Our Programs

Storytelling for executives: Using the emotive power of the story to bring your message to life

A story does what facts and statistics never can: it inspires and it motivates. That's why expert storytellers are such effective communicators. They translate complex ideas into practical examples, and they know how to make emotional connections with their audience. Their message gets through because everyone can relate to a good story.

Stories have been told ever since humans first gathered around the camp fire. And for good reason: a story is not just a powerful way to impart complex information, it gives the storyteller an opportunity to build an emotional bond with the audience. That's why contemporary communicators who gather around the boardroom table or the office coffee machine are still telling stories. These expert speakers know that storytelling is too emotive and too persuasive to be left to the kindergarten. They are proof that the story is alive and well and thriving in corporate America.

Storytelling is a time-tested way of establishing trust and rapport, and of cementing collaborative behaviors. It's also a powerful teaching tool. The story paints a more vivid picture of the world than a column of numbers does. And it does so in a way that's more likely to inspire and motivate those who hear it. In “Storytelling for Executives,” we explore the role of storytelling in modern organizations and the ways in which stories promote the sharing and creation of knowledge. We analyze the components of a good story, then teach you how to structure your own stories. You learn how to tell a good story and how to fit the story to the audience and the situation. Above all, you learn how to weave emotion and personality into the fabric of your tale. Because that's how you turn it from your story into your audience's story.

Storytelling is about:

• Loading stories with the key emotional ingredients
• Structuring stories for a more powerful effect
• Injecting humor into your communication
• Becoming more persuasive
• Enlivening speeches with a fitting personal story
• Maintaining audience interest through articulation, inflection, pauses, movement, and gestures
• Developing a relaxed confidence under the spotlight
• Inspiring and motivating
• Engaging an audience's emotions through the story
• Conveying complex ideas easily and persuasively
• Establishing immediate rapport and trust
• Connecting with an audience of any size
• Creating a relaxed environment that unleashes creativity
• Delivering core messages clearly and powerfully for lasting impact
• Establishing a sense of community and unity through storytelling
• Motivating your audience to support your goals
• Strengthening company culture through the use of stories
• Displaying your authentic personality to inspire loyalty
• Injecting energy and passion into your presentation

To unleash the power of your own storytelling skills, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com. Your stories will bring you closer to your audience.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Sales excellence: From cold-caller to solution-provider, from sales rep to problem-solver

Selling is not one skill, but many. Successful salespeople are diplomats, actors, mind-readers, and problem-solvers. They have an arsenal of techniques to draw from—to apply as circumstances demand. Those techniques have little to do with selling; they're about building relationships. Trust, credibility, and rapport are the salesperson's strongest weapons. They lie at the heart of every profitable long-term association. They are the bedrock upon which sales are made.

Sales excellence helps you master the skills that establish those qualities. You learn how to recognize the subtle signals, how to adapt to your prospect's body language and verbal style, how to do business the way your prospect likes to do business. At GuruMaker you acquire the confidence and professionalism that invites people to see you as a partner and problem-solver. Our intensive hands-on coaching sessions arm you with powerful strategies to turn your next sales presentation, client meeting, or executive briefing into a resounding success. We give you the techniques to open doors, identify the decision makers, and turn prospects into clients and customers.

For the novice and the seasoned veteran, “Sales Excellence” has plenty to offer. It coaches you to:

• Ask questions that reveal true intentions
• Learn to research, write, and deliver a dynamic presentation
• Know when silence is more powerful than words
• Learn how to edit your presentation for brevity and strength
• Use your presentation to differentiate you from the competition
• Craft messages that grab your prospects
• Develop attention-getting presentation openings and persuasive closings
• Conduct client meetings of any size
• Adapt to the speech and body language of your prospect
• Control your audience
• Add magnetism to your sales presentation
• Create persuasive sales presentations
• Encourage prospects to speak about themselves
• Manage stage fright before presentations
• Remove barriers by personalizing your presentation
• Anticipate and handle objections effectively
• Put prospects at ease fast
• Exude confidence and personal magnetism
• Convey credibility and professionalism
• Establish rapport with your audience
• Match your presentation to your client's needs and wants
• Engage your audience through storytelling techniques
• Utilize acting skills to reach into the hearts and minds of your audience
• Know when and how to use humor

To turn yourself from sales rep to trusted business partner, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com. Everyone can learn from the GuruMaker approach to sales excellence.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Media Training: At ease and in control when faced with a camera and a microphone

Everyone likes a good story. The job of the media is to find one. Your job is to provide one. But their idea of a good story and yours could be poles apart. This is the friend-and-foe dichotomy at the heart of media relationships. One day you'll bend over backward to feed them the story that you want to see; the next you'll be fighting to defuse the story that they want to run. When you deal with the media, you can't take anything for granted: they ambush, they blind-side, they show up unannounced with a camera crew. You have to rely on your skills and your instincts to produce the telling sound bite that brings prime-time exposure.

