


Post-Pandemic People Planning with Debbie Cohen
An audience with Debbie Cohen the MD of Streetwise HR, who shares her thoughts on the challenges we face planning our future workforce especially when furlough support finishes. All sound […]

Prospecting; the Lifeblood of Sales with Emma Friendship-Kilburn
Prospecting is the first step in the sales process, which consists of identifying potential customers. The aim of prospecting is to develop a database of likely customers and then focus […]

Remote Team Leadership with John Bennett
Virtual teams have suddenly become a way of business life. With them comes some potentially significant stresses. John Bennett, a guide from schoolofthought.life explains how we might best, keep in […]

Memory Hook Marketing with Richard Mack
Ever considered how you use the power of using all the senses to sell whatever it is you sell? Richard Mack from RT Promotions shares with us some great stories […]

Bricks to Clicks with Adam King
An audience with Adam King, the co-founder of Media Lounge, an eCommerce agency and of Jolly Brolly an “umbrella” company that moved from bricks to clicks. If you have been […]

By The Grace of … the NHS
I have been diagnosed as a type one diabetic since I was 18, that is not quite, but almost 40 years ago. The NHS staff has not only saved my […]

Omni-Channels – connecting with your customers with Steve Sullivan
An audience with Steve Sullivan from Channel Doctors, who explores how best to make the most of sophisticated technology and massive customer data to change the customer experience for the […]

The Trials & Tribulations of Trust with Julia Felton
An audience with Julia Felton from Business Horse Power, who discusses Accenture Strategy’s long list of adjectives that describe trust including; competence, integrity, honesty, transparency, commitment, purpose and familiarity. Link to the […]

Plus Ca Change with Simon Phillips
An audience with Simon Phillips from the Change Maker Group … Simon explores how we best overcome resistance to constant change, when we feel stuck and don’t know what to […]

LinkedIn Made Easy with Linda Parkinson-Hardman
An audience with Linda Parkinson-Hardman author of LinkedIn Made Easy and Microsoft Office 365 Engagement specialist, Linda explains why she is still a big fan of LinkedIn after all these […]

Productivity Boost? – Just Add Tech with Jon Jenkins
An audience with Jon Jenkins from Just Add Tech … Jon explains why productivity doesn’t seem to go up when we add technology that’s supposed to make life simple … […]

5-Star Social Proof with Chris Odell
An audience with Chris Odell from Schtore and Zon Coupons who discusses what he does to build trust in his online business models with star ratings and reviews to encourage […]

How to be Heard (TM Speech #2&3)
Introduction “Here at Toastmasters, we live and die by our presentation successes and failures. The intros can have a massive impact how the audience reacts to the speech. I’m so […]

The Five Es – High Performance Leadership part II
Laura is close to the end of her journey towards Distinguished Toastmaster. This is the penultimate project towards Advanced Leadership Silver. In this speech Laura takes a long hard look […]

10 out of 10! Andrew – Special Occasion Speeches #4
Sausages, Sparkers and Fireworks! With this speech entitled The Secrets of the Seaside Andrew Knowles has completed the competent communicators manual. That’s ten out of ten! Lady President, Mr Toastmaster, […]

Ah Yes! It is Christmas … Storytelling #4
Introduction – Laura McHarrie stumbled upon the subject of this her fourth project from the Story Telling Manual having talked about a Christmas Tradition in a table topic last December. […]

Hitting the Target
How do you get your message across when you are in a client meeting? Do you use PowerPoint? Explain a brochure? Deliver a pre-prepared speech? This post is about how […]

Beat The Clock – A Toastmaster’s Area Director’s Diary
As we draw to the close of the Toastmaster year, nothing stops! The clock keeps ticking! With two months to go we still have a lot to play for; not […]

A Marxism …
“Surround yourself with people who make you happy. People who make you laugh, who help you when you’re in need. People who genuinely care. They are the ones worth keeping […]

A Letter from George – Storytelling #5
Betsy Loveless was beating the back out of a piece of meat with a weighty rolling pin. The occasional trapped rabbit with wild vegetables regularly put food on the family […]

Robert’s Rules of Order
In the last 9 months I have been involved in a number of political (small p) meetings where Robert’s Rules of Order have been applied. Whilst I have been to […]

Getting Past the Gatekeepers
Roughly only 20% of B2B telephone cold calls reach the decision makers on the first call. You need to recognise that persistence is important if you are going get through the […]

Passing the Baton – A Toastmaster Area Director’s Diary
What are you doing to ensure the ongoing success of your club? Planning an effective succession strategy for your club’s committee is not easy. We are all busy people, but […]

Variations on the Death of Trotsky – Interpretive Reading #4
Laura McHarrie has chosen and for the purpose of timing edited, a short one-act comedy-drama written by David Ives. The play fictionalises the death of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky through a […]

The Flip Side of Passion
Can you remember having to do your job with one hand tied behind your back? I bet it was one of the reasons you chose to ‘go it alone’? Run […]

It’s All About the Numbers – a Toastmasters Successful Club Speech
How to be a distinguished club Take your felt tip pen and change the Goals Met in the top right-hand corner from four to five! As of 6 pm tonight […]

Entelechies! A Toastmaster’s Area Director’s Diary
Interesting how the half way point creeps up whilst you were snoozing over Christmas and slap bam wallop two clubs in the area have achieved Distinguished Club Status with a […]

Satisfaction Guaranteed?
A ‘just’ satisfied customer isn’t really good enough, only delighted ones will spread the words that encourage others to have the same experience. So how do you know what your […]

Three Commercial Love Stories
Advertisers know the phenomenal power behind telling a story. Indeed the reason we call Coronation Street and East Enders ‘soap operas’ is because washing soap advertisers used to sponsor TV […]

The Flood – Interpretive Reading #3
Laura McHarrie has chosen The Flood, one of The Vagina Monologues, a compilation of plays written and performed originally by Eve Ensler in 1996. This is one that Laura thinks […]

Step Out Tuesday – An Area Directors Toastmasters Diary
I mentioned Blue Monday in a blog post yesterday, it affects many of us in business when all the good intentions of our new year resolutions have dissolved. My antidote […]