Want to know the secret to delivering presentations that truly captivate your audience? In this episode of HR Coffee Time, we explore how to craft and deliver presentations that resonate deeply and win over both hearts and minds.

Host Fay Wallis is joined by Emma Serlin, founder of London Speech Workshop, who shares her unique "Meal Plan" framework for creating impactful presentations. Whether you're aiming to boost your influence, establish credibility, or simply gain more confidence when presenting, this episode is packed with practical insights to elevate your presentation skills.

Chapters from This Episode

[00:00] Introduction and overview

[01:11] Meet the expert: Emma Serlin

[04:26] The Meal Plan framework: Protein, Vegetables, and Spice

[05:38] Deep dive into the protein component

[09:07] Crafting impactful presentations: The importance of three key takeaways

[11:31] Exploring the ‘vegetables’ component

[16:57] Adding ‘spice’ to make your presentation memorable

[19:46] The Dinner Party Planner

[23:50] Book recommendation

[25:48] How to contact Emma and London Speech Workshop

[27:23] Conclusion

Useful Links

• Connect with Fay on LinkedIn
• Fay’s website: Bright Sky Career Coaching
• Connect with Emma Serlin on LinkedIn
• Emma’s website: London Speech Workshop
• London Speech Workshop on Instagram
• London Speech Workshop on YouTube

Other Relevant HR Coffee Time Episodes

• Episode 36: Four simple but powerful techniques to banish imposter syndrome, with Joanna Lott
• Episode 73: 5 ways to feel more confident in your next interview, meeting, or presentation
• Episode 74: How to get better at presenting and feel more confident about it

Book Recommendations From the Episode

• The Connection Book: 50 Ways to Communicate More Effectively, by Emma Serlin
• The Communication Equation: A How to Guide for Outstanding Communication, by Emma Serlin
• Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, by Marshall B. Rosenberg

Looking For the Transcript?

You can find the transcript on this page of the Bright Sky Career Coaching website.

Rate and Review the Podcast

If you found this episode of HR Coffee Time helpful, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. This video shows you how to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts (because it isn’t very intuitive). If you're kind enough to leave a review, let Fay know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: fay@brightskycareercoaching.co.uk.

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Hello and welcome back to HR coffee time.

It's wonderful to have you listening today.

I'm your host, Faye Wallace, a career and executive coach with a background in HR, and I've made HR coffee time especially for you to help you have a successful and fulfilling HR or people career.

And in today's episode, we are going to be taking a deep dive into presentation skills because have you ever sat through a presentation and found yourself completely captivated by the speaker?

Or perhaps you've watched a colleague effortlessly win over an audience and thought, I wish I could do that.

Most of us recognise that there's room for improvement when it comes to our presentation skills, and the good news is that enhancing these skills can make a big impact on our careers, helping us gain buy in for our ideas, establish our credibility and operate effectively at a senior level.

And just like any other skill, effective presenting can be learned and refined with the right approach.

So I'm really excited to be able to introduce you to today's guest, Emma Sirlin.

Emma is the founder of London Speech Workshop, where, following a background spanning theatre, psychology and coaching, she has dedicated her career to helping professionals communicate with authenticity and impact her business.

London Speech Workshop offers coaching and courses on vital communication skills, including public speaking, presentation skills and interview techniques.

In today's episode, we'll look at how to deliver presentations that truly resonate.

Emma kindly shares her fantastic framework for engaging your audience and winning over hearts and minds.

Her framework is made up of practical tools that you can start applying straight away to elevate your presentation skills.

So if you're looking to boost your influence, establish your credibility, or just gain some more confidence when presenting, this episode is packed with insights to help you do just that.

Before I introduce you to Emma though, I'd like to say a huge thank you to Catherine who wrote a lovely post about HR coffee time in the HRhead ninja's Facebook group recently.

I know that lots of new people decided to listen to HR coffee time for the first time after seeing that post, so I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Catherine.