And the key to coming out on top is rigorous preparation in a convincingly realistic environment. At GuruMaker we put you in the hot seat, then expose you to all types of media events from telephone interviews to live broadcasts. You learn by doing—by being grilled and roasted (and sometimes indulged) by hostile and friendly journalists. There's no letup: the cameras roll, the lights grow hot, and there's always a microphone an inch or two from your face. GuruMaker media training pits you against experienced journalists and network-level camera crews with a prime-time agenda. The ordeal tests your wits, sharpens your communication skills, and prepares you for the day when the studio makeup goes on for real.

No two question-and-answer sessions are identical. We customize the training to your needs by showing you how to:

• Recognize the ambush interview
• Conduct a successful news conference
• Handle an adversarial interview
• Turn negatives into positives
• Establish your interview objective
• Maintain focus on your objective
• Radiate confidence and convey credibility
• Tell your story effectively
• Reinforce and reiterate your message
• Learn how to transmit key points quickly
• Deliver highly quotable sound bites
• Understand how you come across on-camera
• Eliminate distracting body language
• Establish congruence between body language and words
• Avoid counter-productive facial expressions
• Learn to gesture for emphasis
• Present your best image
• Bridge from an interviewer's question back to your message
• Identify loaded questions
• Establish ground rules for the interview
• Control stage fright and nervousness
• Answer questions succinctly without rambling
• Speak eloquently without jargon
• Take control of the interview
• Master a persuasive conversational tone
• Avoid the perception of defensiveness
• Master Q & A to reinforce key message points

To manage your message for positive prime-time exposure, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com. Nothing prepares you for the media frenzy as surely as a row of inquisitorial microphones.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Acting skills build business: Don't just be convincing—be compelling!

All speakers are performers. Some are natural showmen and women; others have to be taught how to captivate an audience. But, just as an actor can learn how to make someone laugh and cry and feel joy, pain, or fear, so, too, can you learn how to hold an audience spellbound. Our acting coaches work with sales executives, business leaders, attorneys, political candidates, and scores of other professionals to develop their speaking and presentational skills. We teach them how to engage an audience at an emotional level—how to hold its attention and fire its imagination.

Acting gives you the edge in situations where influence and advantage count: boardroom disputes, high-level interviews, political debates, courtroom battles. The skills you need—of voice, gesture, body language, and attitude—are no different from those of a Hollywood actor. Indeed many famous actors learned their craft from our coaches. We taught them to sound credible and look natural. We showed them how to mesmerize an audience and transport it to the destination of their choice.

To wield that kind of power over your audience, join this program and learn how to:

• Banish crippling self-consciousness
• Develop your inner life
• Focus your energy
• See what the audience sees in you
• Banish distracting habits
• Use effective transitions
• Write scripts and use notes
• Own your script and focus on the audience, not your material
• Use eye contact effectively
• Achieve believability
• Control body language and movement
• Utilize powerful pauses
• Structure your speech with emotional triggers
• Connect with the audience on a deeper level
• Feel the difference between pretending and acting
• Manage the emotions of your audience
• Learn effective relaxation techniques
• Create conflict to maximize audience attention
• Control your stage
• Be authentic
• Optimize vocal projection, inflection, and timing
• Improvise effectively
• Manage stage fright
• Think on your feet

To find out how you can think and act on your feet, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com. Call us today to make sure people pay attention when you're speaking.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Oral presentations win government contracts: Turning technical experts into persuasively articulate contract-winners

Your technical team may have all the answers at its fingertips, but does it know how to convert that knowledge into a contract-winning oral presentation? Could it use the power of speech to outshine the competition and secure a multi million dollar government contract for your company? These days the engineers and technicians involved in government contracts must be salespeople, too. That's because many 'requests for proposals' now stipulate that only those who will be working on the contract may make an oral presentation to government agency procurement panels. And since an oral presentation is often the tiebreaker in deadlocked bids, your company's future is increasingly dependent on your technical team's presentational skills.

