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In this hilarious and highly practical bestseller, Berkun reveals everything you need to know to speak well in front of any audience.
In this one day workshop you'll quickly learn speaking skills for the modern world
Attention spans have shortened and workplaces have changed. Due to COVID-19 many now work from home or other non-traditional workspaces. To get your ideas across requires skills and techniques designed for today.
This full-day intensive workshop, based on the lessons from the national bestseller Confessions of a Public Speaker, and The Year Without Pants, An Amazon best book of the year on remote work, will surprise you. The pace is fast and the lessons are fun.
Your teacher & coach is Scott Berkun, bestselling author of 8 books, who is one of the best and most experienced coaches in the Seattle area, and an expert on Remote work since 2012.
The format: The workshop is centered on student practice and guided critique. Not the teacher or lectures. We spend time on what the people in the class need the most help with, not rigid-outlines that are likely irrelevant.
This makes it fun and easy to improve all the fundamentals of speaking well. You’ll quickly gain confidence through constructive expert critique, fun games and interactive lessons.
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Learn to manage & minimize speaking fears
Speaking anxiety can be managed by almost anyone, by understanding the science and good practice habits, both of which you'll learn.
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Gain confidence in many speaking situations
You'll get practice speaking in both large and small groups, revising and improving as you go. And we'll touch on workplace vs. event speaking challenges.
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Personal critique of your style and habits
The day begins with short presentations and quick notes on your strengths, growth areas and where to focus. (To get a customized session, try 1-on-1 coaching by the hour).
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Guided practice in front of a supportive audience of other attendees
You'll learn Berkun's simple system for evaluating others and yourself, which you can use after the class every time you practice.
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Advice on remote working challenges
You'll learn how to adjust your style to work best on remote cameras and remote presentation tools.
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Entertaining lessons on the most common mistakes and how to avoid them
Attendees will pick situations of interest to learn tactics for handling hecklers, live Powerpoint failures and answering audience questions on the fly.
The full day consists of
- Mini-lessons on storytelling, voice control, body language, Q&A, and more
- A morning and afternoon 'performance' slot for you, w/feedback
- Well-timed breaks to recharge and refresh
- Coaching on managing fears, reading rooms and writing material
- Mid-day speed rounds of practice and peer feedback
- Expert critique from Berkun, with custom advice + peer critique
- Typical day schedule runs 9am-4pm, all-inclusive.
Typical Schedule
- 15 minutes: Warmups and fun exercises
- 5 minutes: Learning to use the peer critique guide
- 20 minutes: Watching videos & critiquing them
- ~60 minutes Round 1: Student presentations and safe group critique + mini-lessons as needed
- Break for lunch
- ~40 minutes - Round 2: Break into small groups for 3 rounds of practice/critique
- Break
- ~60 minutes Round 3: Final presentations to larger group, with quick critique
- Q&A
- Extra practice for those who want more
Who should attend?
- Beginner to intermediate speakers
- People who like small highly active workshops (14 people max)
- Those who identify as an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert (your personality is an advantage, not a liability)
- Anyone who is a fan of Scott Berkun and his honest, direct and entertaining style
Testimonials
“Catherine tested + approved! No silly frameworks or theories, like my last workshop. Totally worth it!” - Catherine Ho, REI
“Solid, rewarding day… Learned with a good group of professionals from all industries… fun and immediately applicable to work and life" - Veronica Sopher, Microsoft
Top Rated by Attendees
On the most important metrics for a workshop of this kind, attendees have given the highest marks, both for applicability of what the learned as the quality of the format.
In recent private offering of the non-remote version of this workshop at a Fortune 50 company, the workshop scored a value of 9.5 out of 10 and a Net Promoter Score of 100 out of 100.
Over 100 past participants in the workshop,, offered these outstanding average ratings:
Sound good? Bring SpeakHQ into your organization
You can have your entire team trained as a group, in your own office, improving their communication and storytelling skills all at once.
This can be combined with a one-hour keynote style lecture on the core ideas to a much larger group.