Present Influence Returns: Enhancing Your Professional Communication Skills

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Welcome to Podfluence, the podcast that helps professional communicators tune

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up their presentation skills to increase

your impact , influence, and authority.

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My name is John Ball and

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my mission is to provide you, the

professional communicator, With everything

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you need to maximize your performance

on the stage in interviews, training,

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hosting media, or leading your team.

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If you want top level professional

and personal presentation skills,

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make sure you follow the show.

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And for some of you, welcome back.

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If you are an original listener to the

show then thank you for sticking with us.

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This show has been on hiatus for almost

an entire year And I think by the time I

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publish this it might well be a full year

before an episode is released and You

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may be wondering What has been going on?

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Why has the show been away?

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Let me just quickly address that and

then get into why the show has come back.

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I have been very fortunate over the

last year to start working alongside

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The Speaker Lab, which is, if you

don't know The Speaker Lab with Grant

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Baldwin, it is a company that helps

people who want to build and grow

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professional speaking businesses to

be able to set up their businesses

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and get booked and paid to speak.

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That is amazing work.

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I absolutely love working with them and

is such an amazing fit for me as well.

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And I've been very happy doing that for

this year , and plan to continue doing

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so for a long time into the future.

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It also has required a significant

amount of my time and energy for me to

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ensure that I'm able to deliver that

work to the best of my ability and

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serve the students in those programs

as well as they deserve to be served.

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And so that has taken me away somewhat

from focusing on podcast growth

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and other areas of my own business,

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whilst I have been working with

The Speaker Lab and I have to tell

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you, it's just an amazing journey.

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I am a very lucky individual.

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And if you haven't checked out The

Speaker Lab before, do go and take a

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look, at least check out the Speakalab

podcast, especially if you are a

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professional speaker or would like to

be getting booked and paid as a speaker.

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Within that experience, I would say

I commonly encounter people who do

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want to have professional speaking

businesses, but don't necessarily have

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the speaking skills to be able to do that.

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And the presentation skills to be able to

effectively carry an audience with them.

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And whilst I do think most people

will find those Those things will come

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with time, is not really the kind of

thing that you should be leaving to

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chance however, I'm very aware that

my own interest and expertise by now

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in influence and persuasion skills and

platform presentation skills is more than

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adequate to be able to lead this journey

for you and refocus this podcast onto

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professional communication skills, mainly

in the area of presentation, it really

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is about how we hold ourselves, how we

project ourselves out into the world

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and the energy that we put into things.

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And our ability to be present in

particular situations, and also

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our ability to have emotional

range and be able to take

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people on the journey with us.

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And if you really want to lead, people

often particularly admire, Steve Jobs

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as a leader, the late Steve Jobs.

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Understandably so.

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Now, regardless of whether he was a

bit of an asshole or not in real life,

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he had incredible leadership skills.

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He had the ability to take people

with him on a journey and to tell a

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story, to cast a spell, if you like,

with some charisma, with vision,

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with passion for what he was doing.

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And there are many people

out there who can do that.

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Who we don't necessarily see so much

in the public eye, but there's also

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many people who would like to be able

to do that and often end up thinking

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you either can do that or you can't.

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It's maybe something you're born with.

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It's that X factor.

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It's that charisma thing.

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Those are not things that

most people are born with.

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Certainly some people have natural

propensities to be more charismatic,

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to be more extroverted, to be able

to entertain or, you know, Hold a

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conversation, but that doesn't necessarily

make them better communicators.

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It can often sometimes make them

more naturally interested in other

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people, which does help hugely in

being more interesting yourself.

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And then say, if you want to be

interesting, be interested in other

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people, that's definitely true.

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But books like how to win friends and

influence people wouldn't have anything

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like the level of popularity that they do.

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If these skills weren't essential.

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And one of my favorite books, other than

how to win friends and influence people,

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which is, I still think is an amazing

book, even though some elements are dated.

