News and Articles

How to Improve Sales Follow-Ups: Phone vs Email Best Practices

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 08:28:47 GMT

At Vital Spark, we’ve noticed an emerging trend: people are becoming more and more glued to their devices. Headphones in, eyes locked on screens, and all too often, the world around them slips into the background. While digital tools are incredibly useful, we believe that something important is being lost: genuine, meaningful communication.

In particular, this matters a lot in sales and business development — especially when it comes to following up after that initial meeting or introduction.

Why Relying on Email Is Risky

When a salesperson meets a promising potential client and then follows up purely by email, several things can go wrong:

The message can be misinterpreted, since tone and body language are missing.
It might go to the wrong inbox.
Or it could simply be lost in a crowded email thread that is easily overlooked in a busy day.

If you are going to use email, it needs to be done well. Short, clear, and action-oriented. Here are a few practical ways to make your follow-up emails more effective:

Make your subject line punchy and meaningful
Something like “Your Thoughts, please?” or including the acronym AID (Action, Interest, Decision) can help clarify the purpose, especially in internal or formal follow-ups.
Keep your content lean
Use bullet points, not long paragraphs. If you need detailed explanations, put those in a formal business proposal, not your follow-up note.
Be very clear on next steps
Say things like, “I’ll call you on Friday, 23rd,” or “Please pick a time that works for you using this Calendly link.” Making it easy for the prospect to act is key.
Write with the person in mind
Think about how they communicate. If they’re straightforward and direct, don’t open with small talk. “Hope you had a lovely weekend” might not land well for someone who’s all about efficiency.

Why Picking Up the Phone Still Matters

Here’s the thing: too many salespeople are hiding behind their keyboards. They send email after email instead of making a phone call, but a call is where a real connection happens.

When you speak to someone, you pick up all sorts of cues - tone, pace, even word choice. Those cues help you build rapport, ask the right follow-up questions, and guide the conversation in real time. You can sense concerns, answer objections, and steer things toward a decision. Try doing that in an email thread - it’s much harder.

The Power of Human Connection

Good communication is made up of three critical things:

What is said (words)
How it’s said (tone)
What’s not said (body language)

Email only gives you the first one. On the phone, at least you have tone and words, and those still go a long way in building trust.

We’ve found that once someone has spoken to you - even just on the phone - they’re far less likely to say no or brush you off. There’s an emotional bond there. A voice feels real. A conversation feels real.

How to Make Your Calls More Respectful and Effective

Calling can feel a little intrusive, so here are a few small but important ways to make your calls more welcome:

Ask before you begin: “Is now a good time?” shows you respect their time.
Propose alternatives: If they can’t talk right now, suggest another day or time.
Be transparent about duration: “This call will take about 10 minutes.” Stick to the time you say.
Check in: “Are we still good for this time?” helps you stay on track.

These steps go a long way in showing that you’re professional, considerate, and organised.

In Summary: Use Both, Wisely

At the end of the day, we’re not saying never send an email, we’re saying don’t only send emails. There’s a place for both email and phone calls in sales, and the best approach depends on your prospect’s style.

Use technology to enhance your communication, but don’t let it replace the human interaction at the heart of good relationships. The real magic happens when you pick up the phone, make the connection, and build rapport in real time.

When you combine that with thoughtful, well-crafted emails, you’re in a powerful position to move things forward, with clarity, authenticity, and respect.

The Power of Gamification in Professional Skills Training

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 10:51:02 GMT

How do we use Gamification in training?

One of the most exciting developments in skills training today is the growing emphasis on learning styles and gamification . Recognising that everyone learns differently is the key to creating engaging, effective sessions.

While we all – as individuals - have a blend of Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic learning preferences, most people naturally gravitate toward one or two dominant styles.

Acknowledging and incorporating these differences can dramatically boost energy, engagement, and participation in both in-person and online training environments.

For example, visual learners are drawn to gamification because they can see progress and results. auditory learners enjoy the opportunity to discuss and collaborate , while kinaesthetic learners thrive on the hands-on nature of interactive, task-based activities.

In our courses, gamification often takes the form of team challenges , which not only reinforce key learning outcomes but also serve as powerful team-building experiences . At the start of every workshop, particularly when participants are new to each other, we include icebreakers and interactive activities to set a positive tone. Throughout the training, we will utilise tools such as Slido for live polls and quizzes, team-based problem-solving games, and individual exercises linked to theory.

Our clients consistently tell us how much they love the gamified elements of our sessions, especially the role plays , which bring learning to life dynamically and memorably.

What is Gamification?

Gamification is the process of applying game-like elements—such as points, challenges, rewards, and competition to non-game activities like learning or training. It’s designed to make the experience more engaging, interactive, and motivating.

How workbooks became learners ‘Bibles’

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 10:32:26 GMT

In our early days, 21 years ago, we began by providing participants with individual handouts for written exercises, notes, and additional theory materials. However, we soon discovered that loose sheets of paper tend to go missing or become disorganised. To solve this, we developed a wire-bound workbook—affectionately known as “the Bible” —for every course we deliver.

Each workbook is completely bespoke, tailored to the specific client and training program. This approach ensures that all materials are neatly compiled in one place, creating a practical and professional resource that participants can continue to reference long after the training session ends.

The workbooks also provide a resource that suits different VAK learner styles – more on that below.

The workbooks have quickly become a cornerstone of our training experience. Many of our long-term clients proudly keep a full collection, one for every course they’ve attended over the years. It’s rewarding to see how these customised workbooks not only enhance learning during the sessions but also serve as valuable tools for ongoing professional development.

What began as a simple organisational improvement has evolved into one of the most popular and impactful features of our training and something we are really proud of.

VAK Learning Styles

The VAK learning styles model identifies three primary ways people prefer to take in and process information: Visual, Auditory, and Kinaesthetic .

Visual learners understand best through seeing. They prefer images, diagrams, charts, and written directions. Visual aids like mind maps, color-coded notes, and videos help them remember and connect ideas. These learners often think in pictures and may find it easier to recall information that is visually presented.

Auditory learners learn most effectively through listening. They benefit from lectures, discussions, podcasts, and verbal explanations. Repetition, rhythm, and sound patterns help them retain information. They often enjoy reading aloud, participating in group discussions, and using mnemonic devices that involve sound or speech.

Kinaesthetic learners , sometimes called tactile learners, learn best through doing and experiencing. They prefer hands-on activities, experiments, movement, and real-life applications. Physical engagement helps them process information and stay focused. Role-playing, building models, and interactive simulations are especially effective for them.

We cover this and more in our Advanced Communication Skills workshop.

Are you communicating added value for your Veterinary practice?

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 10:36:17 GMT

With all the recent findings about vet practice transparency & pricing in the public eye again, with the recent CMA recommendations announcement, something really struck me – with my background in veterinary, pharma sales and marketing and as a specialist trainer in the field, where are we going wrong?

How much are we, as a profession, really communicating added value to our clients, in the wake of much less than positive PR with articles like this: BBC ARTICLE

These might include scenarios like:

1. Longer training to become a vet than a GP!

2. Investment in ongoing CPD and skills training - also as a legal requirement

3. That you can get appointments face to face, how often does that happen in many GP practices?

4. Often, practices have specialist qualified vets and or nurses in certain areas of interest. Anything from head to tail. such as Dermatology, Cardiology. Nutrition, Anaesthesia and more

5. In-house regular blood testing, meaning it doesn’t get sent away, so results are back within the same day, if not hours!

6. Continuity of care of the pet

7. The latest technology for dental, x-rays, scanners, blood pressure measuring, and so much more

What’s your best added value in your practice?

It often doesn’t come easily to most professionally qualified individuals to “sell” the products and services that they offer, be that in verbal or written communications.

