Richard Branson’s Most Important Tip For Entrepreneurs
If your pitch can't fit in this format, don't bother pitching the Virgin billionaire. The spark that created one of the fastest growing companies in Richard Branson's Virgin empire came courtesy of a beer coaster. In his new autobiography, Finding My...
According to Richard Branson: Storytelling Is Your Advantage
Richard Branson is an entrepreneur, billionaire, adventure and risk-taker. He’s also a storyteller, which he made clear in my recent conversation about his new book, Finding My Virginity. “My dad was a great storyteller,” Branson told me in this video...
Richard Branson’s Best Tip For Anyone Pitching An Idea
If your pitch cannot pass the ‘Richard Test,’ billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson isn’t interested in your idea. The Richard Test has two components. First, the pitch must be free of jargon. Second, the pitch must be short enough to fit on a drink...
British Prime Minister Theresa May Could Have Saved Her Disastrous Speech In These 3 Ways
When a speech or presentation doesn't go according to plan, there are some simple tips to avert a fiasco. We've all been there. You're giving an important presentation and 'stuff' happens: A technical glitch, a cough, an interruption. The secret is to turn...
The Answer To This Question Will Help You Deliver A More Impactful Presentation
On my first day of journalism school, I learned to ask the single most important question of good writing. It's the question that every reader and every television news viewer has on their mind: Why? The question can take several forms, depending on the...
Scientists And Speechwriters Say This Music Style Sparks Creative Ideas
As I write this sentence, the soundtrack from the movie, Rudy, is playing in the background. It always inspires me. By the next paragraph I might hear my favorite film score, Gladiator. The last song, “Now we are free”, gets me every time. I know it’s only...
Give Your Presentation An Emotional Punch The Ken Burns Way
If you want to make an impact in business, tell emotionally engaging stories. If you want to make an impact in your profession and stand out from your competitors, tell more stories--and not just any story, but emotionally engaging ones. If you're stuck on...
Twitter Expands Its Character Limit, But You Should Stick To The Magic 140
Twitter is experimenting with expanding the number of characters allowed on posts to 280. The test began this week with a small, random group of users. If the company finds that people like it better and are more actively engaged on the platform, then good...
Three Traits Recruiters Find Most Desirable In Face-to-Face Job Interviews
Recruiters and hiring managers have always considered conversational skills an important trait in new hires, but a new survey now places communication at the very top of the list. The recruiting software company, Jobvite, together with Zogby Analytics, has...
This Billionaire Reveals What You Must Overcome To Reach Your Potential
Billionaire Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater, one of the world’s largest and best performing hedge funds. A true entrepreneurial success story, Dalio started his company in a two-bedroom apartment. He was a self-described ordinary kid and a worse-than-ordinary student. Forty-two years after starting his company, Dalio decided to share his success secrets in his new book, Principles.
Three Presentation Tips From ABC’s 90-Second Hurricane Tutorial
Scientists, teachers, entrepreneurs and leaders who deliver complex information might want to take some lessons from a 90-second video on how hurricanes form, produced by ABC News. Chief meteorologist Ginger Zee explains hurricanes clearly, simply and...
IBM Marketing Expert Will Transform How You Think About Your Product
Here's how one company learned to market a complex product, simply. Watson, IBM's artificial intelligence (AI) platform, helped one company save $11.2 million a year. A large winery used Watson to reduce its water use by 25 percent. For doctors, Watson can...
A Startup Uses Third-Grade Words As The Cure For Confusing Health Plans
If you have trouble understanding health insurance terms, you’re not alone. According to a study in the Journal of Health Economics, only 14% of respondents could correctly answer four questions about the most basic components of a health insurance plan....
Brian Buffini’s Rags to Riches Story Teaches 7 Secrets of Success
A New York Times bestseller explains how he came to America with nothing and built a coaching empire. Brian Buffini has lived the classic rags-to-riches American success story. He left Ireland as a 19-year-old with $92 in his pocket. Today, he runs a top...
A Virtual Therapy For Stage Fright That’s Remarkably Realistic
A team of virtual reality (VR) experts, psychologists, and former Google and Facebook engineers are using modern tools to tackle phobias that humans have faced since the beginning of time — social anxieties, including the top social fear of all, public...