That's where this contract-winning program comes in. We devised it with flexibility and multi-million dollar contracts in mind. We structured it around the needs of top-notch technical experts—people who know their business inside out, but lack the expertise to prove it to a skeptical procurement panel. We adapt our oral presentations training to the specific needs of your company and your technical staff.

We coach them to:

• Demonstrate team experience and competence
• Exhibit team ‘chemistry’
• Display unity and cohesiveness as part of presentation
• Blend technical expertise with persuasive presentation skills
• Create effective supporting visuals
• Streamline visuals for maximum impact
• Practice and improve delivery skills
• Anticipate tough questions and objections by government evaluators
• Communicate key points clearly and persuasively
• Eliminate distracting communication habits
• Use appropriate body language and gestures
• Improve vocal inflection and eliminate monotone delivery
• Own their material to avoid reading from scripts
• Maximize eye-contact with the audience
• Use speech pauses to draw attention to key points
• Master Q & A sessions to reinforce key ideas
  

To turn your technical team into a multi-million dollar sales team, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com. They have the knowledge; we have the techniques that let them impart it.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Intercultural communication: Customized training that prepares you for international business success

Who, these days, travels overseas in search of business without having first studied the market? Businesspeople who are serious about international trade take account of the local infrastructure, the legal system, the competition, and numerous other market-specific business drivers and constraints. But they may well have overlooked something—something so vital that they risk coming home empty-handed. Their potential customers will have dismissed them as boorish foreigners if they hadn't taken the time to study the local way of life and style of business.

Successful global players do their homework more thoroughly. They get to know the customs and etiquette of their target country. They tune in to the nuances of interpersonal communication that identify them as someone who understands and respects their customers. From day one, they look, sound, and act like someone their hosts would like to do business with. Intercultural training is all about fitting in . . . communicating on your client's terms, not yours . . . delivering your message in ways that international clients understand and appreciate . . . interpreting their responses and reacting appropriately.

GuruMaker training covers:

• Intercultural negotiations
• The ethics and etiquette of international business
• Using presentation skills to bridge the cultural gap
• The importance of verbal and nonverbal communication
• Networking, building friendships, establishing rapport
• Cultural sensitivity and adaptability
• Customized to your needs and the culture of your host country

Overseas travelers relate to their new surroundings in ways that depend on their previous experiences, their expectations, and their presentational styles. We take these factors into account before devising a program that prepares you for doing business in your chosen country.

Our customized program reflects:

• Your personality type
• Your language skills
• Your existing style of presentation
• The way you relate to new people and situations
• Your preconceptions and expectations
• Your adaptability
• Anything else that might affect your ability to communicate when away from familiar surroundings

Wide choice of customizable programs:

Negotiating across the cultural divide.

Homegrown negotiating methods may not be good enough when the other party is working to a different set of rules. We offer appropriate negotiation training supported by powerful role-playing simulations that bring the subtleties and the realities of international negotiations to life. Content ranges from background cultural information to the preparation and conduct of international negotiations.

Establishing consensus through verbal and nonverbal communications.

Those who communicate regularly with overseas partners need to establish the rapport and understanding that they take for granted at home. The skills you acquire apply to all types of intercultural business communications: face-to-face across the boardroom or restaurant table, or remotely via video, telephone, or e-mail. Establishing consensus opens the door to mutual trust and productive international business relationships.

Adapting to social and workplace cultures.

Not everyone feels at home in their adopted workplace. Executives who work in other countries (in the U.S. as well as overseas) may suffer linguistic and cultural isolation. We offer those who are already working overseas the tools and the self-confidence to improve their performance and morale.

Presenting to cross-cultural audiences.

When presenting to audiences with a mixed cultural background, your tried-and-tested presentation skills will not be enough. Many in the audience will have heard something different than what you think you said. This is your chance to make sure that everyone hears the message you intended.

Your tailored program covers:

• The use of body language
• Analyzing your audience
• Telling a story that everyone understands
• Structuring your presentation to the culture
• Bringing the audience round to your way of thinking
• Making sure the answer matches the question
• Appropriate humor
• Interpreting audience reaction
• Persuading audiences of a different culture
• Connecting emotionally
• Bridging the gap with suitable visual aids

Training for intercultural sensitivity.