Ultimately as Robert Louis Stevenson said “everybody lives by selling something”

Is it time to re look at your external communications strategy and tactics – how do you handle the:

1. New client walking through the door, so they choose you as their practice

2. The established long-standing clients to ensure they remain loyal and can give word of mouth recommendations

3. The newest bit of technology to ensure the greatest patient outcomes

4. Handling the “what is this going to cost? and how much?

5. The comparison in price to the free NHS!

6. Annual vaccinations and health check

7. What does your reception area say when you walk in? when did you as a professional sit in your own waiting room and look around- what did you see, how did it feel? What, if anything, needs to change

8. How do you maintain regular communication with those clients who are fortunate enough to only need routine treatment

9. What does your website and or social media say about the look, feel, and knowledge and experience of your practice and the team within it and all its added value?

The question I teach every person who comes to my traditional sales courses is W.I.F.M?

What’s in it for me! Me being the client. It’s about communicating the benefits of what you offer, linked to the needs of the client and their pet. not features… (my next article will deal with the difference in features & benefit…_

If you need any more thoughts tips, please get in touch at karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk . We would love to help you define and manage your practice communications.

What are the top 10 skills Sales people need ?

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 12:20:08 GMT

What are the top 10 skills face-to-face salespeople need?

Here at Vital Spark Training Consultants, sales training is the pillar of our experience, not learnt from books. We offer real-world experience of being successful salespeople, having managed national sales teams, offering consultancy to companies, assisting in the restructure of teams, setting up new sales teams and improving team and individual performance. Using this experience, we have identified the top ten skills required for face-to-face salespeople below.

1. Active Listening

Truly hearing a prospect’s needs, hidden needs, concerns, and motivations instead of reciting scripts!

Without it, salespeople will miss important information, miss what motivates the customer to buy, and their style of communication, which in turn can cause issues in the sales process down the line. This drives the biggest impact because deals are won or lost on understanding the customer.

2. Objection Handling: Confidently addressing doubts without becoming defensive and reframing them as opportunities.

Most business deals stall here. You require the ability to reframe objections into opportunities as a revenue multiplier. Really understanding the client’s need behind the need, working out the type of objection and professionally handling it.

3. Negotiation & Closing: Balancing assertiveness with empathy to secure business that feels like a true win-win.

Strong closers capture maximum business value and remember when negotiating. give nothing for nothing!

4. Effective Questioning

Great open and probing questions uncover needs customers didn’t know they had (need behind the need) to ensure you sell the right benefits for their specific concerns, challenges, etc.

5. Persuasion & Influence Guiding conversations with credibility, confidence, and matching communication styles to move customers closer to “yes. Please”

6. Rapport Building Using body language, tone of voice, the words you use, along with empathy to quickly establish trust and connection face-to-face.

Business often goes to the salesperson they like the most!

7. Reading Non-Verbal Cues (over 50% of Rapport building is body language)

This is Critical in face-to-face sales — it helps salespeople adjust in real time and prevents lost opportunities, and to handle objections.

8. Presentation Skills, to groups and individuals in person and/ or remotely, Delivering engaging demonstrations, sales pitches, or walkthroughs that hold attention.

Polished, confident demos and pitches can make sales, but without the first seven, they won’t land.

9. Product Knowledge

Important, but knowledge alone rarely closes deals. You also need to know the competitors’ strengths & weaknesses so you can be prepared for objections and be ready to professionally overcome them— it must be combined with the skills above.

10. Collaboration & Team Selling Coordinating smoothly with teammates (BDRs, specialists, managers) to create a unified collaborative customer experience.

This will all help results, but its impact is indirect compared to individual selling skills.

We specialise in Veterinary, Animal Health, Agriculture and all related fields, but our courses can be tailored to any business. To find out more, why not get in touch ?

Maintaining Happy and Motivated High Performance Teams

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 05:30:00 GMT

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

Peter Drucker

Our team’s role is to complete tasks efficiently while maintaining high-quality standards. As a leader, your role is to ensure they remain motivated, engaged, and supported in achieving those goals. The good news is that keeping your team happy doesn’t require being in the same physical space—you need to know what to look for and how to respond.

Watch for Signs of Conflict or Unhappiness

Managing a remote team means you don’t have the benefit of daily, face-to-face interactions where non-verbal cues such as body language or facial expressions may reveal disengagement. However, there are other indicators to watch for. Sudden changes in communication style, such as emails becoming unusually long, short, or adopting a different tone, can signal frustration or dissatisfaction. Even the shift in how someone uses emoticons can reveal their state of mind. Recognising these subtle changes early allows you to step in and provide support before issues escalate.

Encourage Employee Feedback and Address Concerns

Communication is the lifeblood of any successful team. While it’s important to provide timely, constructive feedback, it’s equally important to create space for employees to share their perspectives. Remote employees should feel just as comfortable voicing concerns or ideas as they would in an office environment. An “open door” approach—adapted to the virtual world—ensures small issues don’t snowball into larger problems and helps build trust across the team.

Provide Opportunities for Learning and Development

Offering training and educational opportunities is an excellent way to keep team members engaged—especially those driven by motivators such as Searcher, Star, Defender, or Friend (as identified in Motivational Maps). Supporting continuous learning benefits not only employees but also strengthens their loyalty to the organisation. Many companies offer tuition reimbursement, certifications, or skill-building programs, giving employees opportunities to grow without leaving the company. This kind of investment prevents stagnation and keeps your workforce energised.

Create Clear Pathways for Career Growth

Not every employee seeks additional education, but nearly everyone values career progression. Without opportunities for advancement, talented individuals may look elsewhere. Career growth can mean promotions into management, lateral moves into different roles, or new responsibilities that broaden their experience. According to a Gallup poll, 32% of employees left their jobs due to a lack of career advancement opportunities —a reminder of how critical this factor is in retaining top talent.

Part 5 of 5

High Performance Teams: How to Create Teamwork

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 05:30:02 GMT

Building a team is much like assembling a puzzle—you can’t simply scatter the pieces on the table and expect them to form a complete picture. Careful effort is required to align the pieces and ensure they fit together properly. The same is true of teamwork: it takes intentional guidance, clarity, and collaboration to create a cohesive unit that achieves its goals.

Identify Group and Individual Responsibilities

Just as a horse pulling a cart depends on the driver for direction, teams rely on clear guidance. Defining both individual and group responsibilities is the first step in building effective teamwork. Each member must understand their role, as well as the roles of others, to ensure smooth progress toward shared objectives. Ambiguity can derail a project, so clarity in responsibilities and expectations is essential.

Give Permission to Take Action

High-performance teams are made up of skilled, dedicated professionals who know how to recognise when something isn’t working—and how to address it. Leaders should empower their teams to act when challenges arise, even proactively. Granting autonomy not only strengthens problem-solving capabilities but also reinforces ownership and accountability for outcomes.

Build Relationships Between Team Members and Management

Trust, respect, and open communication are the cornerstones of strong teamwork. Without a solid relationship between team members and management, a damaging “us vs. them” dynamic can emerge. Leaders must invest time in fostering trust and approachability, ensuring employees feel comfortable sharing challenges, concerns, and new ideas. This openness strengthens collaboration and drives better results.

Give Feedback

Feedback is a vital tool for growth, alignment, and performance. It should come not only from managers but also from peers within the team. Constructive feedback highlights what’s working well while identifying areas for improvement, allowing members to adjust and refine their contributions. The most effective feedback is timely, consistent, and expressed in behavioural terms —focusing on what can be observed, heard, or measured. Done well, feedback strengthens both the individual and the team as a whole.

Part 4 of 5

Characteristics of High Performance Teams

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 05:30:02 GMT

Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilisation work.

Vince Lombardi

High-performance teams share a wide range of qualities—but four characteristics consistently stand out as essential: excellent communication, goal orientation, flexibility, and commitment . These traits form the foundation of a team that can consistently deliver outstanding results.

1. Excellent Communication

At its core, communication is about sharing thoughts and ideas clearly and effectively. It can take many forms—verbal, written, and nonverbal—and it is the backbone of any successful relationship, including within a team. Poor communication is often the root cause of conflict or inefficiency, typically arising from misunderstandings or unclear messaging. High-performance teams prioritise clear, respectful, and consistent communication to prevent issues and strengthen collaboration.

