This is Brenda Dorans’ Success Story after Presentation Skills Training with Michelle Bowden, presentation skills trainer. You can enjoy presenting success too!
Brenda Doran comes from a teaching background. She has taught in a number of New South Wales schools over the past 10 years. Her interest in student wellbeing saw her move into program development and facilitation focussing on supporting the social and emotional health and wellbeing of students. In her role at the NSW Rural Fire Service, Brenda has been designing training programs targeting schools and primary school aged children.
Through collaboration and engagement with NSW Rural Fire Service members using webinar delivery, video conferencing and forum presentations, Brenda has developed programs that will see the NSW Rural Fire Service supporting schools and empowering students to become bush fire and disaster resilient.
What did Brenda say after attending Michelle’s Persuasive Presentation Skills Masterclass?
“Michelle, I will always recommend your services to anyone who will listen. Thank you again!”
What kind of presenting do you do at work?
The way I present in my current role is vastly different to a few years ago. I was a school teacher for a number of years and I presented all the time to students. I had to make changes to my presenting style when I moved to student wellbeing because in that role I needed to deliver content to teachers and school executives. The majority of the presenting I do at the NSW Rural Fire Service is to members in regional NSW using web conferencing technology and I also present at conferences and forums.
What prompted you to attend Michelle’s Presentation Skills Masterclass?
In a past role as an Education Consultant at Peer Support Australia, I travelled around the country presenting to teachers and schools. The vast majority of my role involved presenting to adults and it was recommended I attend Michelle’s Persuasive Presentation Skills Masterclass to enhance my existing skills.
How did Michelle’s program change your attitude to presenting in general?
One thing Michelle made very clear was that the 4Mat model (a model for structuring your message) could be adapted to suit any communication situation; either to groups or to individuals. I hadn’t considered this before. I would prepare well for a presentation in front of a large audience, but until attending Michelle’s training I wasn’t using best practice models for my one on one meetings or informal conversations and business writing. I started to apply the model more frequently.
How have your presentation skills improved since Michelle’s training?
After attending the masterclass, I swung into action. The masterclass gave me the confidence to present more often and to larger audiences without flinching. Previously, I had never known where to look and was waving my hands around randomly. I now value the smaller points of presenting such as using the first name of audience members when addressing them, using the ‘whites of the eyes’ to connect with the audience members and simple hand gestures to reinforce my points.
Michelle covers a huge amount of content in her 2-day masterclass. You can’t use everything you learn the next day, it’s overwhelming. My approach has been to focus on one of the thirteen steps each time I present and make sure I nail just that. This method has worked for me and now I have started back at the top and I am working my way through the steps again. Using the steps in this way allows me stay confident and to have an attainable goal for every presentation.
What were your top 3 take-aways from Michelle’s Masterclass?
1. Manage objections – if you don’t do it early, it will ruin your presentation at the pivotal point – the end!
2. It’s not about you – direct your focus onto the audience
3. Rehearse – I used to be the ‘Queen of Winging it’, it never worked well. I now rehearse anytime and anywhere! Snaps to me! Editor’s note: “Yes Brenda “snaps” to you!
©2024 MICHELLE BOWDEN is an authority on persuasive presenting in business. She’s run her Persuasive Presentation Skills Masterclass over 1000 times for more than 13,000 people over the past 25 years and her name is a synonym for ‘presentation skills’ in Australia.
Michelle is a multi-million-dollar pitch coach to her client list that reads like a who’s who of international business: banking and finance, IT, pharmaceutical, retail, telecommunications plus many more. Michelle is the creator of the Persuasion Smart Profile®, a world-first psychological assessment tool that reports on your persuasive strengths and weaknesses at work, the best-selling internationally published author of How to Present: the ultimate guide to presenting live and online (Wiley) and How to Persuade: the skills you need to get what you want (Wiley).
Would you like to participate in our presentation skills training course?
We have a 25-year proven track record in developing people’s business presentation, public speaking and pitching skills. We will help YOU stand out for all the right reasons!
Master the art of public speaking and persuasive presenting in business with our life-changing public speaking training in Sydney LIVE and ONLINE via Zoom or MS Teams.
One presentation skills training course once is all you need.
Become a more confident, engaging and persuasive business presenter & stay true to your natural style!
We promise no hand holding and we will not video your presentation because it’s not necessary for awesome improvement!