The rich diversity of international cultures offers numerous business opportunities, providing you can adapt to local conditions with sensitivity. This program explores the key issues. It gives your organization a broad-ranging bedrock of cultural understanding upon which you can build long-lasting international business relationships.

Training for intercultural sensitivity will include:

What are cultural influencers?
What are the key elements of a target culture?
Successful relationships in world of diversity
Practical examples of intercultural working relationships
Comparisons between US and overseas working cultures

To learn how you can blend in with your overseas business partners, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com. The earlier you start, the more convincing you'll be.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Building investor relations through personal communication skills: Using structure, style, and personal magnetism to foster trust and confidence

No community is more critical, analytical, or hungry for information than the stock market. Investors are constantly on the look-out for clues. A careless remark can send stock prices tumbling, whereas a well-executed communications strategy builds long-term stability and confidence in corporate leadership. Within that strategy, CEOs and other executives responsible for developing investor relations must move swiftly and easily between annual meetings, press conferences, analyst briefings, and informal discussions. The various audiences—financial institutions, personal investors, advisers, analysts, and media pundits—demand different communications techniques and different presentational styles. Mastery of those audiences gives the broader financial community a picture of a single, coherent organization that is dynamic yet dependable.

GuruMaker gives you the tools to take control of your various investor audiences. Through a mixture of lectures, discussions, and adrenalin-pumping practical exercises, we coach quick-thinking, personal magnetism, and professional credibility. Our team includes former Wall Street analysts and press-corps veterans. They know the questions that stretch corporate nerves to the limit; you acquire the skills to maintain control while delivering your points with strength and clarity.

Feedback from these private coaching sessions is your primary learning tool. Only repeated rehearsals can prepare you for the glare of studio lights. By replaying and discussing the results, you acquire the confidence and the conviction to use the media to tell your story. And the storytelling skills that draw smaller audiences into your confidence are also best learned through practice and analysis.

GuruMaker team members (all of whom have signed strict confidentiality agreements) will give you the skills and the confidence to:

• Build long-term investor confidence and trust
• Represent your organization to analysts, brokers and key investors
• Cultivate positive relationships with the financial media
• Manage gaps between shareholder expectations and corporate performance
• Lead successful presentations to investor groups
• Establish rapport with the analyst community
• Tell your corporate story convincingly before the most demanding audiences
• Generate positive responses towards strategic moves such as acquisitions and rebranding exercises
• Establish and protect your credibility
• Excel in Q & A sessions
• Focus on your audience and its unique interests
• Define your message objectives
• Deliver a compelling call to action
• Develop leading-edge investor communication strategies
• Sell your vision to the investment community
• Develop outstanding interpersonal communication skills
• Convey believability and trust when speaking to the media

To build credibility in the market and inspire loyalty among your investors, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com.In a world of financial scandal, trust is at a premium.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Distance coaching: fast-track video critique
You record your performance and we tell you how to improve it

When you're in front of your audience, you're on your own. You have to judge the success of your presentation on the basis of audience reaction. No one else is going to give you an honest opinion. And no one is going to tell you how or where to make necessary improvements. The fact is, friends and colleagues are more concerned about hurting your feelings than about helping you improve. And if they do offer homespun advice, can you trust it?

If only you had a panel of experts to advise and coach you . . . and that's exactly how the GuruMaker fast-track video critique works. We'll study your performance on videotape, then provide you with a hard-hitting and professional appraisal in writing and on audiotape or CD. Better still, we guarantee to provide you with the techniques and the strategies to improve your performance within ten business days of receiving your tape. This is the kind of in-depth critique that top-level executives, speakers, and presenters dream of. For just $495 you can use our collective skills and experience to polish your performance until it shines.

This is the sort of advice we can give you:

• What works and what doesn't
• How to modulate your voice for clarity and strength
• How to use gesture and body language to support your story
• How to add conviction and build credibility
• Whether your jokes are funny or tired
• How to structure your presentation for maximum impact
• How to present your best image
• How you come across to an audience
• How to appear charming
• Whether you get your points across clearly and succinctly
• How to connect emotionally with your audience
• Whether you use language that is easily understood and makes sense
• How to project infectious passion when you speak
• How to incorporate your unique personality into your talk

A single recording is all it takes. It's easy to put your performance under the GuruMaker spotlight. All you have to do is record it digitally or on videotape (maximum 20 minutes) and send it to us with your check or money order for $795 payable to GuruMaker, Inc.