2. Goal-Oriented

Goals provide direction, focus, and motivation. They can be tangible (like launching a new product) or intangible (like developing new skills). What sets high-performance teams apart is their laser focus on shared objectives. They work collectively to achieve outcomes that are aligned with the organisation’s broader mission. Importantly, effective teams ensure their goals are SMART —Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

3. Flexibility

Adaptability is a hallmark of high-performance teams. Members understand the steps required to achieve their objectives but remain open to adjusting their approach if circumstances change. This flexibility extends to leadership as well—roles often shift depending on who is best equipped to guide the team at a given stage. Similarly, individual responsibilities may evolve from project to project, ensuring the team remains agile and efficient.

4. Commitment

Commitment is the glue that holds a high-performance team together. Members are not only dedicated to their tasks but also to the success of their colleagues, their team as a whole, and the organisation. This sense of loyalty fosters engagement, accountability, and a drive to achieve the best possible outcomes. Much like a parent’s commitment to their child’s success, these teams are deeply invested in collective achievement.

Part 3 of 5

Understanding High-Performance Teams

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 11:28:55 GMT

High-performance teams are a relatively modern concept, but their impact on organisations is significant. A well-structured team of highly focused remote employees can drive productivity, innovation, and collaboration across a company. In this blog, we’ll explore what defines a high-performance team, the benefits they bring, how they operate under flexible leadership, and the importance of team dynamics.

What is a High-Performance Team?

A high-performance team is a group of dedicated individuals who work together with a clear focus on achieving shared goals. These teams often operate with fluid leadership on project-based initiatives, the most suitable member steps into the leadership role as needed. What sets them apart is their strong sense of trust, accountability, and openness. Each member contributes as an essential part of a finely tuned system, working efficiently and effectively toward collective success.

3 Key Benefits of High-Performance Teams

High-performance teams provide advantages for employees, management, and customers alike:

Employee Benefits: Team members share the workload, reducing pressure on individuals while fostering stronger professional relationships and collaboration.
Customer Benefits: Customers often receive products or services more quickly and benefit from the positive, cooperative culture of the team, which translates into a better experience.
Management Benefits: With teams operating cohesively toward common goals, managers can step back from excessive oversight, freeing up time and resources for broader strategic initiatives.

Leadership in High-Performance Teams

Leadership in these teams is flexible, and needs-based. Rather than relying on titles, authority, or popularity, leadership roles are assigned to the team member best equipped to guide the group toward its S.M.A.R.T. goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound). While the organisation still provides managerial oversight, the internal leadership dynamic remains adaptive and collaborative.

Understanding Team Dynamics

Communication is the cornerstone of high-performance teams. They thrive in an open-forum environment where every voice carries weight and contributions are valued equally. Members exchange constructive feedback, share alternative solutions, and refine each other’s ideas—all while keeping egos in check. This culture of openness ensures the team remains focused on achieving results efficiently and effectively.

Part 2 of 5

High Performance Teams: Managing a remote workforce

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 11:28:02 GMT

As a former National Sales Manager, I understand the challenges of leading a remote workforce—ensuring productivity, maintaining motivation, and fostering teamwork without the benefit of daily in-person interaction. In this upcoming series of blogs, we’ll explore some of the key considerations in building high-performance teams when face-to-face contact is limited. These principles apply across industries and roles, no matter what field you’re in.

In today’s business environment, organisations must continually find ways to boost productivity without compromising quality. One highly effective strategy is building high-performance remote teams. When well-trained and well-structured, these teams can deliver exceptional results across a wide range of functions—whether it’s managing a large-scale mailing campaign or developing breakthrough software to support cancer research. The question is: what could you achieve with a high-performance team?

Thanks to today’s digital tools, remote work has never been more accessible, provided there’s reliable internet and mobile connectivity. However, success isn’t just about technology. It’s also about understanding whether individuals are truly suited to working independently. For instance, insights from Motivational Maps (which identify nine core workplace motivators) reveal important differences in how people thrive. Someone motivated primarily by “Friend” values may find remote work challenging, as they draw energy from social interaction and team engagement. In contrast, individuals motivated by “Builder” or “Director” traits often adapt more easily to working independently.

Benefits of a Remote Workforce—for Both the Business and the Individual

Access to stronger talent: Recruit from a wider, more diverse talent pool.
Increased productivity: Remote employees often demonstrate higher efficiency.
Better employee retention by supporting flexibility and work-life balance.
Reduced downtime, as employees can continue working during inclement weather or minor illness.
Sustainability gains: Less commuting reduces environmental impact and contributes to a smaller carbon footprint.

For more information about our specific course on building and managing High Performance teams, click HE RE .

Counting the cost of lacking motivation in the workplace

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 09:04:16 GMT

How much does a lack of motivation cost?

The term “Motivation” Gets thrown around in training a lot these days; indeed, it has become one of the biggest buzzwords in the training industry. Like many concepts that we deal with on a day-to-day basis, there is a danger that motivation as a concept can become nebulous and detached from the real world S.M.A.R.T goals of training; increasing sales and performance. We must be careful not to use terms like motivation without a clear understanding of what they mean and how they affect your sales team and their ability to make sales and add value to the organisation.

With that in mind, let’s look at some figures that show the true cost of a lack of motivation in the workplace, showing that you can’t afford to not keep your entire team motivated!

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that 185.6 million working days were lost in 2022 due to sickness absence—about one-third more than in 2015. Assuming a 230-day work year, this equates to over 800,000 full-time equivalent positions lost.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) estimates that the hidden cost of employee sickness surged from £73 billion to £103 billion annually between 2018 and 2023.
Of this rise, £5 billion comes from increased sick days, while a striking £25 billion stems from presenteeism —lost productivity when employees work while unwell.
In 2024, IPPR also highlighted that employees now lose, on average, 44 days of productivity per year due to working while sick, plus 6.7 days from actual sick leave. These represent substantial hidden costs.
According to Gallup’s 2023 “State of the Global Workplace” report , only 10% of UK workers are actively engaged in their roles—meaning around 90% are not engaged or are actively disengaged .
This percentage places the UK near the bottom of European rankings—33rd out of 38 countries—trailing behind the European average of 13% engaged .
More recent confirmation comes from the Financial Times , which cites Gallup showing UK engagement remains at just 10% .
Meanwhile, a people-science–oriented submission to a UK parliamentary committee indicates that as of January 2025, 65% of UK employees are engaged , implying that 35% are not .

As you can clearly see, it is not just a theoretical concept that we can study in the training room or on courses; an unmotivated workforce costs your organisation a tremendous amount to your bottom line.

Innovative new tools in the training industry have also helped us to have a better understanding of the role motivation plays in the workforce. With Motivational Maps - which we have been using at Vital Spark Training Consultants as part of our training packages since 2016 – it’s now possible to see, as a percentage , the exact levels of motivation of individual members of your staff, and which of the 9 key motivators, will bring the best out of each of them. Each map is unique to each team member. This data is invaluable for showing just how much a lack of motivation is costing your organisation

At Vital Spark Training Consultants, we aim to always focus on how the training we deliver, impacts the bottom line of your organisation. Regarding motivation, the economic data, coupled with new developments in training techniques such as Motivational Maps, paints a clear picture: an unmotivated workforce spells financial disaster for any organisation, large or small.

Accredited or non-accredited training - What's the difference?

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 15:30:29 GMT

What is the difference between accredited and non-accredited training courses?

Accredited training means that there are certain standards of content which the "licensing Body" has approved, versus non-accredited training, meaning that the content can be completely bespoke and tailored to your business needs and is not an "out of the box solution".

It also offers many other benefits:

1. Customised for your needs: Non-accredited training works on the fact that "one size doesn't fit all", be that individual teams or businesses.

2. Practical, real-world focus - which all good non-approved training providers will ensure the training uses your products and examples that are used in all the workgroups, exercises, discussions, presentations, role plays, etc.

3. Flexible and Faster; Training at a time and place that suits you and your business- often accredited courses are in set locations and dates, non-accredited courses are designed around your business needs.

4. Run by experienced practitioners; They have a wealth of real-life knowledge and experience, and haven't just read it in a book, happy to share their learnings and even mistakes from the past!

