Presentation Skills Training with Maria Guida
As a former actor on Broadway and television, Maria Guida offers an exciting, unique, and highly-effective approach to business speaking that inspires trust and generates business. Successful Speaker, Inc. clients learn how to speak with the poise, passion, and persuasive power of our finest professional actors - to sell more ideas, products, and services.
Maria employs a sound pedagogical approach: combining tradition training methods with experiential learning in a creative context. To help business speakers in all industries project a positive professional image, she has adapted and enhanced stage and television techniques specifically for the business arena: this work is based upon time-honored approaches originally designed for the training of actors.
To develop a natural and powerful speaking style and cultivate "presence", this active training stimulates creative problem-solving and the ability to think clearly "on one's feet".
Focused on business situations and customized for professionals in any industry, each session uses common business topics as the springboard for role-play and practice.
Each program builds upon the unique features of individual personality/style and offers a set of portable skills to enhance the way you present yourself - in the office, boardroom courtroom, or in front of the media.
Every Successful Speaker, Inc. program is completely custom-designed. Private, semi-private, and group training are available.
A Sampling of Custom-designed Programs:
Executive Presence
By virtue of their position, executives at the top of the corporate ladder face special demands as they speak with employees, counterparts at other companies, government bodies, and the media. This program helps executives project their best image by learning techniques related to demeanor/body language, "masking", not getting trapped in a predictable image, and not allowing others to think they "have you figured out".
"Maria Guida's dynamic techniques for better business speaking are practical and very effective. I heartily recommend her training!"
- Mr. Moses Dodo
General Manager
Espirito Santo Investment
Media Training
Speaking with reporters (on camera and off) presents special challenges for professionals in any industry. This program helps interviewees manage the media, control the input, understand the process and ground rules, meet the challenges of phone and television interviews, and cope with hostile/challenging interviewers.
"Maria's training helped me enormously. Now I feel much more confident speaking in public!"
- Ms. Nancy Poon
Vice President, Corporate Accounting
JPMorgan Chase
Speaking/Presentation Skills
To help professionals develop a natural and powerful speaking/presenting style, this program stimulates creative problem-solving and the ability to think clearly “on one’s feet”. Focused on business situations and customized for professionals in any industry, each session uses common business topics as the springboard for role-play and practice. Sessions build upon the unique features of individual personality/style and offer a set of portable skills to enhance the way professionals present themselves – in the office, boardroom, or courtroom. The program combines tradition methodologies with experiential learning in a creative context; whenever applicable, Maria Guida uses theater/television techniques that she has adapted specifically for the business world: to help corporate professionals speak with poise, passion, and persuasive power.
"Maria Guida's training in Presentation Skills is creative, enjoyable, and highly effective. Her performance techniques are a wonderful foundation for better business communication in any industry."
- Ms. Nancy Ploeger
President
Manhattan Chamber of Commerce
Persuade Your Listeners by Building Belief: Techniques from the Stage
A Harvard Business School study revealed that only seven percent of your persuasive power when you speak for business is based on your content. What matters most is your visual and vocal impression: how you deliver your message to inspire belief within the listeners. Crafted actors know how to do this, spending years honing a craft that is designed to build audience belief. To promote products and services, advertisers rely on actors and their craft -- because they know that the actor’s techniques and performance skills are fundamental to the business of selling any idea, product, or service. As a spokesperson on national television and Broadway actress (and university professor with years of business experience), Maria Guida has adapted acting techniques to help you meet your business objectives. With this program, participants learn performance skills that build audience belief and persuade the listener in the office, boardroom, courtroom, and media.
"I really enjoyed learning with Maria and know that my skills have improved. Maria understood my business and customized the program specifically for my needs."
- Mr. Pierre Manzetti
Client Advisor
UBS AG
Conducting Effective Performance Appraisal Meetings
This program helps managers conduct meaningful and effective meetings for performance appraisals. It provides best practices and opportunities for role-play, behavioral analysis, and feedback to managers who wish to communicate with clarity, authority and diplomacy.
"Maria Guida was instrumental in helping me develop my skills as a speaker, and her training has helped me tremendously on a day-to-day basis."
- Mr. Jianwei Miao
Sales Manager
New York Marriott Financial Center Hotel
Maintaining Speaker Power with PowerPoint
This program is designed to solve the most common problem of many business presentations today: a weak delivery caused by the ineffective use of (and over-dependence on) PowerPoint and other presentation software. The program helps business speakers command attention, project authority, and persuade business audiences with step-by-step techniques to maintain "speaker power" by managing presentation software/slides seamlessly.