It doesn't matter what type of presentation you are working on—conference speech, sales presentation, media appearance, wedding speech, corporate video, political candidacy, stockholder address—we will use the same forensic techniques to build on your strengths and correct your weaknesses. It will help us to analyze your performance if you can also provide details of the context in which you will be speaking. For instance, if you're one of many delegates to a conference, where do you fit within the schedule? What kinds of people make up the audience? And what do you hope to achieve with your performance? The more background information you provide, the easier it is for us to point you in the direction of success.

Send your video to:
GuruMaker ,Inc.
600 Jackson Street
Denver, Colorado 80206, USA

Don't forget to include your name and address and your check or money order for $795. The price includes return postage for your video. We'll dispatch your video and your performance-boosting critique within ten business days.

Money-back guarantee: if our critique fails to provide you with strategies and techniques for making significant improvements in your performance, we'll refund your money.

Absolute confidentiality guaranteed: no one but our panel of experts sees your video.

Terms and conditions: By entering into this purchase agreement with GuruMaker, Inc., you confirm that you are the person performing in the video you are sending to GuruMaker; that you are requesting a GuruMaker critique for the purpose of personal and professional improvement only; and that neither you nor any third party will use the critique for any purpose other than your own personal and professional improvement. You further agree to fully indemnify GuruMaker, Inc. against all claims or actions that might arise as a result of your breach of these terms and conditions.

To see yourself as others see you, send your video recording with a check or money order for $795 to GuruMaker, Inc. Or, to find out more about distance coaching, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com.Only an expert can tell you where you're going wrong

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Corporate speakers bureau development: Turning in-house expertise into brand-building eloquence

With the right training, almost everyone in your organization could become a polished spokesperson. After all, no one understands your products better than the experts who developed them. Many of them possess insights and experience that go to the core of your brand. They have such a fund of knowledge and stories at their fingertips that presentational training becomes imperative. Failure to turn them into compelling speakers is a waste of your two most valuable resources: your people and the knowledge they possess. The collective name for the in-house experts that you can call upon to speak for your organization is a corporate speakers bureau. Bureau members add authority to your brand. They bring brand credibility to conference speeches, media interviews, evidence to regulatory authorities, public debates, representations to investors, and industry forums. Your corporate speakers bureau is a showcase for organizational talent. It lends credibility to your sales claims and adds weight to your PR initiatives. When an expert speaks with enthusiasm and in jargon-free terms about the technology behind your products, people listen. They warm to the expert's persuasive blend of professional credibility and honest optimism.

Developing your speakers bureau is an investment in long-term brand credibility. The presentational and storytelling skills that we teach your colleagues do more than empower them to speak on your behalf. Tthey convert them into sought-after media pundits.

Developing your corporate speakers bureau will:

• Build an image of corporate technical excellence and opennes
• Reinforce marketing and branding efforts
• Support public relations efforts
• Develop and enhance staff communication skills
• Support corporate team-building programs
• Promote communication among company executives
• Increase corporate visibility and media exposure
• Build your brand
• Provide a pool of media-friendly pundits

Training for your corporate speakers bureau team could include:

• Learning how to read an audience
• Mastering the “bridging technique” in answering questions
• Maintaining focus and thematic unity
• Interview and media techniques
• Creating powerful openings and closings
• Overcoming bad habits and minimizing nervousness
• Establishing credibility and likeability
• Structuring presentations for maximum impact
• Connecting emotionally and intellectually with an audience
• Interacting effectively with PowerPoint or slides
• Handling Q & A sessions with confidence
• Getting their major points across fast
• Building confidence and projecting personal magnetism
• Using notes effectively
• Mastering voice projection, inflection, and delivery
• Knowing how and when to use humor
• Controlling stage fright
• Gesturing for emphasis
• Using body language effectively

To find out how your technical staff can boost sales and credibility, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com. Their knowledge is an asset that you cannot afford to waste.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Rehearsing high-stakes scenarios: Experience the spine-tingling realism that prepares you for real-life conflict

Success in business and in politics demands that you walk into situations that test your interpersonal and presentational skills to the limit. Sooner or later, you will have to face a hostile interview panel, a furious customer, an anxious investor, a manipulative subordinate, a high-pressure sales pitch, a chips-on-the-line negotiation, a ruthless debating opponent. These are the high-stakes scenarios that make or break you. The way you respond determines the outcome. Take the right approach and you could push for a win. Take the wrong one, and you'll be caught in the snare, or you could simply make a fool of yourself.