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I also love influence the psychology

of persuasion by Robert Cialdini.

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And over the years, I've been thinking

about how there are many elements

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of influence and persuasion that

Robert Cialdini doesn't talk about.

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And I think generally he is talking in

more in terms of individual influence

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that we're able to have on people.

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And also in terms of influence

and persuasion skills that can

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be easily learned or adapted to.

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I want this show to be something

for professional communicators,

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people who are primarily speaking

for a living, whether that is as

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professional speakers or as coaches,

maybe even as lecturers, trainers,

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business owners, business leaders.

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If your role.

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Requires you to be able to communicate

to other people as effectively as

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possible and sometimes in large groups

Then this show should be a great

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resource for someone like you We all

need to hone and practice our personal

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and professional presentation skills.

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Outside of the world of politics or

professional media, very few people

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get media training and often the media

training that you would get in, even in

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the political industry, it probably would

be helpful, but it may not be Quite so

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relevant, like the ability to not properly

answer a question isn't necessarily

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something that's going to help you out

if you're going and being interviewed

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on a podcast or something like that.

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So, we probably don't need to worry

about those elements of media training

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so much, but being able to be a little

bit interesting and not drone on about

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yourself or your life without giving the

person interviewing an opportunity to ask

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you questions or to interject at various

points, because you love the sound of

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your own voice or because you are just so

used to carrying on speaking when people

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are trying to interrupt you, not good.

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And those things do not help you to

come across well, professionally.

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But also there are influence and

persuasion skills that we need to master.

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And as I always have with the

show and always will, we need to

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stay ethical with those as well.

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Influence and persuasion tools, like

any tool, can be used for good or bad.

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I want to encourage you to use

your tools of influence and

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persuasion for positive ends.

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However, that is something I cannot

control but it is something I want

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the show to continue to examine as

it has done since its inception.

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Very first episode.

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A few years ago, I did start to focus

the show in far more on podcast guesting

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and how you podcast guesting, and maybe

even podcast hosting skills as well,

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to a degree, we're going to lose that.

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I think we'll keep that as part of things.

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It just didn't make sense anymore to keep

that as the central focus of the show.

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It is a little bit too tight of a

niche to some degree, and there were so

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many people out there who are working

that niche incredibly well but helping

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you become an amazing podcast guest.

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Isn't really strictly my goal because I

don't really want to do the sort of agency

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side of that, of getting, helping people

get onto podcasts and stuff like that.

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It's like, it doesn't interest me

what interests me, sorry about it,

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but what really interests me more.

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Is helping you when you are on those shows

be able to come across really well and

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to be actually amazing someone who people

will really want to listen to someone

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who has a ton of value and that requires

putting in a bit of work I want to help

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people develop their charisma I want to

take a look at the influence levers that

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Bob Cialdini forgets about or who may

well maybe neglected or maybe chose not

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to include in his book but ultimately, be.

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I've decided to bring the show back

because there is still a demand for it.

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And public it's ultimately, it is your

support as listeners that has brought the

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show back when I was probably going to

cancel it and just start another show.

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So I have done that.

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I have started another podcast with

my good friend, Angela Bezignano,

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which is called The Coaching Clinic,

where we are helping people to build

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and grow Successful and sustainable

coaching practices with all the business

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elements that they need to have.

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And with what needs to happen in

your sessions and what can go wrong

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and all those kinds of things.

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Lots of fun conversations.

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Angie's a great laugh.

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If you haven't tuned into that show

yet, it's fairly short episodes,

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pretty much me and Angie every week.

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But if you are a coach in some way,

or maybe, you know, someone who is,

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do check that out, because you're

going to get some great value from it.

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Podfluence does get featured on several

podcast networks, and because the show

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has been almost daily receiving public

votes, positive votes of people liking

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the show, and the listening figures

have stayed fairly high, in fact they

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have actually over the last few months

been increasing significantly, I

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think it might be something to do with

those networks that it's featured on.

