles of change management, neuro-linguistic programming and tried-and-true direct response copywriting techniques, participants learn how to engage listeners/readers in a conversational approach that often feels (to the reader/listener) that you are reading their minds. A template is provided that allows participants to write extremely rapid first drafts of introduction and sales emails/letters.

All of us sell, regardless of the role we have in an organization. Executives, managers and directors sell ideas, recommendations and strategies. Entrepreneurs sell businesses and business concepts. Salespeople and service providers sell specific products and services.

This keynote or workshop brings together the key elements of change management, neuro-linguistic programming, core challenge analysis and tried-and-true direct response copywriting. Participants learn to elicit the needs of the prospect or recipient of the proposal/recommendation, how to clearly identify the rationale for the recommendation and how to communicate it in the clearest, most compelling way.

This not only empowers managers and directors to link their recommendations to ROI and key corporate strategies, it also makes it easier for other decision-makers to evaluate the proposal for a quicker decision.

Delivered in a fun, interactive style, audiences and groups learn how to get into the head and hearts of their clients ‐ without going out of their minds!

Key Take-Aways and Tools:

• A crucial understanding of the difference between category challenges and differentiating challenges, providing a simple way to evaluate compelling and effective marketing messages.
• How to start a conversation to improve your chances of finishing with a nod of agreement.
• How to elicit the needs and wants of the customer or people you are speaking to so they ‘sell’ themselves!
• How to create a ‘burning platform’ to motivate your listener to take action now.
• How to create a powerful introduction letter or email in less than three minutes!

This keynote or workshop helps participants develop customer-centric listening skills, and then teaches them how to develop intelligent questions that speak directly to customer interests and needs. This enables participants to ‘ask’ their way through a proposal or sale rather than ‘push’ their way to a decision. The interactive exercises also help participants learn about each other, making this ideal for networking events.

Salespeople and marketers are constantly being told to focus on benefits. And the higher level the benefit is, the better.

But telling your customers and prospects that you’ll help them — insert any high level benefit, like ‘make more money’, ‘increase productivity’, or ‘be a hero in your company’ — is usually as credible and differentiating as a politician saying he or she supports world peace.

In this interactive keynote or workshop, audiences discover how easy it is to engage people in conversations around the work they do – whether on the beach in Mexico or across the boardroom table.

Instead of benefits, participants learn to listen for and communicate Impact Statements, Persuasion Drivers and Provocative Questions.

This presentation is a perfect fit for sales events, national conventions and networking events. It gives people the tools they need to make all their communications — with clients and customers, colleagues, friends and even your family — more powerful than ever!

Fun exercises include the ‘Back-to-Back Fairy Tale’, ‘Listening for Impact’, and ‘Digging for Drivers’.

Key Take-Aways and Tools:

• Why elevator pitches don’t (and will never) work!
• What truly interests people about your business, service or proposal.
• How to engage the other person’s mind in conversation using Impact Statements, Persuasion Drivers and Provocative Questions.

Many companies already know the value of testimonials in their marketing but use them at a fraction of their potential effectiveness. In this workshop, participants learn how to solicit and craft intelligent testimonials that not only position the company better, they also help improve customer loyalty and pride of association. This is an excellent workshop for salespeople, front-line staff and the marketing team… to do together!

Third-party references are the best way to sell because... why would anyone believe the seller? That's why almost all the better marketers use testimonials — but that’s just the beginning of what makes this workshop so valuable to organizations.

In this workshop, we teach participants how to think like a professional advertising copywriter to develop a library of testimonials that align with the strategic positioning of the product or service, and speak directly to the needs, interests and skepticisms that help turn other prospects into sales. Participants also use the process of developing dream testimonials to gain clarity and focus around the organization's mission, objectives and core value.

Key Take-Aways and Tools:

• How testimonials reflect the true value that's delivered by the individual or organization.
• What makes a good testimonial, and what makes a great one (hint, it’s not always the ‘positive’ remark!)
• 3 ways to solicit testimonials and even more ways to use unsolicited testimonials.
• 5 Believability Enhancers.
• How to use testimonials to answer the question, ‘What do you do?

This facilitated session brings all the key members of the executive team together and on the same page on fundamental strategic issues regarding positioning, competitive advantage and value proposition. This session can also serve as the fundamental platform for discovering mission, vision and values.

This is an excellent session for start-ups, small-medium sized businesses and NGO’s. What often happens in these organizations is that key members of the executive team have different views and opinions about core strategic decisions. As a result, messaging can be inconsistent and different departments do not speak with a single unified voice.

It is extremely difficult to achieve consensus without an outside, objective facilitator. An Essential Message facilitated session brings all key members of the executive team together and on the same page on fundamental strategic issues regarding positioning, competitive advantage and value proposition.