Rory’s Cubes urge business people to weave a tale

Need a great icebreakers and want to reinforce a need for creativity in your organization? Look no further than Rory’s Story Cubes. Read more

How to engage your audience during a presentation

Engaging your audience is the most important thing when giving a presentation. My friend Tim Riesterer at Corporate Visions always reminds me, “There are two moments when your audience is most engaged and retains information. When you start speaking and then again when you tell everyone that you are about to wrap up. Research shows listeners lose interest in the middle of the presentation.” Read more

Free PowerPoint-Tastic Templates – #070: Lifecycle Puzzle

Each week, the Fast Track Tools training company and the Cubicle Ninjas design firm work together to publish a template that makes it easier for you to communicate your ideas. This template will help you communicate how things are interwoven in the life-cycle or process flow. Each puzzle piece illustrates this relationship. Read more

Six tips for visual storytelling that sells

People connect with stories while listening to businesses proposals and ideas. Some people are born with an innate craving for telling their story with PowerPoint slides. But, there are other ways to engage your audience when visuals are necessary. Read more

Free PowerPoint-Tastic Templates – #069: Lifecycle

Each week, the Fast Track Tools training company and the Cubicle Ninjas design firm work together to publish a template that makes it easier for you to communicate your ideas. This template will help you communicate the life cycle of a process or action. Often a progression is made at each step in a workflow, which provides talking points regarding the changes along the way. Read more

Budget cuts? Lower my expense account but don’t touch my bonus!

America’s businesses have trimmed the fat (and then some) from their expenses. The federal government has found a way to (barely) cut spending, cover (for now) its debts and (again, for now) avoid tax increases. With a pending double dip, where can companies cut? Read more

What the ant and the elephant teach us about leadership

I am great believer in the power of the parable, the fable, the story, the case study. I use stories frequently in my talks, sessions and in my writing. When people hear an inspiring tale that they can visualize, it helps them to remember the moral of the story and the lesson to be learned. Read more

Free PowerPoint-Tastic Templates – #067: Megaphone

Each week, the Fast Track Tools training company and the Cubicle Ninjas design firm work together to publish a template that makes it easier for you to communicate your ideas. This template will help you communicate big messages that should be streaming from a megaphone. Read more

Small rewards for workers go a long way

Meet Khalid Mahmud, factory manager for National Foods, Pakistan’s largest maker of spices and pickles. He has a few things to teach us about reward and recognition. Companies across Pakistan’s industrial heartland are struggling to cope with rising insecurity, incessant power outages and government corruption and inefficiency. Read more

Tuning sales operations for growth

Ouch. Your sales force just missed another deadline, putting launch of your new product line in jeopardy. What’s wrong? With a broader, end-to-end look at what they are doing, you might just find significant opportunities to help free up more of their time for selling instead of the other necessary activities that aren’t managed most efficiently and may be done elsewhere. Read more