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But for a show that has been on hiatus

to still be getting good downloads just

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makes me think, wow, I think there is

still some life in this old bird yet.

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And and so we're going to continue on

with pick up the reins on Popluence and

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bring you, but it was essential for me

before doing that to get really crystal

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clear on what the mission of the show

was and what it's If influence skills,

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presentation skills and professional

communication skills are not your bag, if

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that's really not your jam, I understand.

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And that is where the show is going.

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I apologize if that's not a fit for

you and hope you maybe will find

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interest in some of my other shows

or that you will find a show that is

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going to meet the needs that you have.

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I'd love to hear what they are like,

if this isn't, if this isn't quite what

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you wanted from the show, let me know.

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Let me know what is because I may be

able to point you in the right direction.

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Given the amount of podcasters I'm

connected to, or we might be able to

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include some elements in the show that I

just keep things interesting for you too.

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I plan to keep that mix of solo

shows and guest interviews.

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But really keeping things much

more focused on you developing your

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communication skills like this show

My hope is that with a show like

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this that is already well established

and has over 15 000 downloads already

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That we can take it forward Then get

some really amazing guests on for

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you people who names you might have

heard of, if you're like me and you

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read a lot of personal development

books, there's a good chance.

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There's a lot of names that I'm

going to be getting on the show

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that you will have heard of.

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And those are the people that

I'm going to be inviting on.

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And And I hope that that's

going to be high value for you.

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It's only going to invite people like

Simon Lancaster back onto the show.

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Just, he's an amazing

expert in rhetoric skills.

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We'll certainly try and get some more

body language experts on here as well.

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And I'm more beyond that people who

have those amazing storytelling skills.

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There's plenty of those

people out there and.

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And people who are just fantastic

on the platform as speakers,

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like really super engaging.

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As you can imagine with my connections

now through the speaker lab, I have a lot

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of connections to those people as well.

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So you can bet that the interviews

that you'll be seeing coming up

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are going to be high value for you.

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And that you'll be getting

the best of my knowledge and

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experience along the way too.

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If there are particular things

you want to see in the show, reach

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out, reach out and let me know.

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You can email me john

at present influence.

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com john at present influence.

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com and if you'd like to support the

show, you can certainly do that as well.

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There are ways to do that in the

captivate website for the show.

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The link to our captivate

site is in the show notes.

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So please do go and check that out.

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You'll find that that is

exclusively a link for this show.

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It will also connect you with the other

podcasts that are in the same network as

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this show that we have available for you.

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And you will see that how

you can support the show.

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If you would like to do that, one

of the easiest ways to do to support

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the show is to leave us a review,

not that it helps people to not does

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nothing to help with discoverability,

but it does somewhat help with getting

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amazing people on the show when they

can see that people are tuning in

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and getting a lot of value from it.

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So if you haven't already,

please do leave us a good review.

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On apple or on spotify or wherever you

would prefer to do that and if it's

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really good, I might just even read it

out on the show So that's it podfluence

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is back and I hope that's good news

for you if you are a new listener

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Then I hope you'll be following us for

the new episodes and maybe check out

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some of our back catalog as well See

what you like in there from the 172

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Episodes that have already come out

before and if you're a longtime listener

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then Thank you for sticking with me.

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And I hope that you will continue

this journey with me and maybe even

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check out some of the other shows

that we have available now as well.

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So thank you for listening to

all this and I hope that you're

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excited for what's coming up.

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So I'm going to be back very soon with

a show that's going to be particularly

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focusing in on what I learned during

my time working in the sales arena.

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That has helped me with my coaching

and my communication skills and

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how that might help you as well.

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So that's going to be my next episode.

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And then we'll be back

with some interviews.

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That's a few interviews that

never came out last year that

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are long overdue for release.

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So you're going to be getting

them pretty soon as well.

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I'll look forward to seeing you next time.

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But wherever you're going, whatever you're

doing, have an amazing rest of your week.

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See you next time.