Presenting
Electronic media greatly help communication, but your message is something only you can create, and makes no sense without a specific audience. When people read their presentations off endless and crowded PowerPoint slides, they’re not thinking about their audience; when they talk on and on in conference calls, they’re not thinking about their audience; and when they make a presentation that has no beginning and no end, no recognisable structure and no clear message, they’re not thinking about their audience. And the result? The audience switches off, falls asleep, doesn’t buy into the idea and doesn’t buy the product or service. A waste of time.
If you need to get your message across clearly, concisely and convincingly at an upcoming event (e.g. a conference or roadshow) or you have regular communication ‘moments’ (e.g. budget meetings or strategy updates), we will ensure you can meet audience criteria such as needs, goals, culture, attitude, knowledge, timescales etc. Using our knowledge of effective skills, we will work with you to help you prepare and perform communication that is memorable, engaging and that helps you build the relationship you want with your audience.
We have many years of experience in the following areas:
- Formal presentations and speeches
- Handling interviews
- Handling the financial media
- Presenting across cultures
- Meetings and conferences calls
- Train-the-trainer
Writing with clarity, precision and impact
Good verbal communication and good written communication have much in common. Both require a clear message and an audience focus, both need to be clear and concise (but not too concise), and both need to be convincing.
But writing is different in one respect – it leaves a record. Unless we video a spoken presentation, the only record that will remain will be in the audience’s minds, for better or for worse. A written document, however, remains on file, in an archive, in someone’s inbox, as a newspaper cutting.
So, what does this mean? In short it means it is essential to get the communication just right, it is essential to get the language just right, it is essential to get the style just right. We must ensure that a piece of writing is grammatically correct and that it’s visual layout is right (paragraphs and sentences that are too long or too short have a negative effect). The style of a document should reflect the communicator’s goals, and the tone should be consistent throughout.
All this requires extreme attention to detail but, fortunately, in addition to our 28 years of coaching and training expertise we can add 12 years of high-level experience in translation and editing (see ‘Editing and Translation Services’). This gives us a 360-degree perspective on all aspects of writing skills.
We have offered writing coaching in areas including:
- Audit and compliance reports
- Big Pharma reports
- Scientific field reports
- Corporate governance and press releases
- Financial statements
English for professionals
We are expert linguists, so if you are not a mother-tongue speaker of English we can offer coaching that specifically addresses your language as well as your communication needs. For professionals who need to operate constantly in English, we can offer coaching programmes that take a deeper look at language issues, combining this with the communication requirements of each situation. The goal in all cases is to build linguistic competence. We can deal with all types of learners and any type of learning block. Our overall aim is to improve both competence and confidence.
These coaching programmes are as long or as short as necessary, and may take place either face-to-face or online. In all cases, the focus is on the critical international situations faced by each professional in his or her normal activities, including:
- Presenting data
- Negotiating
- Business conversation and small talk
- Handling conflict
- Job, company and strategy
- Making recommendations and suggestions
- Persuasive communication
Ilium Communications 