5. Immediate implementation: As the training is hands-on and led by experienced professionals who have done the job, rather than academics, or "trained accredited trainers" who cannot go off script the same. Teams and individuals can implement their training straight away in the field.

6. Teamwork: Bring internal and cross-functional teams together to share a common language, with the added advantage of improving internal collaboration, communication and motivation

7 . Flexible, in terms of place and content, as everything that is in an accredited course that is changed must be checked and agreed upon before any specific changes, which could take months and incur extra cost. Meaning content is more dynamic and responsive to current issues and trends.

8. Partnership - non-accredited training means having collaborative conversations between the training provider and the managers and team members in the business before delivery… You get exactly what you need.

9. Focus on business results, not credentials - Most delegates and managers want to know "how will this training benefit me and my business"? Things like:

1. Improving at getting in front of the decision maker

2. Negotiating an outcome that's truly "win-win"

3. Getting my sales area to target

4. Motivating my team to perform

10. Adding Value , by working collaboratively, and an ongoing business partnership with your training provider, they can become a valuable resource in terms of knowledge, support and confidence & give consistency in style to your future training needs. (more in future blog)

In summary , at Vital Spark we considered making our courses accredited; however, whilst we are accredited in tools, such as NLP practitioners, Motivational Map practitioners and coaches. We wanted to keep our strength of being a bespoke training provider to meet our customers differing needs and levels of experience to deliver what you need to “ignite your teams’ performance.

Are Salespeople born or trained?

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 10:14:25 GMT

How often have you heard it said about someone who is outgoing, friendly and a good communicator - “You have the gift of the gab - you should be in sales”.

Natural ability in sales

Those are great characteristics to have if you are in sales, however, standing alone with no understanding of a sales process or sales cycle, there is nothing to suggest that they will be enough to bring sales success. Is it fair to assume that just because someone is outgoing, friendly and a good communicator that those attributes are enough to make them a good salesperson? Well, it’s not that simple; those attributes alone will not make one a professional salesperson any more than someone who likes animals will make them a good veterinary surgeon without the specific training for that profession. A professional athlete will have a natural ability, but in order to compete at the highest level they will work on technique, practice, train and fine-tune to become the best they can be.

Becoming a high performing salesperson

Sure enough, if someone is outgoing, friendly and a good communicator those skills are necessary in sales and will be great assets for the professional salesperson and there is no doubt that there are many salespeople who rely solely on such characteristics in their sales careers and have never benefited from any kind of sales training. However, they weren’t born as salespeople they developed their own techniques in a “learning on the job” kind of way and discovered what worked for them and what didn’t, and simply did more of what worked and left out what didn’t. Without a recognised sales training program “learning on the job” can either lead to success or in many cases will lead to disillusioned and underperforming salespeople.

Training for sales professionals

Selling, like any other profession, requires us to know the process with expert-level understanding, and if we want to be top performers, it requires training, practice, implementation and coaching. Top performers will have a sound grasp of their own communication style and a knowledge of how to recognise different communication styles in others and most importantly, how to work with them. Equally, they will understand the psychological motivators that make customers buy and will be highly competent at discovering them to make sure that not only do they win the sale but also that they win the customer.

Effective sales training

Role plays during training exercises are a fantastic opportunity for sales teams, under the supervision of a trainer, to practice skills together and work on finding the best and most effective sales techniques to win business for their organisations. If we put it in sporting terms, this is the training ground, the place where techniques are embedded and worked on to ensure that the delivery has the best chance of hitting the target every time. It’s hard to imagine that any sportsperson or team has arrived on game day without spending hours on the training ground to know that when the chance arrives for them that they have the skill, technique and confidence to deliver. Selling is no different, an effectively trained and practised sales team will always have the best chance of delivering the best results.

Motivation - the key to your business' success

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 07:21:10 GMT

Performance in any organisation depends upon the right direction, the appropriate skills, and massive amounts of motivation.

Vital Spark Training Consultants provide the solution to what is probably the most difficult of these three to manage and sustain – MOTIVATION. We are experts in the study of Motivation and help build business success and profits by improving staff and team motivation.

Did you know that there are 9 core reasons why we go to work and only 1 of them has anything

whatsoever to do with money? Surprised?

With the breakthroughs being made in the study of Motivation, we can now:

Understand what motivates people at work
Describe what motivates them
Measure what motivates them
Monitor what motivates them
Maximise their motivation

The Motivational Map®, an on-line diagnostic tool, provides an accurate ten-page report which

is used to help people understand their own individual Internal Motivational Drivers. From this

report, we know what they really need from their work to be happy and fulfilled. Understanding exactly what motivates individuals in an organisation can be used to magnificent effect in such areas as:

Maximising employee motivation
Retaining staff
Boosting team performance
Improving business profitability
Recruiting the right staff to complement existing teams

Vital Spark Training Consultants work closely with business leaders, managers, employers and

individuals, helping them to recognise that Motivation is key to unlocking enhanced personal

power, outstanding performance and professional excellence. Our areas of expertise include:

1. CAREER MANAGEMENT When we are happy, motivated and fulfilled at work, we tend to take those feelings home with us. The benefits of being in the right job and having a happy and fulfilling career go way beyond our working day. Relationships at home, quality of life and self-esteem are magnificently enhanced. What a shame that 85% of all people between the ages of 25 and 55 when asked, said that they were in the “WRONG JOB” – Vital Spark Training Consultants Ltd can help.

2. RECRUITMENT & SELECTION The wrong person in the wrong job is no good to either the individual or the organisation. A key ingredient to employee retention is to “employ the right person in the first place”. Since 60% of all new employees leave their post within the first six months, choosing the right applicant has never been more important. Partners in Motivation can help.

3. TALENT MANAGEMENT Imagine if you could know precisely what motivates each of your key staff about their work. If you knew exactly what motivated them, you could learn to relate to them in ways that would tend to enhance their motivation and not diminish it. Staff Retention would be massively improved.

4. TEAMS & WORK GROUPS What if you could know precisely what motivates each of the

members of your Sales Team, Marketing team, Management Team, or Finance Team about their work. Being armed with that quality information, targeted incentive and reward strategies could be developed leading to their enhanced motivation. The productivity of the team would improve exponentially.

If you would like to have an experience of what Vital Spark Training Consultants can do for you and your company using Motivational Maps®, you can call us or email us now to find out how. It takes only 15-20 minutes and you will receive a 99.9% accurate 10-page report detailing your internal otivational drivers so you can recognise what you really need from your work to be happy and fulfilled. That’s just one of the benefits of having your own personal map. A fuller understanding of how you and your organisation might use this powerful resource will come from the 30-minute telephone consultation afterwards.

Karen Froud-Murray offers a free, no obligation discussion with you by telephone about how

you and your organisation can benefit from working with Vital Spark Training Consultants Ltd

and the Motivational Map® technology.

Michael J Murray and Vital Spark Consultancy

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 07:13:23 GMT

Mike is a director of Vital Spark Consultancy Ltd. He is a charismatic leader and motivator with a pragmatic ‘can do’ approach. Mike’s background is with manufacturing and distribution organisations. He has gained many years’ experience in sales and marketing management, operating at board level.

Specialising in “Agriculture and Animal Health markets”, Mike has recruited, trained and developed national sales teams to deliver high-performance results. He has in-depth knowledge of the agribusiness sector and has developed and managed international distributor networks to create many successful business-to-business partnerships.

Having delivered the “Investors in People” programme Mike is a firm believer that investment in skills training adds value to every organisation and enhances the customer experience.

Contact Mike at mike@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk

Following up With a Customer Once You Have Addressed Their Issue

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 11:19:39 GMT

“Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.”

Jeffrey Gitomer

The difference between having a customer who is satisfied and a customer who will remain loyal can be determined in the steps you take to follow-up with that customer. Once you have resolved a customer’s issue, before you end the transaction, take a moment to summarize for the customer what the issue was and what the resolution was as well. Ask the customer if the situation is resolved and how you may further assist them.

