As we near the end of the year, it’s no doubt that most of you attended some sort of workplace holiday party. One thing that we here at VAYOMAR are sure of is that every office party contains a large amount of small talk. While some of you may dread the idea of small talk, we are going to show you 5 easy tips on mastering small talk and how to become the life of the party! CLICK HERE take a look at our new infographic.
There is an old tradition that says you should always enter your house with your right foot first. That first step, where things are fresh and undetermined, makes all the difference.
Much like that old saying, conveying a message has a lot to do with the beginning; you need to figure out how to open on the right foot in front of your audience in order to set the tone for the entire session. The beginning, in this case, is the first 30 seconds to 4 minutes on average, depending on the length of your session. This is your window of opportunity to create a powerful first impression on a new or even a familiar audience.
So how do you start off on the right foot and experience “good luck” (at least for the duration of the session)? Start with anything that’s interesting and memorable, relevant (related to the topic and your agenda), and fits the time frame. It could range from a personal story, joke, historical anecdote to a piece of data, a quote or a visual aid, like a video or a picture.
In order to make your opening—or “grace period,” as we call it at VAYOMAR—effective make sure you match it to your audience, your comfort zone, and personal style and the kind of image you wish to portray. For instance, an unconventional joke might not be the wisest choice in front of a conservative audience. If you can, find out who your audience is ahead of time and adjust accordingly.
Next time you begin your presentation, speech, or other form of message, make sure you start on the right foot and choose a strong opening. It could make all the difference.
Rarely do we think about the impact facial expressions have when giving a presentation. However, as they are a big aspect of our body language, the faces we make can influence others to think and feel certain ways, merely depending on which muscles we choose to move.
The video below shows sets of identical twins sitting side by side. Their only difference? One is chewing gum. Particpants were asked a series of questions based on which twin they thought fit certain criteria. Watch to see how the experiment unfolds.
While this was interesting to watch, chewing gum is not the best way to show movements in your face.
Our suggestion is that you don’t chew gum when you go on stage or go to a job interview or to a business meeting. What you should do instead is take advantage of facial expressions.
Facial expressions are one of the major tools in the body language game. We express the entire spectrum of feeling, whether consciously or subconsciously, through our facial expressions.
Below are a few central aspects through which you can increase your use of facial expressions and your ability to identify the facial expressions of other people. In 2014, the University of Ohio found that there are 21 facial expressions that we, universally, use in our daily lives. Next to the six dominant facial expressions—which demonstrate feelings of anger, fear, disgust, enjoyment, sadness and surprise—another 15 expressions were found that were integrated into the first six, such as: surprise in anger, disgust in fear, etc.
When you stand before an audience and want to transmit a message in the most attractive way, you need to try to integrate as many facial expressions as possible. Your facial muscles should be moving as much as possible. This might be very difficult to do, as every person has 43 muscles in their faces and only uses two to four of them. The more aware you are of the impact of facial expressions, keeping this in your subconscious, the more you will use when you stand and speak before an audience.
The most important and the most discussed expression is, of course, the smile. We all know the old cliché that a smile is the only crooked line that can straighten out anything. Clichés are clichés because they are true. A smile can really break the ice, melt and soften opposition, and strengthen our position as speakers who are pleasant to listen to and to work with. An experiment was done with patients suffering from clinical depression. Half of them requested anti-depressants and half requested placebos for a period of one month. The placebo group was asked to stand before a mirror for seven minutes and to smile. The group asked to smile showed more improvement compared with those using genuine medications.
A smile, in particular, and general facial expressions not only show other people how we feel; they also influence the way we express our feelings, the way we experience our reality. There’s a difference between a courteous or artificial smile and a smile that shows real joy. The difference can be seen in the creases around the eyes. A real smile will include creases at the corners of the eyes, an artificial smile won’t. However, an artificial smile will actually stir the blood in the area of the brain responsible for enjoyment, and will improve your mood. While it’s true that a smile isn’t always suitable at every lecture or for every audience, if used in a moderate way, a smile can always be a bridge, knocking down walls, and creating effective communication between your listeners and you.
