BELOW IS AN UNSOLICITED, “REAL- WORLD”, TESTIMONIAL FROM A PARTICIPANT IN A RECENT WORKSHOP. WE MAKE THE POINT THAT FOR OUR TRAINING TO BE REALIZED, IT MUST BE UTILIZED! THESE ARE SKILLS THAT ARE NOW PERMANENT.
Hello,
Just wanted to give you all some “real-world” feedback after our first
Professional Development session recently.
I had a GA Restaurant Association function which we were sponsoring. The
function was called “On the Menu” Best Practices Forum and it was the first event of it’s kind being tailored for restaurant members of the GRA and
hosted by a successful, local chef. As Chair of the GRA’s Membership
Committee, I am often asked to present “a slide or two” from a powerpoint
presentation that either the GRA and/or myself put together for the
Quarterly membership meetings. What that means is that I usually stand up
in front of 100 to 150 people and read bullet points off the screen – not
much of a challenge, and the powerpoint is an easy crutch, but pretty good
experience none the less.
The “On the Menu” event was much smaller and there was no projector or
Powerpoint presentation to read from. I knew ahead of time as one of the
event sponsors that I would be asked to present a minute or two about Royal
Cup and what we do. What I did not know was that I had also been put on the
agenda as Membership Chair to give a testimonial about the GRA to the group
(about 40 people.) I found this out about (30) minutes or so before I had
to deliver the testimonial while I happened to be rushing around the
restaurant brewing coffee and setting up our display as meeting sponsors.
In addition, the added stress of having to give two talks with no supporting
notes made keeping my nerves at bay a bit more challenging.
I did not have too much trouble coming up with my testimonial thoughts on
the fly, but the thought of having no prep-time to organize my thoughts was
a bit disconcerting and in the past might have translated into nerves before
and during my talk.
I immediately thought back to Moe and Nancy’s session
and told myself to try and remember just a few things from it:
- the spontaneous and “no prep time” manner in which Moe and Nancy asked us
to come up with our one minute talks during the sessions gave me the
confidence to relax and do it in this situation with relative ease.
- holding eye contact with individuals around the room for five seconds at
a time, controlling my hand movements, posture, and speaking so that
everyone could hear me (we had no microphone.)
I can tell you that focusing on these simple things kept me from being
nervous (or at least greatly reduced my nerves) and greatly improved my
overall delivery. I was focused on the topic and effectively delivering the
message and I believe that thanks to the session on “Effective
Presentations” I was able to do so.
Looking forward to more good stuff in
future sessions. Thanks!
Jason
Jason Howell
Atlanta District Manager
Royal Cup Coffee, Inc.
TO SCHEDULE A WORKSHOP FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION, PLEASE CONTACT US. WE WILL CUSTOMIZE A PROGRAM FOR YOUR NEEDS AND BUDGET.
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