Call the Customer

If a customer thinks the situation is resolved and it appears to be so, imagine how they would feel if after you end your interaction with them the problem occurs again. In addition to maintaining a positive relationship between the company and the customer, it’s a good idea to follow up later and make sure their issue is still resolved. It’s also a good way to show that you genuinely care about your customer’s circumstances.

Send the Customer an Email

Some companies prefer that you do not call a customer to follow up. Another option is to send the customer a follow up email. Try to let at least 24 hours pass before doing so, to allow time for a problem to re-occur. Another advantage of sending an email is that it can be less time consuming than a phone call.

Mail the Customer a Small Token

When a customer has gone through a difficult challenge, a small token such as a gift certificate or a coupon can help ease a bad memory. Make sure that whatever you send is appropriate and within your company’s policies.

Snail-Mail a Handwritten or Typed Letter

A letter sent through the mail has an added advantage of allowing time to pass between the initial interaction and the moment your customer receives your letter. This period in between allows a customer to be certain that an issue has been resolved. A handwritten letter is also a good personal touch that gives customers a sense that they are cared for as individuals.

Public Speaking – Delivering Your Speech

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 07:13:23 GMT

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

William Penn

A few simple steps can help you improve the delivery of your presentation:

Start off strong by preparing an opening that will capture the audience’s attention.
Learn how to use visual aids effectively.
Check the volume of your voice.
Practice beforehand. Check your running time, but not to the point where it is automatic.

If you have the confidence to use the room to your advantage and have your ideas straight in your head, the presentation really will take care of itself for most of the time. You will find that, simply through saying it and hearing it often enough, your speech will evolve to a point where you can make slight adjustments on the spot as and where necessary without it becoming confusing.

Starting Off on the Right Foot

The opening of a presentation has two purposes:

The opening should be very brief, in most cases one to two minutes. In that short span of time, you need to present yourself and your topic in a way that will make your audience want to pay attention. In planning your opening, go back to your analysis of your audience.

An effective opening convinces your audience that what you are going to say will be worth their time and attention. If you lose them in the first two minutes, there is not much you can do to get them back with you. In some ways the presentation’s most important element is its introduction.

There are many things you can do to catch the audience’s attention. Considering that a presentation is generally a quite formal setting, this number is maybe slightly reduced in terms of what you can do to catch the audience’s attention and keep your job. However, if you work on getting the opening right, you will find that your presentations receive the attention they deserve. Subsequently, you will be able to hone them to the point where you become a very skilled presenter.

Open with a bold statement. The statement may be controversial – to the extent that it is something you believe and that some in the audience may disagree with. “Controversy” in this case is more to do with slight differences of opinion than saying something which will offend people. But it is fine to open with a statement along the lines of “X is something which is essential to the running of a business”, where “X” stands for something that, up to now, many people may not have agreed was essential. Follow this up by saying “I know, many of you may not agree with me, but this is what I plan to prove to you here and now”.

Making a statement which requires backing up will draw the attention of the audience, as they listen in to see how you will back it up. You will also have introduced your subject and can then follow up with a few lines stating how opinions have differed on the subject, but people with more years in the business than you have had very positive, complimentary things to say about it. In some cases, it may be beneficial to write the opening statement for your presentation after you have written the rest of it. This allows you to make your statement resonate with the message in the body of the presentation.

Using Visual Aids

Visual aids can:

One study has shown that presentations with visual aids are more persuasive than presentations without. There is some dispute over whether the use of visual aids is simply a gimmick to cover for the fact that a presentation does not say very much – an accusation of style over substance – and there are certainly cases where this happens.

But the coherent use of visual aids will make a presentation more memorable to the audience and will allow the presenter to make his or her points more effectively. Getting it right can be difficult, but if you do get it right the pay-off can be huge.

Try to avoid simply copying the visual aids you have seen used before. If you have seen them, then the chances are that your audience will have seen them too. If they were successful then, the audience will be prone to think back to that presentation and either ignore yours or constantly compare the two

If they were unsuccessful, then it is unlikely that they will suddenly have become more effective. It is best to think of visual aids after you have written the presentation, as this will allow you to think of a coherent uniting factor between the elements you wish to illustrate.

If you can think of a visual aid that can be used interactively, then so much the better. One obstacle which presenters find they run into is the difficulty of saying something that has not been said before, or in a way in which it has never been said.

By achieving this, you will create a situation where your audience will refer to your presentation as “remember the time when …”. Having this kind of memorable impact can make your presentation a lot more impactful. It should, however, not be all that people remember. Over-reliance on visual aids will simply lead to your broader message falling on deaf ears.

Checking the Volume of Your Voice

The more people there are in a room, the louder you will have to speak. People make noise unintentionally by moving around in their seats or shuffling papers.

If you find that you must shout to make yourself heard at the back of the room, then you need a microphone. Overall, though, conference rooms tend to be built in order to allow a presenter’s voice to carry. The difficulty of getting your voice to just the right volume for a presentation is made by the fact that there are multiple rows of people viewing the presentation. In this case, it is important to take account of the seating arrangements.

Before you say anything else in a presentation, use the voice you intend to use for the presentation to ask whether everyone can hear you clearly. The element of balance is again important here.

Speakers who are too quiet will have the obvious disadvantage that their listeners genuinely cannot hear them, as well as the fact that they will appear nervous and not in command. This does not excuse going too far in the opposite direction, which will lead people to consider you brash and over-confident, and either consciously or subconsciously give less weight to your views.

Shouting distorts the voice. It is a simple fact that something which is shouted will not be heard as clearly as something of a similar length which is spoken powerfully from the middle of the chest. Also bear in mind that if you plan to move around the venue, you will need to adjust your voice to ensure that it carries the extra distance.

If you are facing away from the audience, keep your statements during this time to a minimum and, if possible, to turn to face them during this period. If a microphone will be necessary, ensure that one is available and tested before use – microphones can have a distorting effect which will make any presentation less worthwhile.

Wrapping Up and Winding Down

Sometimes a speaker will end a presentation with a question and answer session. If you do this, don’t end the presentation with your answer to the last question. It might have little to do with your main point. Instead, after you have answered the last question, say something like:

“That’s all we have time for. If there is one thing I hope you will remember from this presentation, it’s…”

Doing this will end the presentation in a neat way and pull together the strands of the event. It will also allow you to reinforce the central point of your presentation. As people leave, thank them for attending and say goodbye to them.

If people leave the presentation on a positive note, they are more likely to remember what has gone before in a positive light. Whatever else you do, you should ensure that if people have follow-up questions after the event, they can address them to you in whatever way is possible.

To learn more about delivery and get more tips and real-life practise, we cover this in our presentation skills workshop:

Public Speaking – Being Prepared

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 11:00:56 GMT

Preparation serves several important purposes:

It boosts your self-confidence.
It reduces the chances of something going wrong.
It creates an impression of you as a competent, diligent person.
It makes it easier for you to give a polished, professional presentation.

The saying goes that those “who fail to prepare, prepare to fail”. Only by preparing properly will you eliminate the obvious potential errors that can turn what would be an excellent speech into a mess.

By taking the time to prepare, you can look ahead to the presentation and get an impression for how it should and will go. You can also take into consideration what difficulties may arise and create a strategy for dealing with each of them.

Some people can walk into a room and hold the attention of their audience by speaking “off the cuff” for half an hour or more. These people are naturally gifted and quite rare. Usually, they make a living as stand-up comedians, as comedy is one of very few fields where the act of preparing a routine is not restricted by the necessity for getting every fact right and every detail nailed down.

This does not mean that delivering a presentation cannot be an enjoyable process. In fact, the right amount and the right kind of preparation can ensure that the presentation is enjoyable, informative and useful both for you and for your audience.

Checking Out the Venue

Here are some things to look for when checking out the venue for a presentation:

Sometimes a lot of preparation goes into a presentation; considering the way the speaker moves, sounds and sees the audience, as well as the visual aids the speaker will use during the presentation.

A great deal of preparation should ensure that things go smoothly, but the level of presentation needs to be matched by the quality of preparation. Think for a moment how you would react if you had written a 30-minute presentation which called for frequent reference to a visual slideshow and when you arrived at the venue you found that they did not have a projector.

