Public Speaking Training
What We Do:
Wheless-Wyatt Communications provides public speaking training, communications skills training, and leadership coaching while emphasizing to our clients the importance of knowing how they are coming across - even when they are not speaking! Our clients learn to speak clearly, persuasively; to be organized in their thoughts and communications with other people; to handle questions well; and to create commitment. They learn through our communication skills training workshops that they are presenting in every interaction with another person, and that how they come across will determine how what they say will be received.
For Whom:
The majority of our clients are mid-level managers and senior level executives who understand that how they communicate directly impacts (positively or negatively) their careers and their value to their companies, their ability to win customers, lead their teams, and have their ideas heard.
Why this Training is Important:
Your credibility and effectiveness are directly related to how you present your ideas to others; how you inspire, educate, or persuade them. Your speaking ability can have the most dramatic influence on your effectiveness as a leader, on how you present yourself and your company, internally and to the public, potential investors or customers, and on how you gain cooperation and make things happen.
Why You Should Consider Us:
We personally work with each client in a non-threatening, positive atmosphere, helping them to be the best communicator they can be. The communication and public speaking training help the client develop skills that apply to one-on-one conversation as well as presenting to a large, formal audience. There are a number of ways this is achieved:
Presentation Skills Workshop
Speech Coaching (one-on-one)
Executive Shadowing and Executive Coaching
Presentation Skills Workshop
2-days; maximum 10 participants
Every communication should have as its purpose to change the listener(s) in some way: to motivate, educate, inspire, or persuade. Presenters should be clear, organized, concise, and interesting. Instead, too often they...
...ramble, droning on and on with no energy or enthusiasm, failing to make their point
...rely on PowerPoint to be their presentation, not aid it
...fail to present important points in a logical, easy to follow manner leading to a clear goal
...leave you or their audience feeling like they have just wasted your time
Changes begin with self-awareness. Bill Wheless and Sherry Wyatt help participants learn how they are coming across, identify changes that are needed to help make their communications more effective, and teach them the skills to make those changes.
The purpose of our communications and public speaking training is to help clients build the skills to become better communicators. We work with senior executives, mid-level managers, sales professionals, and entry level employees in a number of different ways. The goal we are looking for with each client is to have them use their own personalities to communicate as described below, whether they are interacting one-on-one or addressing a formal group:
"The speaker looks and behaves like a professional. His voice is easy to hear. He engages his audience, is organized, clear, and logical. His manner is confident and determined, but friendly and relaxed. He smiles easily. It's clear from his energy he has something to say, an issue he feels strongly about.
He is focused and concise, moves and gestures expressively, and pauses strategically to allow important points to sink in. The few visuals he uses are simple, but well designed. His language is colorful and interesting, peppered with stories, examples, and other anecdotal material. His eye contact makes it clear he's talking to you.
It's obvious from the way he handles questions that he's done his homework and knows his stuff. He stands his ground and impresses even his detractors with his thoroughness. He seems sincere, honest, and totally believable. And when he's finished, it's clear he's won the day."
What do we have to offer you and/or your team?
Read more here.
One-on-one personal sessions
Professionals have enormous demands placed on their communications skills. They are expected to convince, persuade, motivate, inspire, teach, and lead. Audiences include employees, peers, boards, stockholders, the public, and the media.
Robert Smith, former chairman and CEO of General Motors said, "The attributes of excellence all depend on communications skills and sensitivity to people. Everything we do depends on the successful transfer of meaning from one person to another." Saying what you "mean" succinctly, authoritatively, and convincingly to one person or five hundred, to an employee or the "big board", is a skill that is best acquired and developed through a skilled communicator and coach.
To make certain their presentations are effective, many professionals find private coaching and public speaking training with Bill Wheless, Sherry Wyatt, and their associates an excellent way to learn the skills of business communication and/or to polish an upcoming high-stakes presentation.
Whether re-writing or doctoring the speech/presentation, critiquing visual aids, or coaching the speaker's delivery, Wheless-Wyatt has gained an impressive list of clients who depend on us, Bill Wheless, Sherry Wyatt, and their associates, to work with them on major presentations, and for periodic brush-up work. We are recognized for our ability to quickly discover an executive's communication potential, spot the problems that stand in the way, and correct them.
Read more here.
The need for self-awareness among today's business leaders and executives has never been greater. And nowhere is that self-awareness more important than in an executive's interpersonal communication skills. Often, an executive is not as effective as he or she could be, nor the type of leader who brings out the best in the people on their team, and the cause of this is some interpersonal communicaton issue.
Have you ever had these thoughts about one of your direct reports?
"He seems to lack conviction. I guess he feels strongly abut important issues, but you would never know it from the way he comes across."
"She isn't decisive. She will allow something to be talked to death. Her people want her to make a decision and move on."
"He doesn't act like a CEO. He used to be VP of Production/Operations, and I think that's how he still sees himself."
"She wears me out. She doesn't know how to get to the point. And I'm sure if she's doing it with me (the boss), she's doing it with her direct reports, customers - everybody. We have to fix it."
"I've got to have somebody strong running that division; somebody who can take all of those people down there and make a high performance unit out of them."
These quotes from clients describe executives who often are strong players, but whose communication skills leave them short. Their behavior may be described as "difficult to work for", "unpleasant", "you never know when he's going to blow up over something", or "she treats me like she doesn't believe I can do the job".
Regardless of the words that are used to describe the problem, these are all leadership issues that affect careers and company performance.
To address the problem, companies today are turning to executive coaches, Bill Wheless and Sherry Wyatt - skilled communicators who bring objectivity to the task, and whose sole function is to help clients understand how they currently come across, the impact their behavior has on everyone, and to examine options for improving their performance through communication.
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