Four Proven Tips To Stay Creative After Labor Day
Did you have an epiphany on your vacation this summer? I've written some of my best articles in a beachside café, from a lounge chair at lake Tahoe and sitting poolside at a resort. Like most people I’m more creative when I’m out of the office. The further...
How Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s “7 Bucks Moment” Helped Him Grow In Work And In Life
In a recent Instagram post that has generated more than five million views, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson recorded a short video to tell a little known story from one his early career setbacks. Standing on a balcony overlooking the city of Vancouver, Johnson...
Take These Three Steps To Craft Your Pitch Quickly
If you only had 24 hours to craft and deliver the pitch of your lifetime, what would you leave in and, more importantly, what would you leave out? To make the exercise even harder, you’ll have only 10 minutes to give the pitch. I met with a group of senior...
Make Social Outreach A Habit And Set Yourself Apart From The Rest
It's never been easier to share your ideas on social media. Take a tip from Richard Branson on doing it authentically. Billionaire entrepreneur and business storyteller, Richard Branson, recently posted a short video of himself on his Instagram profile...
The Interview Skill Guaranteed To Give You An Edge
If two job candidates have equal qualifications, which person is more likely to get the job? According to a new survey of HR and recruiting professionals, 63 percent of recruiters say they’d give the job to the person who has better “oral communication...
It’s Essential To Do This At Least 10 Times Before Giving Any Presentation
The CEO of a large company lost the audience—his top salespeople—in the first two minutes of his presentation. I was there to witness it. Slides were out of place and financial data was wrong. “Sorry guys. I threw this together last night,” the CEO...
Two Words That Make You Sound Unprofessional
The annoying filler words used by entrepreneurs, job applicants, TV pundits--and maybe even yourself. As a communication coach, I know how important it is to eliminate filler words from our conversations. I also know that the advice is easy to dispense and...
This Human Trait Gives You An Edge In An Age Of Robots
In the information age you are only as valuable as your ideas. Your ability to package your ideas with emotion, context, and relevancy is the one skill that will make you more valuable in the next decade. During a visit to the Silicon Valley headquarters...
Tim Gunn’s Fashion Tip For Jimmy Fallon Is A Perfect Example Of Constructive Feedback
“Do you have any fashion tips for me?” Jimmy Fallon recently asked his Tonight Show guest, Project Runway mentor, Tim Gunn. Gunn’s response: “I love your suits. I love the fit of them. You are classically handsome. You have a great physique. You are the...
Why Richard Branson Loves The Early Tradition Of Campfire And Story
Virgin Group founder Richard Branson says the best ideas for taking his company into the future are found when he’s practicing the ancient custom of storytelling by a campfire. “Telling a story is one of the best ways we have of coming up with new ideas,...
GE’s New CEO Uses An Effective Communication Technique To Focus His Agenda
On his first day as the new chief executive of GE, John Flannery sent an internal letter to the company’s 300,000 employees. It’s been 16 years since GE has had a new CEO, so Flannery made sure the direction was clear. “I have a relentless focus on three...
These 3 Words Put the British Open Champion Back on Track
Great performers in any field practice this one habit to calm down, build confidence and regain focus. At the age 23, Jordan Spieth became the youngest player to win the British Open since 1979. It almost didn't happen, but Spieth regained his mental edge...
A Kitchen Entrepreneur Turned Millionaire Offers One Secret To Success
Jo was fifteen when a teacher told her that she wouldn’t make anything out of her life (Jo had dyslexia, a largely misunderstood condition at the time). She dropped out of school, but was determined to prove the teacher wrong. Today, Jo Malone is the name...
Train Like This Astronaut To Overcome Your Fear Of Public Speaking
Few things trigger more fear than the thought of public speaking. But going blind during a spacewalk while circling the Earth at five miles a second might be scarier. Few things trigger more fear than the thought of public speaking. But going blind during...
The One Job Interview Skill In Short Supply, According To Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe, the television personality best known for hosting Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch, recently called attention to a serious problem facing blue-collar and white-collar job candidates: the decline in soft skills. When Fox News...