If you can have access to the venue before you deliver the presentation, you should carry out a study of the room and get all the information you need. If you can have access for long enough to do a “dry run”, so much the better. This will allow you to foresee any problems and either amend your speech or make alternative arrangements.

It is essential that you take nothing for granted when seeking to deliver a presentation, because it will be you who is in the unenviable position of explaining and dealing with any problems that happen during the live presentation.

If you cannot get access to the venue prior to your presentation, then you should at least be able to get a floor plan of the venue and a checklist of items you will have available to you. Also, you will have the advantage of knowing whether the venue will support any equipment you bring with you.

If you have written into your presentation a very clever ten-minute scenario that requires you to walk among the audience, you will need to know that the layout of the room allows this. If you have included a short film in your presentation, it will be entirely useless if most people cannot see the film because a pillar is in their way.

Before you deliver your presentation, you should look around the room and ensure that nothing there will distract people from what you are saying and visualise how you will deliver your speech in this room.

Gathering Materials

If you are going to use handouts, be sure you have enough. Handouts serve several purposes:

Listeners like to take notes. Listeners like to have something to take away from your presentation as a reminder of what you said. Many listeners will take notes on any scrap of paper that is handy. By providing your listeners with handouts, you can reduce the time they spend taking notes because they will already have the main information you are presenting.
The less time they spend taking notes, the more time they can spend focusing on you.
Handouts help reinforce your main points. People listen selectively. As hard as you try to emphasise a point, some listeners will remember some other point you made that was probably less important. Handouts will help you drive home your main message.
Handouts make listeners happy. People like to take away something tangible from a presentation, something more than their recollection of what you said. Giving people handouts makes them feel as if they “own” the information they have just heard.

When you write your speech, it is beneficial to condense what you are saying into its key points. This is beneficial for the sake of having visual prompts for what you are going to say but can serve a dual purpose, as you can create an excellent handout.

As wonderful as your speech may be, remember that it will be experienced slightly differently by however many people hear it. Each person may take something slightly different away from the room, so if you have concrete points that you would insist on them remembering, ensure that these are available on the handout.

By giving everyone a handout, you also ensure that they feel as though they have participated in the presentation. Rather than simply demanding that they sit there, listen and remember everything you have said, you give them what is in effect a souvenir of the occasion (in fact, souvenir is by origin a French word for “to remember”).

This will be something they can refer to after the event, particularly if they annotate the handout themselves with their own thoughts. Additionally, they can sit and listen to the presentation as you deliver it, without having to constantly write or refer to detailed notes during the speech.

A 24-Hour Checklist

Presentation:

___ Do you know what you’re going to say in the first two minutes?

___ Do you know how you’re going to introduce your topic?

___ Have you prepared clear statements of your main points?

___ Do you know how you’re going to close your presentation?

___ Have you prepared answers for the questions that are likely to come up?

Slides and handouts:

___ Have you proofread your slides?

___ Do you need to add any slides?

___ Should you delete any slides?

___ Do you have enough handouts for everyone?

Logistics:

___ Do you know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there?

___ Have you gathered all the equipment and other materials you need?

___ Have you called a contact person to make sure the room will be ready?

Remember : “Practise makes perfect!”

Public Speaking – Organising the Content

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 11:09:42 GMT

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."

Vincent Van Gogh

The key to creating a well-organised speech or presentation is to keep your audience in mind. Start with something that will capture their attention and give them a clear idea of your topic.

Organise the body of your presentation in a way that will be easy for your audience to understand. Plan to review your main points briefly and then wrap things up on a positive note, perhaps giving your audience a “call to action.”

The essential thing to remember is that you are giving your presentation for the benefit of your audience. That means you need to organise it in a way that will make sense to them. The most important thing to keep in the forefront of your mind is that you are not making the speech for yourself, but for your audience.

Think of how politicians do things. When they are campaigning, they will speak to groups as diverse as different occupations, different ethnicities and different ages. How they speak to each group will change. When they speak to a cabinet meeting of fellow politicians, the language and the issues will be different again. Keep this in mind when giving a presentation.

Making Organisation Easy

Some thoughts on the basic parts of a presentation:

Opening. Some speakers like to start a presentation with a joke. Sometimes this works. It starts on a light note and puts the audience at ease. But many people do not tell jokes well. If a presentation starts with something that doesn’t work, the audience will start to question your ability as a speaker. Other ways to start can include asking a rhetorical question, giving people a surprising statistic, or telling a brief anecdote that is related to the topic of the presentation.
Body. The key points in your presentation.
Review. Many speakers skip this step, but it can be worthwhile to include it. Chances are that some members of the audience didn’t register the few key points you want them to take away from the presentation. Restate these key points briefly for the sake of those who were “tuned out” the first time you made them.
Closing. Restate the main point of your presentation. In some cases, you may want to give people a “call to action.”

Obviously, the longer a presentation goes on the more chances there are to lose the attention of your audience. However, making a presentation too short can leave people uninformed and dissatisfied with the body of the presentation. It is therefore essential to structure your presentation correctly. Allow adequate time to give a powerful opening which will draw listeners in, a strong middle which will hold that attention and give them all the facts, and a closing section which reinforces what they were told and gives them an idea about what action needs to be taken.

All these parts need to be present and each needs to be weighted correctly according to the amount of time you have available to you. It may well be the case that in order to attend a presentation people are taken away from doing their “normal” job.

Such demands on a person’s time will reflect in how they view the presentation and how much of their attention they give it.

The amount of time you give to each section of a presentation will therefore be governed by how much time you have overall and how much of that time will be necessary to get your substantive points across. If your presentation is in danger of running over time, it will be necessary to trim it in places, beginning with any extraneous detail.

Remember that most presentations will be followed up by a pick-up session of sorts, where individual questions can be dealt with. The presentation itself is where larger issues are raised and answered.

Organisational Methods

It’s important to realise that most people will be able to remember only a few key points from a presentation. Don’t overwhelm the audience with facts that they will forget as soon as they walk out the door. Focus on a few key points.

It’s a good idea to write your key points on a flip chart or show them on a slide. That will help your audience understand how your presentation is organised. If you return to your flip chart or slide when you move on to a new key point, the audience will be able to see where you are in your presentation.

At the close of a presentation you can then go through each of the key points that you have made. Making a point coherently consists of three steps: introduction, substance and reinforcement. If you want the audience to leave your presentation with a certain point locked in their minds, then it is essential that you address all three of those steps.

Whichever way you choose to organise the body of your presentation, it is important to keep the elements of it down to a manageable number. Taking one of the above as an example, we will look at how a “Problem/Solution” style of presentation can best be cut down into a few manageable steps.

An organisation may have any number of problems that it wishes to address. If there are, say, fifteen problems that it wants to get to the bottom of it, covering all of these in a presentation results in the problem that fifteen of anything is a large number to remember.

In order to ensure that the presentation does not result in an audience being bemused by the sheer number of problems, it is advisable to find a category for each problem. For example, “time”, “manpower”, “finance” or another suitable category.

Your intention should be to find a few category headings which can cover a few problems each. If these problems require more time, this can best be covered by a meeting where the attendees are all people who have experience in the specific field where problems exist.

Any presentation will benefit from this kind of organisation. One thing worth remembering is that the “rule of three” is adhered to by most people, if not consciously then certainly subconsciously. Therefore, if you can keep concentrated discussion to around three headings – or a maximum of five – then you will be able to retain attention much better than if you have a numbered list which never seems to end. You can always emphasise the key points at the end of the presentation.

Public Speaking – Identifying the Task That Had to Be Performed

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 11:12:55 GMT

Your task description will be the organising principle for the rest of your presentation. Most of what follows will be an account of what you did to complete the task.

One way to come up with a simple, clear task description is to imagine you are writing it for a teenager. How would you describe what you did to someone who knows very little about your work? This can obviously be tweaked depending on the audience, but it is worthwhile remembering that the audience to which you speak will all have their specialities in certain fields. Something that is perfectly evident to you may not be perfectly evident to many in your audience.