"Maria Guida's presentation to the Westchester Women's Bar Association was lively and interesting and gave us a new way to approach public speaking. I look forward to incorporating her techniques in my presentations."
- Dawn K. Arnold, Esq.
President
Westchester Women's Bar Association
Speaking Style and Culture
This program is designed to help professionals speak appropriately within varied cultural contexts. It presents the deep-rooted norms of behavior that vary from culture to culture and affect speaking style in every culture. Participants become more aware of their own speaking style and how it can be managed, in order to enhance business relationships.
"Every time I use these techniques, I feel grateful for what Maria taught me. She did a great job"
- Nan-I Chen, Esq.
Shearman & Sterling
Facilitating Meetings
This program helps professionals lead effective meetings and provides strategies and practice for preparation and delivery. Sample topics include creating agendas, deciding whom to invite, minutes, objectives, scheduling, controlling the discussion, evaluating the efficiency of a group, and assigning responsibilities.
Executive Writing
This program helps executives sharpen their business correspondence with clarity, effective style/tone, and persuasive power – to project a powerful image and get what they want. Sessions offer step-by-step techniques to craft email and other correspondence that commands attention and motivates readers to take the desired actions.
"In today's highly competitive business environment, the professionals who succeed are the ones who have superb communication skills, and Maria Guida really helped me improve my business writing."
- Mr. Antonio Perrotta
Senior Manager
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Listening Skills
One of the most common mistakes that business professionals make is that they often talk more than they listen. While most people would agree the effective communication is a two-way street, many do not listen well and consequently fail to make a true and productive connection with business conversation partners. This program helps professionals sharpen their receptive skills, learn what to listen for, and become attentive to their conversation partners’ spoken as well as unspoken needs – to establish good will and enhance business relationships.
Leaving Voicemail That Gets Results
One of the most unfortunate and most easily-remedied breakdowns in business communication occurs when a caller leaves unfocused, unclear, or unintelligible voicemail. This program helps professionals plan what to say, use economical language, and deliver the message with clarity, correct pacing, and an effective “call to action” – so that the caller’s objectives will be met and the business relationship will be enhanced.
(All of the programs described above can be adapted for expats at your organization.)
Foreign Accent Reduction
This program teaches correct American English pronunciation and the clear, confident, and natural speaking style that American professionals need to hear. The goal is to reduce (rather than eliminate!) any foreign accent. Foreign-born professionals who are already comprehensible learn how to minimize the accent, so that it will not distract American listeners from the business message. Those with heavy accents learn how to make themselves understood the first time they speak – and every time – to communicate clearly and make a positive impression in American business conversation.
"For a busy, foreign-born manager, Maria Guida is a Godsend. She is a true professional. If I had had Maria's training thirty years ago, I could have been the CEO already!"
- Mr. Peter Liu
Managing Director
Securities Industry Automation Corporation
Communication Skills for the Foreign-born Professional
Foreign-born professionals communicating in the American business environment often face challenges related to the linguistic and socio-linguistic differences between America and the native culture. Maria Guida custom-designs programs that help non-native speakers (as well as non-native writers) of English to project authority: (1) reduce any accent (see program description above) and (2) speak and write with polished grammar, sophisticated word/phrase usage, and a style and tone that are appropriate for a wide variety of situations found in our American business culture. Participants become confident and truly bi-cultural communicators.
"Train The Trainer" Programs
Successful Speaker, Inc. delivers programs and curriculum design support to trainers who work within corporations. Content includes all the programs described above, as well as all others related to communication skills.
Maria Guida offers coaching in
- conducting needs assessments and proficiency evaluations
- designing curriculum and lesson plans
- ascertaining the appropriate format for any given program
- delivering effective programs: private; semi-private; small or large group
"Wow" Them at Your Job Interview
Studies show that 93% of the impression you make during job interviews is based on your visual and vocal "presence". Content, while important, makes a much smaller impact. This program helps professionals in transition to speak with poise, an engaging demeanor, and persuasive power during job interviews. The coaching provides step-by-step techniques (many from the actor's toolkit) to help you inspire belief within the interviewer, while speaking conversationally and with ease. Learn how to persuade and impress interviewers with confidence and style -- to put your best foot forward and land the job.
"Maria Guida revolutionized my idea of how to interview successfully. She tells you what to do, demonstrates how to make it work, and gives you the confidence that it will work for you. Go see this woman. Then, go knock 'em dead!"
- Diane Whitehead
former Director, National Retail Advertising
Verizon Wireless
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