Tell us about yourself Lidia!
I have worked in research, education and in quality improvement in healthcare.
Currently, I work at Latrobe Community Health Service ensuring our clients are getting a good experience with our health services. My role requires engaging, communicating and reporting at all levels from service staff, clients, executives, the Board and presenting at conferences.
I lead projects where I gather feedback from clients. I need to persuade staff to work with me so that they can make service improvements based on client feedback. Occasionally I need to report negative feedback, which can be tricky. Reminds me of teacher training: graceful duck on top, feet moving quickly under the water!
No wonder I needed Michelle’s help to navigate all that!
What kind of presenting do you do at work?
My role requires coaching staff via online presentations about new ways of problem-solving to improve services, communicating complex data and client feedback results at all levels to service staff, clients, executives, the Board and presenting at conferences.
What prompted you to study with Michelle?
I wanted to learn assertive and effective ways of engaging and persuading staff to improve buy-in for my ideas and recommendations.
How did Michelle’s teaching change your attitude to presenting in business?
It shifted my way of really thinking about the audience first (using the 5-step analysis and POO) and reminded me that my role is to “convince” people rather that tell them or educate them. I try to put Michelle’s teachings into practice before every conversation or presentation, and when writing emails. The mouse mat that Michelle gives all her delegates has the winning formulas for structuring the message on it, and has also a very useful daily reminder. I believe in using the skills so I don’t lose them. PINK = ”Put. Into practice. Not. Kick aside” is my new acronym! (If you know Michelle you’ll know why PINK is a good idea for an acronym!)
In general, what positive outcomes have you achieved from improving your presentation skills?
Immediately after the masterclass, I updated all my online presentations and incorporated the 5-step analysis and the Persuasion Blueprint into them. I was given a huge project with competing stakeholder demands. I used the updated presentation format to convince both stakeholders to:
– focus the project in a way that most benefits the clients’ needs,
– coach staff in new ways of problem-solving and,
– report client feedback more effectively.
This resulted in better engagement and collaboration between the stakeholders. As a result, we put in implementation plans to improve service delivery and the client experience.
Strategically for our organisation, we hope it will also result in retaining our existing clients.
In what specific ways have your presentation skills improved since learning with Michelle?
I think more about the audience’s needs and better ways of convincing them. This has helped to get buy-in and engage the people I work with. I have used the tips for designing effective PowerPoints and online presentations. I have been told my presentations are clear and engaging. An interesting ice-breaker also helps to relax the audience and build rapport.
What were your top three take-aways from Michelle’s masterclass?
1.Do 5-step analysis to understand your audience and help get buy-in.
2. Use the Persuasion Blueprint to structure all communications.
3.Present to their needs (it is about them, not you).
Note from the editor: WOW! Lidia is a serious ‘teacher’s pet’!!! Once you learn the formulas in our training it is very much up to you to decide whether to fly like a turkey or an eagle. We are thrilled that Lidia has been able to achieve such awesome benefits. And clearly Lidia, you deserve all the success in the world after taking the learning so seriously, and making such an impressive effort to implement everything immediately. Three cheers to you!
© 2023 MICHELLE BOWDEN CSP is an authority on persuasive presenting in business. She’s run her Persuasive Presentation Skills Masterclass over 970 times for more than 13,000 people over the past 24 years and her name is a synonym for ‘presentation skills’ in Australia. She’s 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 her new book is called How to Persuade: the skills you need to get what you want (Wiley).