Submitted by Jack Milner on February 6, 2023
"Trust in me," sang Kaa the snake from Jungle Book, while of course being splendidly untrustworthy. And from the hills of the Himalayas to the deserts of Timbuktu (and I’m not talking Crème Caramel) to the sky scrapers of New York – when a sales person meets a customer for the first time the phrase, “Trust in me” is part of the equation.
Submitted by Jack Milner on February 2, 2023
Just as a good presenter takes charge of the “conversation” so a good comic has to boss their audience. You have to let them know you’re in charge. But clearly running on stage and shouting, “who’s the Daddy?” is also unlikely to endear you to your audience (and that’s doubly true in business.) There’s a balance.
As soon as a comedian walks on stage, literally within 3 seconds, the audience decides on their suitability as “leader.” This is also true of the presenter.
Submitted by Jack Milner on January 31, 2023
I was helping a government NGO get their training presentations up to a decent standard so that the learning, which was honestly of national importance (even if the nation might not agree) was consistent, understood and acted on.
The brief? “We’d like them to be more energetic, more confident, funnier - just better.”
Unfortunately, the presentations were written by another team who had micro-managed them to death. Literally every second was accounted for. “12.41 – slide 27 – bullet point four…. “ - that sort thing.
Submitted by Jack Milner on January 25, 2023
“The most viewed TED speakers deliver on average one joke per minute in their keynote speeches. The best deliver two jokes per minute.” Jeremy Donovan
Humour is the holy grail of communication. Those who have it are lauded, those who don’t are usually forgotten. Yet it is not easy and can go wrong. You will stand out but standing out means it’s easier to knock you down. So why should we make them laugh when it means risking our careers?
Here are 7 reasons to add humour
Submitted by Jack Milner on January 23, 2023
This is a painful story to relate. A few years ago I was one of four speakers at a conference of engineers. It happened to come at a time of huge stress. I was juggling too many balls - speaker, coach, writer, director and Dad.
Next afternoon I was on 60 minutes. The audience had been nicely warmed up and my first few lines were greeted with gales of laughter. Then it all went wrong. The harder I tried, the worse it got. I was wading through treacle. I knew I wasn’t connecting. I knew I was bombing. So what did I do? I just ploughed on.
Submitted by Jack Milner on January 19, 2023
A while back I was having a chat with another Jack, the husband of my niece, who’s also an actress. I was joking about my (also an actress) wife’s inability to load a dish washer. I cringe a little as I write those words.
Jack said, “Yes Jenny’s the same. But then I think I could be married to someone who’s great at loading dishwashers or I could be married to the amazing wonderful gorgeous Jenny?” I refrained from pointing out that maybe you could be gorgeous and wonderful and also good at loading dishwashers.
Submitted by Jack Milner on January 17, 2023
THAT ONLY 10% ARE LISTENING. Why? Because the other 90% suspect the presentation will be dull, boring and nothing very surprising or interesting will happen on the journey. It's all going to be a bit safe.
Submitted by Jack Milner on January 12, 2023
An ad agency got in touch recently, because they’d just lost a huge client pitch via Teams and wanted win them back. When they asked the client what had gone wrong, they were told it was because they didn't look like they wanted it. Ironically the opposite was true. They were desperate to impress and as I later discovered, as a team got on really well.