The Founders Of Apple And Airbnb Combined These 2 Skills To Make Magic
I recently spoke to two highly-compensated software engineers in Silicon Valley who do not have as much coding experience as many of their peers. Yet, they’ve landed jobs and have received promotions over their more experienced counterparts. In both cases...
Learn From Omega And Celebrate The One Thing That Makes You Or Your Product Different From The Rest
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to step foot on the moon. Nineteen minutes later, Buzz Aldrin joined him. Aldrin was wearing an Omega Speedmaster wristwatch. Since then, the watch has been known simply as the Moonwatch.
Transformational Leaders Like Malala Find Inspiration In Hero Stories
Humanitarian Malala Yousafzai spent her 20th birthday this week in a refugee camp in Iraq to advocate for girls' education. Hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled their homes in Iraq are children--mostly girls--who are not attending school. This is the way a...
Like The Omega Moonwatch, Find The One Thing That Differentiates Your Product
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to step foot on the moon. Nineteen minutes later, Buzz Aldrin joined him. Aldrin was wearing an Omega Speedmaster wristwatch. Since then, the watch has been known simply as the Moonwatch.
5 Books That Prove This Is The Best Time In Human History Ever
Economists, authors and experts say this is the best time in the history of humanity to be alive and to start a business. According to many metrics of health and well-being, 2017 is the best year to be alive in the history of humanity. Spend some time on social media...
Steve Jobs’s Original iPhone Keynote Is Still the Best Product Launch of All Time
5 Reasons Why Steve Jobs's iPhone Keynote had all the elements of a great story. Today the iPhone celebrates its 10th anniversary as one of the best-selling products of all time. As a communication specialist, I mark the event for a slightly different reason. The...
Inspirational Brand Storytelling From Richard Branson and Phil Knight
At Virgin and Nike, stories of the past inspire the innovations of the future. Billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson is a big believer in the power of ideas to change the world, and an even bigger believer in the power of storytelling to draw out those ideas....
Thomas Jefferson And Three Keys To Persuasion
Thomas Jefferson would have been comfortable on Twitter. He would have been really good at writing short, provocative tweets that make people think differently.
Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is the most persuasive document in American history. Its creation contains valuable lessons for any leader who wants to sell ideas more effectively.
Alan Alda Explains The ‘Ice-Water Experiment’ And How Messages Stick
Alan Alda is a seven-time Emmy Award winner best known for playing Hawkeye Pierce in the classic television show, M*A*S*H. Alda’s interest in science led him to host the award-winning PBS series Scientific American Frontiers. Eleven years of interviewing scientists on the program convinced Alda that people with the best ideas are often terrible communicators.
Whole Foods Founder Never Set Out To Start A “Normal” Company
This Forgotten Whole Foods Story Offers 1 Valuable Lesson For All Entrepreneurs Lost among the media coverage of Amazon's $13.4 billion purchase of Whole Foods is the fact that the organic grocery chain barely survived its first year in business. How it recovered is a...
How Mark Zuckerberg Effectively Communicates Facebook’s New 5-Word Mission Statement
Facebook is a service that connects friends, families and groups. At least, that’s the way founder Mark Zuckerberg promoted the platform for its first ten years. Today he’s creating a new vision to guide the company for the next ten years. And he’s using an effective leadership method to do it.
The 1 Skill That Movie Mogul Peter Guber Learned After A Failed Pitch
A failed business pitch taught movie mogul Peter Guber to start telling purposeful stories. Golden State Warriors co-owner Peter Guber had a lot to celebrate earlier this week as he joined the players on stage in front of adoring fans at Oakland's Oracle Arena. The...
Learning To Sell Your Idea In 10 Minutes Is A Valuable Career Skill
Recently, I visited an elite class of military officers who will spend the next thirteen months training on the most sensitive—and challenging—national security issues of our time. One of my books on communication skills is required reading in the class because crafting and delivering a compelling presentation is a key skill they’ll have to learn. In fact, they learn to sell their ideas in ten minutes or less.
Why Creating A Culture Of Fearless Feedback Is A Good Thing
Create a culture where people have strong opinions and are encouraged to speak up. In the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, Apple CEO Tim Cook is quoted as saying, "If you don't feel comfortable disagreeing, then you will never survive." Recalling his former...