Dr. Paul Ekman (whom the show “Lie to Me” is based on), specialist at reading faces and facial expressions, developed the micro-movements that can identify, to the millimeter, the meaning of a movement of an eyebrow (helping police investigators to identify and analyze lies), and coined the term “facial slips,” which are much like slips of the tongue. Even when you try really hard not to show your facial expressions and to keep a poker face, these facial slips just happen. It’s difficult to control them. Only 1% of the population is clever enough to decipher the micro-movements of the face; they are also the ones who can control their facial movements.
Most are not among the people who are talented enough to control facial movements. But you can succeed in seeing someone in the audience who wants to ask a question or someone who doesn’t agree with you and you will certainly see those who do agree with you. These things happen naturally and you need to increase these talents. Someone in the audience who wants to ask a question will transmit his wish through eye contact.
When you stand in front of an audience, you need to take as much advantage as possible of a wide range of facial expressions – because our message must awaken a certain emotion, a certain desire. And in order to succeed and to touch this emotion, you must personally feel the emotions on your body and radiate them outward, calling your audience to feel what you are feeling.
Even blind infants have the same facial expressions as other infants do. Thus,, we understand that facial expressions aren’t an acquired trait, but an inherent one. When we are children we use a lot more facial expressions than we do when we’re adults. That’s because when we’re children, we have less inhibitions. We must learn to go back to this period of lack of inhibitions, so that we can properly use our facial expressions to convey our messages.
By: Dafna Cosidoy
You’re giving an important presentation to your boss, it all goes very well and your boss is pleased. He later informs you that an important client is arriving from Singapore the following day, and he wants you to show him the presentation. The common mistake people make in such cases is the “copy paste,” basically giving the exact same presentation to different people. Even if your boss was enthusiastic, there is no guarantee that the client will react in the same way, especially since they are two totally different people from different cultures with different interests and goals.
We tend to prepare ourselves before presentations or meetings; we go over the important points in our heads, we review the presentation, and we even think about what to wear. But we rarely focus on the main purpose of our presentation: the audience. Whether it’s a one-on-one meeting or a lecture given to hundreds of people, the audience is the target of your message. The following eight questions will help you analyze your audience in advance and ensure that you transmit your messages in the correct way:
Different audiences grasp messages in different ways. We have to do some fine-tuning to our presentation before bringing it to different audiences, just as we change our CV before submitting it to different workplaces. We emphasize various qualities and values that will suit each company to which we submit. It’s the same with presentations – the basis will remain the same, but the specific audience should be taken into account. This way, your messages will be transmitted in the best possible way.
Interview Warning Signs
Job interviews can be a very stressful experience. When you are being interviewed, you feel tested and like you’re being inspected through a magnifying glass. However, the candidates aren’t the only ones being scrutinized: the interviewer himself is also under your examination. While he assesses your compatibility for the position and the organization, you’re studying his compatibility as a potential boss.
How can you tell whether the person interviewing you will be a good boss? Here are the interview warning signs that will tell you the type of boss whom you don’t want to work for.
Interview Delivery Style
Interview Content
After you finished the interview, what is the process going forward?
Take these warning signs into account before your next interview. Regardless of whether or not you feel a job is a good fit for you, an interviewer should not be trying to make you uncomfortable. If you get a bad vibe from the interviewer, chances are it’s not a good fit for you. Move on, and find the right employer and company for you.
If you look up “charisma” in the dictionary, the definition will say something along the lines of: “a person with personal charm, persuasive and possessing high interpersonal skills.” Clearly, charisma is a quality that one should want to possess, particularly in the communications field.
But how can we truly become more charismatic?
There are many qualities that can make a person charismatic. On a practical level, however, a person is thought to be charismatic when his verbal messages and his non-verbal messages are consistent. This means that your words and your body language have to correspond with one another, and have to work together to create a stronger impact. It may seem simple, but how exactly do you effectively do this?