This does not mean that a lot of your speech should be taken up by lengthy explanations of what you do. Think of it in a similar way to a film. In most films we have periods of what the directors like to call “exposition”. They lay down the “back story”, telling us why what we are watching had to happen.

Film reviewers are very quick to criticise films which have lengthy spells of exposition, as all we really need are the essential details. We can piece the rest together for ourselves. Take the same approach to explaining the task that you were dealing with. Give the important details and assume a basic level of understanding.

The result of having these brief explanations is that your wider presentation will then be set in a certain context and it is in this context where the things you say will make sense. When you have completed the first draft of the presentation or speech it helps to then read over it and see if it would make sense to someone who is coming to the presentation without the information that you have.

Any terms which give space for confusion can then be explained a little bit better so that the audience can follow the presentation. If any remaining confusion persists, a question-and-answer period can pick that up.

Listing the Actions You Took

If a presentation contains a list of actions, it’s a good idea to present the list on a slide or a flip chart. People have a hard time keeping more than three or four items straight in their head unless they see them displayed.

As you go through the list in your presentation, you can point to each item on your chart or slide. This will make it easier for people to follow along. It will also help people see where you are in your presentation and how much longer it is likely to go on.

It is important to do this for several reasons:

Firstly, if people are confused as to what exactly will be dealt with – and when – they are liable to lose concentration. Any key points you make in the presentation will resonate less as a result of people wondering what is next.
Secondly, there will be people in your audience who, although they are keen to listen closely to the presentation, will still wonder when their area of interest will be dealt with. We change how we listen depending on our familiarity with the topic.
Thirdly, if people are concerned about the length of the presentation, their minds will begin to wander as it passes the point where they would have hoped for it to finish.

Making the audience aware of the structure of your presentation in advance may seem to some like an invitation for them to tune in and tune out as the topics suit. However, having a table of contents allows people to keep concentration.

People will listen to further inform themselves in an area that they are less knowledgeable of.

In their areas of expertise, they will listen not more closely, but differently – giving themselves a chance to contribute after the presentation if necessary.

A good structure does not just help the writer and deliverer of a presentation, but the audience too. It is easier to maintain concentration if one is aware of what they should be concentrating on. This means that you carry the audience with you over the course of your presentation. They will be better informed, reassured and prepared at the end of your presentation than they were at the beginning.

Revealing the Results

Revealing the results of a project involves answering a few basic questions:

Did the project achieve its goal?
Were there any unexpected consequences?
What’s next?

The first question may seem like an obvious one with an obvious answer. Simply put, either it achieved its objective, or it did not. However, any project will have stages of success and stages of failure. In deciding whether a project achieved its goal it is important to refer to the questions and the brief as set out in the introduction to the presentation.

There was a plan to achieve something – did it succeed? If so, did it come through on, or ahead of, schedule? Was any outside help required? And if it failed, did it fall some distance short or was it close enough to be termed a “deferment” rather than a straight failure?

As for unexpected consequences, these can arise in any project. In preparation for a project, it is common to look ahead at potential problems and decide how these can be avoided or addressed. However, the best laid plans can still always run up against unforeseen problems and, for that matter, unforeseen benefits.

These can change the shape of a project and lead to the redrawing of an entire brief. Often the kind of on-the-spot management that is required to handle such a situation can be the difference between success and failure. Any conclusion should deal with these circumstances; how did they arise, and how they were dealt with?

At the end of the presentation, it is safe to say that the audience will be better informed as to the extent of the success or failure of a plan. Naturally, their minds will then turn to the matter of where things will go next. If the business itself has not been wound up, there will be follow-up work to do and starting that work will be the priority.

The question of “What next?” can be answered with reference to the presentation you have just delivered. Everyone will now be clearer on the consequences of the previous months and now is the best time to formulate the next plan of action.

Public Speaking – Overcoming Nervousness

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 10:49:22 GMT

"Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed"

Michael Pritchard

I t’s OK to be nervous. In fact, it’s probably a good thing. If you are very calm before a presentation, you may be underestimating the difficulty of your assignment. If you’re calm because you consider the topic an easy one (a “no brainer”), you may not project enough interest in your subject.

If you’re not nervous, you may have a hard time projecting the energy and enthusiasm that you will need to win your listeners’ attention. Nervousness can be a tool to communicate enthusiasm.

Channel your nervousness by forcing yourself to speak clearly and to make eye contact with your listeners. It cannot be stressed too often that the element of balance is important in delivering a speech.

Come across as too relaxed and you will sound a little bit bored. If you are bored, then the audience will expect to be bored as well and they will need very little excuse to start mentally running through other things that they have to do later that day.

Conversely, if you come across as too nervous, they will wonder why you are giving the presentation rather than someone “competent”. Also remember that although eye contact with your audience is good, staring at them will just make them apprehensive – or worse yet, amused.

Preparing Mentally

Some advice for participants on mental preparation:

Like an athlete preparing for a big game, you need to keep yourself positive as you prepare for your own important contest. Think of all your successes in life – all the worthwhile things you have done. Remind yourself that you have prepared for this presentation, that you know what to expect.
Think about similar experiences you have had. How have you responded in similar situations in the past? If you’re like most people, your feelings of anxiety will gradually go away as you work your way through your presentation. You have probably been through things like this in the past – an initial period of nervousness and anxiety that lasts only a short time.

I n so many cases, the anticipation of an event is the most emotionally charged part of it. The “athlete” analogy is a good one. If you allow yourself to think too much about the bad things that might happen, it becomes almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. Do not go into the meeting or conference room with a sense of foreboding and a strategy of damage limitation. All that this will do is invite problems which do not need to be there.

You have already done most of the work, delivering the presentation is no more than the final ten per cent. Once you are in the “zone” momentum will take you to the end.

What many people do, and it is something that can be destructive if you allow it to be, is anticipate being nervous. The more you think “Oh, the nerves are going to get to me”, the more they will. Accept that nerves are a part of public speaking and channel those nerves into making your speech come alive.

Anyone who claims not to have been nervous the first time they spoken in public is almost certainly lying. It is something that is very hard to pre-imagine accurately and in most cases, the nerves dissipate after the first few minutes. Accept that you will be nervous and concentrate on delivering a good presentation. You will learn to love those nerves.

Physical Relaxation Techniques

Two Relaxation Techniques

Deep breathing:

Sit up straight, cross your legs at the ankles or keep your feet flat on the floor.
Take a long, slow breath in through your nose. Pretend that you are breathing into your abdomen.
Allow your abdomen to expand.
Exhale slowly and evenly through your nose. As you exhale, allow your abdomen to go in.
Continue to breathe in this way for five to ten breaths.

Progressive Relaxation

Tense a group of muscles so that they are as tightly contracted as possible.
Hold them in this state of extreme tension for a few seconds.
Relax the muscles as you normally would.
Consciously relax your muscles further so that you are as relaxed as you can be.

Appearing Confident in Front of the Crowd

Personal organisation: notes, visual aids, and handouts

A speaker who fumbles around with his materials gives an impression of poor organisation and lack of interest. The audience suspects that such a speaker hasn’t put much effort or thought into preparing for the presentation.

Allow yourself enough time to organise all your materials before you begin your presentation. Being well-organised can also improve your self-confidence.

Remember that there is no reason for the people in the audience to feel anything but well-disposed towards you. Even if they may not agree with what you have to say, if you do not say it confrontationally, they will accept your right to say it.

One of the most famous strategies to deal with nervousness when addressing an audience is to picture them all in their underwear. However, this is more a joke than a serious strategy. Those who have seriously tried it have found that it distracted them more than anything. It is much better simply to look out into the audience, smile in a relaxed way, and introduce yourself.

The chances are that many of your audience will smile back and you can then address parts of your speech in their direction in order to feel supported.

The most important thing to remember in order to deliver the most confident presentation you can is to have an awareness of your surroundings. If you move around, bear in mind the positioning of things in the room. If you walk into something, pass it off with a brief joke about people planting things to put you off your stride and simply allow your speech to flow.