Unveil New Products the Apple Way
Apple unveils HomePod using a traditional and effective presentation formula. Steve Jobs was one of the greatest business storytellers of our time. Apple executives clearly agree and do their best to adopt his presentation style. Apple's HomePod is the company's new...
Mark Zuckerberg Followed This Rule to Make His Presentation Memorable
The presentation rule that makes content easy to follow and remember. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's speech at Harvard's 366th commencement ceremony has made news for several reasons. First, he gave the speech after receiving an honorary degree from the school...
Learn This Important Presentation Tip from Google’s CEO
Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently announced at the company’s 2017 developers conference that Google is “rethinking all our products” as it moves from a mobile-first world to an “A.I.-first” one. His presentation also reflected a rethinking of traditional presentation style.
The Cognitive Cure For Stage Fright, According To Neuroscience
A world famous pastor who speaks to sold out stadiums once admitted to me that in his first year as a minister, his hands would shake as he approached the lectern. His palms would sweat and his heart would race. He had severe stage fright.
JFK’s Sharp Editing Skills Help His Ideas Live On
One hundred years after John F. Kennedy’s birth and 56 years after he delivered one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century, we are still inspired by John F. Kennedy’s words. We remember JFK’s ideas because he was a good editor.
How Sheryl Sandberg’s Personal Story Helped Her Become A Powerful Communicator
A reluctant storyteller at first, Sandberg now shares personal stories of grief and resilience to inspire audiences. Facebook COO and founder of the Lean In movement Sheryl Sandberg delivered an emotional commencement speech last week to the graduating class of...
Human Communication Skills Power IBM’s Watson Ads
Each and every day IBM’s Watson works alongside business professionals in 45 countries, analyzing volumes of data to make better decisions and to solve big problems. But ask the average person about Watson and they might recognize it as ‘the computer’ that beat two champions of the quiz show Jeopardy!
A Trendy Silicon Valley Buzzword Offers A Valuable Lesson In Effective Communication
According to one analysis, tech company executives have used the word “moat” 89 times in earnings calls and financial presentations over the past year. The trend appears to be tied back to Warren Buffett’s choice of the metaphor as a stock picking analogy. Buffett said he looks for companies that have a strong protection against competitors, “like an economic castle.”
The Best Way to Keep Your Presentations Short and Engaging
TED speakers use a practical method to create short presentations from hundreds of pages of content.
Simplify Complex Ideas the Warren Buffett Way
How the billionaire Warren Buffett uses a classic rhetorical technique to make the complex simple.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains How He ‘Cherry Picks The Cool Stuff’ To Make Science Fun
Neil deGrasse Tyson gets 200 speaking requests a month. He accepts about four. Neil deGrasse Tyson has 7.3 million Twitter followers. Neil deGrasse Tyson is Stephen Colbert’s favorite guest. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s new book is a bestseller on Amazon, and it has...
Overcome this Common Bias and Become a Better Speaker
People who excel at giving presentations or public speaking take specific steps to improve.
The Pope’s TED talk Was a Surprise, His Moving Prose Was Not.
In his surprise TED 2017 presentation, Pope Francis relied on a proven rhetorical technique used by great writers and speakers. The TED conference teased its audience with a "surprise guest" and they lived up to the billing. When Pope Francis took to the TED stage...
College Seniors: 65% Of Recruiters Say This One Skill Is More Important Than Your Major
Sixty-five percent of recruiters and hiring managers say strong written or spoken communication skills is more important in an entry-level job applicant than their college major.
Carmine Gallo storytelling keynote to largest CFO firm in America
Although few business professionals will take the stage at the 2017 international TED conference being held this week in Vancouver, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn a few tips from some of the world’s best speakers. However, do not confuse a TED Talk with a “TED-like” presentation.
The Apple Store’s New Redesign Celebrates Steve Jobs’ Legacy
As traditional brick-and-mortar stores shut their doors at a record pace — and online retailers such as Amazon experiment with brick-and-mortar stores — the category is ripe for innovation once again. The winners might be those who ask more empowering questions.