It also meant that the podcast shot up to the number three spot in Apple UK's careers podcast chart, which really goes to show just the tremendous impact that ratings, reviews, recommendations or social media posts have on the show.

So for anyone else who is listening and who has ever done any of these things for HR coffee time, a big thank you to you too.

Your support means the world to me and it helps keep me going with creating this podcast for you, especially when there are times that it can start to feel hard fitting it in because it does take so much work creating these episodes for you, but seeing things like Catherine's post just make it all so worthwhile.

Thank you again, Catherine.

But now let's get ready to meet Emma and explore how you can transform your presentations.

And in doing so, take your HR career to new heights.

Welcome to the show, Emma.

It is so wonderful to have you here.

It's really lovely to be here.

Faye, I'm delighted.

Thank you.

It's just so fantastic to have you here sharing your expertise.

I really appreciate it, Emma, because it's a topic that hasn't been covered on the show in ages.

So I know that everyone listening has to deliver presentations at some point during their HR or people career and that it can feel really hard to know how to make your presentations impactful and good.

So I know that this is going to be so helpful for anyone who's feeling like that at the moment.

You have absolutely amazing names for lots of the models and frameworks that you use with your clients.

And the one that you're going to talk us through today is called the meal plan.

Would you like to start talking us through it?

Absolutely.

So the meal plan is a really lovely tool that is about simplifying the process of creating a presentation that is meaningful and has real impact and essentially changes hearts and minds.

We know from Daniel Kahneman's famous book, thinking fast and slow, that we think with our gut, where we make decisions with our gut, and then we rationalize it with our mind.

And so actually, any presentation, no matter how large the subject matter or how small it is, you want it to have impact, and therefore you need to be heading for the heart and the gut as well as the head.

So this meal plan is about delivering just that in a very simple way.

So that's kind of our intro to it.

And I'll start with the detail then.

So the meal plan is made up of simply three areas.

The first is to have your balanced meal, you need your protein.

And the second is you need your vegetables.

And the third is you need your flavor and your spice.

And I'll talk about.

I'll start with the protein.

So the protein is on the top level, the objective of your presentation.

So what you want to achieve, and that's really obvious, every presentation should have that.

When we want to dig a bit deeper, we start to think about, well, who is your audience and what do you want them to think and to feel and to do as a result of your presentation?

You also want to think about your why like, what is your motivation?

Why are you even delivering this?

And so that helps power your objective.

Within that objective, you want three takeaways because people can't really remember anymore.

So if you want them to take away sort of eight things, they'll take away nothing.

But actually, if you want them to leave the presentation having a clear idea of, these are the three things I want them to take away.

Actually, you can totally succeed on that level.

So we can think of that as your three pieces of protein, your three pieces of meat, and the overall protein or objective is where that sits.

So that's the protein piece.

I love this idea of being really thoughtful in your approach.

I think it can just be so tempting when you know you've got to do a presentation to just fire up PowerPoint and just start typing things into it.

But this really is about taking a step back.

And you've reminded me of a brilliant presentation that I went to last year.

It was actually delivered by Joanna Lott, who has been a guest on the show as well.

If anyone wants to hear her episode, I'll make sure that I pop a link to it.

She came on the show to talk about imposter syndrome and had some really great tips on how to tackle it.

So she opened up her presentation by actually saying, for today, this is what I'm hoping you're going to think.

This is how I would love you to feel, and this is what I would like you to do.

So she actually spelt out those three things.

I can remember it now, even though it was a year ago.

I thought, oh, wow, it really captured everyone's attention.

Would you recommend saying it that explicitly, or is it fine to just be thinking it on the inside or thinking.

About that while you're planning your presentation?

Well, the intro.

So how you begin your presentation?

We've got a larger tool called the dinner party planner, and that's about really thinking through all the detail.

And that opening is you really need a powerful opening.

So you could start with something like think, feel, D.

But there's no need to make it explicit.

What you need is a hook.

Absolutely.

In terms of the think, feel, do piece, it's thinking about your three takeaways and making sure that you're hitting them.