But few people can think rationally when the pressure is on. It takes practice—and plenty of it—to negotiate calmly with an opponent who is determined to trick you, or whose actions are driven by emotion. By using professional business actors, we let you rehearse these scenarios in a realistic environment that is as scary as the real thing. This is role-play that makes your palms sweat and your blood run cold. There's no other way. If you are to learn the cool-headed, yet lightning-fast negotiating skills that defuse conflict, you have to practice them when the adrenalin is flowing.

Role-play is also about self-discovery. Our actors provide a safe environment in which you can experiment with different responses and different techniques, such as:

• Breaking down resistance
• Interviewing skills
• Achieving influence
• Negotiating for a win-win
• Dealing with stressful and sensitive situations
• Delivering feedback
• Demonstrating leadership
• Coaching and staff development
• Resolving conflict
• Training for customer care
• Counseling
• Interviewing and disciplinary techniques
• Presenting appraisals effectively
• Managing crisis
• Selling skills
• Mastering media interviews

Professional actors provide pressure-cooker authenticity. It's impossible to evoke the chill of reality when program participants know that everyone else in the room is as green and as apprehensive as they are. Only actors have the skills and experience to create believable characters with rounded personalities and convincing histories. We select and train our actors for the unique demands of this program. They can play any character and situation that you are likely to meet in everyday life, and as many again that you would prefer to avoid.

… and flexibility
Their professional flexibility means that we can customize role-play to your individual needs.

… with clear focus
Actors know how to sustain a role. Their continuing realism keeps the audience and the participants focused on the task. By drawing the whole class into the action, they ensure that everyone learns from the experience.

… constructive feedback
All participants receive individual feedback from the actors they worked with. They learn how the actors felt when confronted with the participants' different strategies. They can instantly see what worked and what failed.

… and no stage fright
Stage fright is at its most debilitating when participants role-play against fellow participants in unconvincing scenarios. Lack of realism reminds them how awkward they feel. But our actors are believable strangers. Their authenticity banishes self-consciousness and increases program effectiveness.

To find out how you can prepare yourself for your make-or-break encounter, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com. Do it today. Tomorrow may be the day you have to face it.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.

Communicating at a time of crisis: Calming nerves, managing the media, setting your agenda

You don't know what's around the corner. But you can be prepared for it. And the time to start is now. With a crisis communications plan in place—and the confidence that comes with well-rehearsed presentational skills—you have the tools to avert disaster. There are nervous audiences to be reassured (employees, board members, stock holders, customers) and hostile journalists to be confronted.

But you have worked hard in your training sessions. You're no longer fazed by tough questions, you have the facts at hand, and you know how to tell your story with conviction and sincerity. In contrast, the wait-till-it-happens approach puts brand integrity and livelihoods on the line. Lack of preparation is as costly as it can get. When the media are on your doorstep, a "no comment" only feeds the frenzy of speculation. Worse, it sounds like an admission of guilt. Communicating at a time of crisis breaks the cycle of blame and accusation. It teaches you to analyze the key elements of a crisis and to develop your communications strategy.

It shows delegates how to:

• Think on their feet
• Respond pre-emptively to signs of impending crisis
• Develop key messages for various media
• Manage hostile interviewers
• Project a favorable image
• Demonstrate sincerity, clarity, and confidence
• Convey credibility and compassion
• Anticipate and answer key questions
• Establish congruence between body language and words
• Recover gracefully from memory lapses
• Disarm reporters' verbal grenades
• Select appropriate language for different audiences
• Avoid rhetorical traps
• Control audience perception
• Avoid misquotations
• Overcome stage fright
• Maintain control in the hot seat
• use gestures effectively
• Avoid the perception of defensiveness
• Project empathy and openness

To find out how you can prepare yourself for the unexpected, call us toll-free at 866-806-4366 or locally at 720-394-7999 or e-mail info@gurumaker.com. Do it today. Tomorrow may be too late.

Please note: No two programs are alike. We customize each one to meet your objectives. Whether you choose private coaching, workshops, seminars, train-the-trainer, or breakout sessions, we tailor the duration and format to suit your circumstances.