Public Speaking training for your organisation

Most public speaking trainers run in-house days. After 26 years and close to 9,000 people, I've moved away from that.

What I see actually working is different. The organisations getting the deepest, most lasting change in their people aren't booking in-house days. They're sending one or two of their staff at a time onto my open courses in Bristol, London and Manchester, alongside strangers. A steady stream of organisations now book this way.

One leader wrote back to me recently: "You're the only person who's ever turned down doing an in-house course for us. I want to use you."

Here's why I work this way.

A safe space to be honest

Fear and anxiety around public speaking are deeply personal. Facing them makes people feel vulnerable. On the course, we have honest conversations about what it's like to be the centre of attention, why anxiety and shame turn up, and what's underneath the avoidance.

Around 70% of the population experience impostor syndrome at some point, which means it's almost certainly walking around your organisation too. People will tell me, in the room, that if their colleagues really knew them they wouldn't have been given the job. That conversation does not happen in front of those colleagues. How could it?

Public speaking anxiety is partly about feeling judged, real or imagined. It's also about handling the uncomfortable feelings that come with an adrenaline rush. To work with both properly, people need to be somewhere safe - somewhere they're not also being appraised - so they can really learn and change. An open course with strangers is that somewhere.

Real skills, built from the inside

Inside that safer space, people can do the actual work. Not how to structure a slide deck, but how to handle the thoughts and feelings that get in the way of speaking well. How to connect with blank faces in the audience without reading them as judgement or boredom. How to take their place without apologising for it. How to be kinder to themselves when it matters.

And how to change what it means to be the centre of attention. Most people experience that as difficult, which is why it's a key part of the course.

One thing worth saying about who comes on the course: roughly 60% of the people who participate are perfectionists. They're often hard workers, conscientious, the ones who deliver. But that perfectionist drive turns into immense pressure when they have to speak - to the board, in a large presentation, anywhere visible. They get in their own way. The two days are particularly useful for them.

These are skills that show up everywhere afterwards, not just in presentations. Meetings, difficult conversations, interviews, the rest of life.

What this looks like in practice

A maximum of two people from any one organisation on a given course. Most companies who book this way send one person at a time, sometimes with a few months between each, sometimes back to back. The rate is up to you.
One advantage: you don't lose the whole team for two days. Your other people carry on as normal while one or two are off doing the work.

If you'd like to talk it through, I'm happy to.
You can reach me on WhatsApp, phone or email below.