And that could be think, feel, do, or it could be think, do and your personal why.

But you want three takeaways that are really clear.

And I think if those are your three takeaways, you'll have ripples of them throughout your presentation because you need to make sure that someone walks away with them, so you might choose to start with them in some more.

You know, it might be a quirky way, it might be a absolutely head on way, it might be that you round up with them in the conclusion, but definitely your three takeaways, whatever they are, whether they think Phil do, or some combination of the audience and your own motivation, they will need to be revisited throughout the presentation to make sure they are taken away.

Have you got any tips on how to stick to three things?

I know that's something I find so, so difficult.

I'll just think, oh, there are all these other great things that I can share in the presentation and I have to really, really force myself not to get carried away and just try and stay laser focused on three things.

Have you got any words of wisdom or advice for other people who might find that challenging as well?

Yeah, I think there's a saying for writers which is kill your darlings.

So it's like you've got to be prepared for your overall driver and purpose to get rid of the other stuff, because otherwise, if you're going, oh, but that's really good, and that's good too.

People will not take away eight things, so you're just diluting your mission.

So I think it's about always coming back to, well, why am I doing this?

What is my motivation?

Why is this important?

What do I want to achieve?

And with that clarity, having to say this can't stick around because it's not part of that overall driver.

By the same note, if you have your three things, you can be funny, but you just can't want someone to take a fourth and a fifth thing away.

But you can bulk out those three things.

So if you're talking about how you want the well being in your company to look like, and one of them is about having regular socials, you might give all kinds of suggestions for socials, but you might have one key idea that you really want to get across, or the general idea of social equals collaboration knitting together.

So you need to have your key idea around that.

But then you can put all sorts of things in there, but what you can't do is say, I'm going to have seven reasons for well being in my company, for example.

It's so helpful to have it brought to life with that well being example.

Thank you for letting me grill you about the first part.

I know we've got the other bits to get through as well, so I better stop with all the questions about the protein, although I love hearing you talk about it and ask if we can move along to the vegetables, which I think is the second part of the meal plan.

Absolutely.

So the vegetables are about your values, and they are the vegetables because it's like the nutritious, the vitamins bit, and values are like the nutrition of the presentation.

So values are absolutely crucial because that's where we get the heart connection.

Because if we bring in our own values to something, why does this matter to me?

Like, on a deeper level, me as a human?

Why does it matter?

Once you show flashes of your kind, of your humanity, if you will, that resonates with people on a deeper level.

They start to build trust, and they start to care about you because they're seeing you as a human.

So when we reveal our values, we're basically sharing a bit of ourselves, which absolutely automatically brings about a deeper connection with the people who are given the privilege of experiencing that, of seeing a bit more of us.

Values are amazing and have a real place in presentations, and it could be that you're talking about something.

I mean, I'm sure everybody's there going, yeah, you know, I can imagine why that would be really important on the bigger topics or the town halls or the future of my company.

But what about if I'm doing something really mundane?

And actually it fits there, too, because the purpose of every presentation is to make impact, and impact is to.

Is to have an effect.

And the best way to have an effect, as I started with, is to get to the heart and the gut as well as the mind.

You do that through values.

You get to the heart through values.

So if you were, for example, introducing a new printer system into your company, you could talk about your values and say, actually, I believe in work life balance.

And why I'm excited about this is because it allows for efficiency and time saved so people can go home earlier.

That matters to me.

Or it could be, I believe in excellence.

But whatever it is you truly believe in, if you can then tie up and bring that into the relevancy of your presentation topic, it's incredibly powerful.

I see.

So really showing why it's important to you, because when you first started mentioning values, I was thinking, oh, is this a good opportunity to be tying it into the company's values or the organization's values?

Because I know that can be a real challenge, that once organizations have decided on their values, actually embedding them and bringing them to life and helping remind everybody what they are.

So that's what my initial thoughts had been.

What would you say about that?

Do you think there is a place for that in this bit?

Or is this more about just your personal, individual values?

It's such a good question.

