Okay, I know. If your customers won’t answer the phone...or if they’re telling you they have no budget, it feels like it’s the economy.But is it?The other day a friend of mine lost a project to another firm. They said they enjoyed meeting her and she gave a very good presentation. It turns out the CEO had a relationship with another firm that had done superior work for them in the past. It wasn’t her company’s reputatio...

Do the right people know your name? Do they think of you when opportunities come along? Do you have a robust network of friends and close acquaintances who trust you, admire you, believe in you and want to help you? Visibility is a career strategy! And it doesn’t just happen. You have to work at it. Don’t wait until you need a new job or want a promotion . It’s never been more important that it is right now to build...

How can you get promoted to the top job? Is the process really so mysterious? Yes and no.The part that is mysterious is the cloak and dagger operation that characterizes how many companies approach succession planning. It’s like Oz behind the curtain. Who knows what’s really going on? Few companies do it well, and it’s something you can’t control.What you can control is one thing - the way you think. What you can cont...

Even the most seasoned, experienced professionals can find their hearts racing and their palms getting clammy as they walk down the hall to the boss’s office. If you are: a. laying awake at night worrying about how it’s going to go, or b. not sure how far you’ll get before you’re interrupted, or c. afraid you’ll be flummoxed by a tough question, then it’s time to analyze what’s happening.Let me make 5 observations about mis...

The other night I spoke to a midsummer night networking event for women entrepreneurs at The Commonwealth Institute in Boston. The topic was finding purpose and passion in your work. Entrepreneurs tend to be pretty passionate people, but like everybody who is running a business now, they’re worried, exhausted and tense. Everybody needed to have some wine and some fun.Injecting the fun is your job as speaker. What I’ve l...

I’ve never met anybody who didn’t wish they could give a great presentation. I’ve met a lot of people who are kidding themselves about what they’re willing to do about it. These are people with good intentions and bad habits that are killing them.As those of you who read this blog reguarly know, I can write with absolute certainty about these mistakes because I’ve made all of them. One of the dirty little secrets about p...

I gave the opening keynote at the CIO 100 Summit, where the top technology innovators in the country are being recognized by CIO Magazine. Our conversation was about the importance of becoming a motivational leader. The reception was so overwhelmingly positive that I had to write about it. Dozens of CIOs sought me out after the talk and at lunch to remark about how it resonated. In times like these they’ve realized they...

I’m often asked, “what are the biggest mistakes people make in a business presentation?” I’ve seen speakers trip up on all of these, and the pain is also personal - I’ve made every one of these mistakes myself. Here are 5 mistakes to avoid at all costs:Mistake #1: Failing to get important information about your audience. This is not just a rookie mistake. Experienced speakers do it, usually when they get lazy and make...

In today’s economic environment, companies need great leaders. Yet lately much public conversation has focused on whether our economic crisis has been partly the result of too much “leadership testosterone,” both on the trading floors and in the boardrooms of banks and investment firms. Would a more balanced male-female presence have made a difference in averting the current crisis?Many, many experts agree that ideal corpor...