Public Speaking – Preparation Part 2

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Sun, 23 Jan 2022 11:31:51 GMT

"When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt."

Henry J. Kaiser

Preparation part 2: Identifying Key Questions and Concerns

If you have a good understanding of your audience, you can probably predict the key questions and concerns they are likely to have. You may not be able to give the audience the answers they would like to hear, but at least you should be ready to discuss the things they care about most.

Many speeches these days are followed by a question and answer session which allows the audience to raise any issues they do not feel have been fully dealt with by the original speech. However, it is better for the audience if the original speech deals with those concerns, as it demonstrates that they have been thought through rather than addressed “on the hoof”.

Predicting questions and concerns should be straightforward. If you can address a larger group of people, then the chances are that you have knowledge of the issues that affect them and how these can be addressed. You can take a sounding from people “on the ground” as to what their concerns are. It may well be that you share those concerns and have given some thought to addressing them.

If you can speak intelligently and emotionally about the issues that concern your audience, they will have a lot more trust that you can help provide solutions to problems, and that their position is understood and respected.

Before delivering a speech or presentation, make a list of the five most searching questions you expect people to have. Your presentation should then concern itself with answering those questions as well as delivering your own standpoint.

When delivering the speech, pay tribute to the fact that these concerns exist, say something along the lines of: “And before I go any further, I would like to raise an issue that I know has been foremost among the minds of many here…”. As the audience is giving you their attention, it is simply reasonable that you make clear that they, too, have yours.

Preparation continued: Creating a Basic Outline

The main advantage of creating an outline is that it helps you to organise your thoughts. The audience gets more out of a presentation when it is well-organised. They also are more likely to think that the speaker knows the subject thoroughly and has given some thought on how to present it.

In this blog we will be considering a hypothetical presentation about a project that has just been completed, but the general approach we will consider is applicable to just about any type of presentation.

Often this approach is seen as being like creating a body. You start with the skeleton – the basic outline. This is the bare minimum of the speech, vaguely formed in the shape that it will eventually take. Then progress by adding meat to the bones and layering the rest on top of that.

At key points of the presentation, specific issues will need to be confronted. By allotting them a place in the basic outline you will ensure that these are prioritised and addressed appropriately.

I recommend using the “mind maps” technique to create the outline of all your talks.

Outlining the Situation

Almost every project addresses a problem, an opportunity, or both. An effective way to introduce your speech is by outlining the situation that your project addresses. This approach forces you to get to the point right away.

When outlining the situation, avoid giving too much history or background. Most people won’t care about that sort of information. If you start out by discussing something people don’t care about, it will be hard to recapture their interest.

Provide only the background information people will need to understand the situation. Your audience in many cases may already know the background. Covering old ground will simply lead to a “here we go again” feeling in the room.

So instead of beginning with a history of the problem, the nature of the problem can be covered in a few sentences, followed with a statement of what resolution you as a group have decided on.

It is beneficial to refer to situations and occasions with which the audience is familiar. In doing this you will keep their attention by recognising that their opinions matter and have been considered.

The introduction of a presentation is where you will often take and hold an audience’s attention or lose it for good. It is wise to keep an introduction brief and informative and set the scene for the rest of the presentation.

In an introduction, there are just a few essential elements to keep in mind. First, you should introduce yourself in your capacity with regards to the project. Even if everyone there knows you, it helps to explain exactly why you are delivering the presentation. You should then give a brief overview of what the presentation seeks to address.

Public Speaking – Preparation Part 1

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 11:27:26 GMT

According to a survey by the Sunday Times, 41% of people list public speaking as their biggest fear. Forget small spaces, darkness, and spiders – standing up in front of a crowd and talking is far more terrifying for most people.

However, mastering this fear and getting comfortable speaking in public can be a great ego booster, not to mention a huge benefit to your career. These blogs will give you some valuable public speaking tips. For achieving maximum benefit, we also recommend attending a vital spark presentation workshop.

Identifying Your Audience

The key to effective public speaking is preparation. The better you prepare, the more confident you will feel.

Preparation begins with identifying your audience. What do you know about your audience? What do they care about? What’s important to them? Do they have any misconceptions about your topic? These are the kinds of questions you should ask as part of your preparation. Write down these questions and your answers to them. You will then have a basic structure for your speech, which you can build on by adding and removing items as you see fit.

Holding the attention of an audience, identifying and speaking to what interests them, is the most important thing about any public speech. It is not merely about what you say but also how you say it. If you have a message you wish to get across, think of how that message will communicate itself best to the audience you are speaking to.

Performing a Needs Analysis

Preparing for a speech should begin with thinking about the wants and needs of the audience. What are they interested in? What do they care about? No matter how entertaining a speaker you are, people will not give you their full attention unless you are talking about something that is meaningful to them.

Let the audience know early in your speech that you are going to try to address their concerns. Too often a speaker starts out with a lengthy discussion about the history or background of a topic. That is usually not what the audience cares about! They want to know how this topic will affect their lives.

A needs analysis measures what skills employees have — and what they need. It indicates how to deliver the right training at the right time. The results answer the following questions:

The method can be by simple observation, careful note taking and asking questions.

Creating an Audience Profile

Education: Consider the level of education of your audience and tailor your language to suit that, i.e. how sophisticated or basic the vocabulary you use should be.
Familiarity with Topic: What do people know about the topic already and what do you need to explain?
Familiarity with Jargon: Avoid any specialised vocabulary unless you think that everyone in the audience will understand it. If you must use a technical term, you should explain it.
Interest in the Topic: What do people care about? What’s important to them?
Possible Misconceptions: What incorrect ideas might you need to correct?
Attitude: Are people hostile, supportive, curious, worried? The attitude of your audience will affect the tone of your speech.

Registers of Language

One of the most important elements of written or spoken language is the register in which it is delivered. Experts say that there are three registers of language; R1, R2, and R3.

R1 is the level of language used most commonly by politicians or lawyers and found in the upper-market range of newspapers.

R2 is the register most commonly used by people in everyday conversation with acquaintances and people they have just met (outside a framework of formality).

R3 is the register that may be used between close friends and is heavily based in slang. Considering how educated your audience is, and how formal you wish the speech to be, will govern the choice of register.

The audience’s familiarity with an interest in the topic will also be of importance. You may be seeking to educate your audience on the topic in hand, or to communicate your own ideas to an audience who is already familiar with the topic. Deciding between these will help shape your speech – if they are familiar with the topic then it does not hurt to include some jargon, as this may even make your speech that little bit more dynamic. If you don’t need to keep explaining things, you can communicate ideas more effectively.

The mood and opinion of your audience is also important. It will influence the tone and content of your speech. A nervous or worried audience will require an element of comfort or reassurance, while a celebratory audience will want to share a positive, electric atmosphere and possibly hear some congratulations.

One person speaking to a large crowd is in a unique position – they have the attention of many people and the power to get ideas across that will change mindsets and behaviour on a large scale. It is therefore important to consider your phrasing and ensure you correct any persistent misconceptions that you are aware o f.

Sensitivity in Dealing with Customers

karen@vitalsparkconsultancy.co.uk (Karen Froud-Murray) — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 07:13:23 GMT

Write about something you know. If you don’t know much about a specific topic that will interest your readers, invite an expert to write about it.

Speak to your audience

You know your audience better than anyone else, so keep them in mind as you write your blog posts. Write about things they care about. If you have a company Facebook page, look here to find topics to write about

Take a few moments to plan your post

Once you have a great idea for a post, write the first draft. Some people like to start with the title and then work on the paragraphs. Other people like to start with subtitles and go from there. Choose the method that works for you.

Don’t forget to add images

Be sure to include a few high-quality images in your blog. Images break up the text and make it more readable. They can also convey emotions or ideas that are hard to put into words.

Edit carefully before posting

Once you’re happy with the text, put it aside for a day or two, and then re-read it. You’ll probably find a few things you want to add, and a couple more that you want to remove. Have a friend or colleague look it over to make sure there are no mistakes. When your post is error-free, set it up in your blog and publish.