5 tips for achieving correspondence between verbal and non-verbal messages:
Charisma can be something that comes naturally to people, but it can also be taught and learned very easily through these simple steps. If you want others to be excited about what you’re saying, you need to be excited while saying it. By being passionate and energetic, your message will grab hold of an audience and make them feel the same way you do.
Every person is looking for a way to maximize his input, whether it’s in a big or small way.
One of these ways is becoming an asset to the big decision-makers at a company.
How can you be sure that your suggestions are helpful and not hindering? CLICK HERE to take a look at our infographic on Enhancing Your Influence and learn more!
This week, VAYOMAR’s trainers are taking part in the Mass Challenge Awards Ceremony, happening on October 29th. Over 1700 startups sent in applications in order to win $1.75 million dollars to further their startup. VAYOMAR helped each of the Top 26 Startups prepare a 60-second pitch to present at the awards show in front of 1500 potential investors. Imagine you’re the founder of one of these new startups, eager to expand and gain support from investors. Would you be prepared if someone asked you to pitch your startup in just 60 seconds? It sounds impossible. How can you be expected to give all the necessary details in only one minute? Believe it or not, 60 seconds is plenty of time to introduce yourself, your startup, and your goals. All you have to do is follow these easy steps in order to create not just a 60-second pitch, but a GREAT 60-second pitch.
Step 1: The Opening
Every famous speech needs a powerful opening to capture the audience’s attention, and that’s exactly what your pitch needs. Whatever it is you do, make it relatable to what you’re speaking about. It could be a quote or a statistic, something dramatic to really pull them in. It could be a question or an ask for a raise of hands, something to get the audience involved. It could even be something as simple as wearing a funny accessory or holding a funny prop, something to make people look at you. You need to clearly communicate what it is you’re pitching within the first 10-15 seconds.
Step 2: The Essence
Now that you’ve introduced yourself in an interesting way, it’s time to move on to the bulk of your speech: what exactly your company is. The trick here is to do it in the least amount of words as you possibly can. There is no real correlation between the innovation of your company and the time it takes to talk about its core essence. Your audience just needs to understand the importance of what you’re trying to say. After another 15-20 seconds, you should have communicated the space your venture is in (i.e. transportation, technology, etc.), the value this idea brings, and the innovation.
Step 3: The Traction
30 seconds have gone by and you’ve already captured your audience’s attention and fully explained the core of your company. Now is the time to tell your audience about the progress you’ve made. They will need facts, not just ideas, to prove that you can actually further your company. Talk about the money you’ve made so far, the advisors you’ve recruited, partnerships you’ve formed, anything to show that you’re serious about the future. Talk about the team you’ve put together, where you want to improve upon or advance in the short- and long-term. In these 15-20 seconds, you should prove to potential investors that you have a solid foundation and know how to take your company to the next level.
Step 4: The Conclusion
At the end of your pitch, you must clearly communicate what it is you want from your audience. If it’s money for the company, potential partnerships, or something else, your audience must be made fully aware. Thank the audience for their time, and your 5-10 seconds will have been worthwhile.
The goal here is to get face time with potential investors, so you need to be able to stand out. To learn more about how to give a great pitch and make it count, listen to this podcast created by one of our founders, Ariel Halevi!
In most organizations, team meetings are perceived as useless and boring. No matter how hard you may try to make it interesting, your employees still seem restless. How can we make these meetings effective AND engaging? Before we try to understand how to do that, let’s ask ourselves the following question: what are the classic problems managers run into during staff meetings?
However, this is not a one-way street. If we were to ask your employees the exact same question, they would probably say that:
The following model attempts to tackle some of these problems:
A Model for Constructing Staff Meetings to Motivate Employees
When a manager builds his staff meetings based on this model, the message he is sending is a positive one. It shows he’s truly invested in his employees, that meeting them is important to him, that he doesn’t want to waste their time, that he understands their motives, and that he knows how to appreciate their hard work. Above all, a manager should serve as a role model and set a personal example for his employees (a factor that has been found to be key in motivating employees in the long run).