first impressions

How far does a smile go? Further than you might imagine.

I’ve been meeting a lot of receptionists this month, and bank staff and shop assistants. Not intentionally, but I just seem to have been out and about more than usual. And overall, I’ve enjoyed the human connection … however I can’t tell you the difference a smile has made to the interaction. Don’t get me

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Five ways to ruin your presentation and what to do instead!

As regular readers will know, I attend a lot of networking events, at which business owners and representatives can take the opportunity to give a short presentation. The topic usually relates to an overview of their business, the market they work in or some top tips for the audience to take away. As the speaker,

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Do you suffer from Networker’s neck?

Have you ever been to an event where the person you’re speaking to keeps looking over your shoulder? We call that “networker’s neck” and it’s the curse of networking meetings throughout the land! It can be caused by disinterest, distraction or just plain rudeness. And you know if someone has it because as they’re speaking

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Don’t make a bad situation worse. My takeaways from recent hotel stays.

Having not stayed away from home for the past 20 months I have stayed in 4 different hotels in just the last 2 months; twice for work and twice for pleasure. Pre-Covid, I tended to stay in the same type of hotel for business (low cost, standard service, you know exactly what you’ll get and

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Don’t let your communication problems stop you from communicating.

When I was little, I couldn’t pronounce my ‘R’’s so I would get “Weally, weally cwoss” and my father told me I would be OK so long as I didn’t marry a “Wobert”. I had elocution lessons (as they were called then) to help me change ‘Weally’ to ‘Really’ and ‘Wobert’ to ‘Robert’ … which

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