And it's so important to clarify because I've also been asked, well, what about the audience's values?

Should we be nodding to that?

And it's like, actually, all of that is interesting, but no, the point of this is about sharing you, the human, and in an age of AI and bots, and it's so important to bring our humanity in, our uniqueness, a bit of our light, our soul, to everything.

That's what the working world is craving now more than ever, is that, well, I want to see your human, because with the age of chat GPT and chat GPT, I have joked that chat GPT is my new best friend.

It's brilliant, but there is no humanity there and there shouldn't be.

And actually, what makes us different is our humanity.

So it's really important to get that engagement in a presentation.

You need to share a bit of yourself.

You're just creating a fourth wall.

If you talk about your company's values or trying to get into people's heads and think about what their values are, you're not showing anything of yourself.

Therefore you don't get the heart to heart impact.

And very much our way at London speech workshop, of what impactful, effective communication is, is about authenticity.

So that is our whole understanding of what makes a true connection is authenticity.

So you can't do it and have a fourth wall where I'm not really going to show you me.

I'll talk about my company's values and I'll say how wonderful they are and I'll talk about your values, but you can't see anything of the real me.

You can't have an authentic connection and therefore you can't have heart to heart impact.

So, yeah, brilliant question, but it's definitely your own and it's a glimmer.

It doesn't need to be your whole value set, it's your value in relation to the presentation topic, but it's a glimmer of you.

Oh, it's great to hear you talking about authenticity, because as you were explaining the importance of the values piece, I was thinking, oh, this sounds like a really good thing that ties in with authentic leadership.

And clearly I was on the right track then when you said that.

And I think hearing things like authentic leadership and what's your leadership style can feel really daunting.

So actually being able to bring it to life like that by saying no, it's just about sharing little parts of yourself or your opinion or why things are important.

That is how you can be yourself authentically and have an impact at work.

So it's great seeing it being brought to life like that, Emma.

But having looked at the vegetables, I think it's probably time that we moved along to the next part of your meal plan.

So are you happy to tell us all about outfits?

Absolutely.

So, the third and final part of the meal plan is called the spice.

And this is really.

I also refer to it as the umami.

It's the yumminess of the presentation.

It's the bit that makes people go, oh, you know, I don't want to know where is my shopping list or my desire to return that text or my desire to check my Instagram account.

It's like, I'm absolutely on you because it's spicy, it's yummy.

So how do we do that?

We get to that by looking at our unique perspective, so our flavour, and it could be an interesting word, it could be a little anecdote, it could be your experience of how you put your shoes on that morning, but it's unique, and so that's what brings the spice in, and it's a lovely.

You can bring it in everywhere.

It's like Jamie, one of our wonderful coaches, he talks about spicing each piece of meat.

So obviously not for vegetarians, but, you know, spicing those pieces of protein, they all need a bit of spice, and that spice is what just makes it pop.

Oh, have you got an example of what that spice can be?

I'm wondering where we were talking about well being earlier, and you were able to bring that first part to life by talking about it, just to help it really lodge in everyone's minds and they can visualize themselves adding the spice to their presentation.

Absolutely love examples.

So, let's say with well being, it might be that you say, here's an example of a social that I went to with friends and we went to a water park and we all got soaking wet, and it was a moment where we stood together soaking wet, laughing at each other with our hair splattered over our head, where I thought, these are my people, and I felt a surge of connection and affection.

And if we can bring that human magic into our workspace and feel that sense of I just love you with our work colleagues, just think what that can do for our team and for our environment and for our sense of being connected.

For example, I really hope that for everyone listening, they're thinking, oh, this is so exciting.

What a great, refreshing way to think about how going to create my next presentation.

I know that I'm personally really excited about putting these into action, and I also know that what you've shared with us, the meal plan, is actually part of something bigger, isn't it?

And I don't know what the bigger thing is because you and I haven't talked about it in detail before.

So I will be hearing this for the first time, just like everyone else listening.

Do you want to talk us through the whole thing?

Absolutely.

So the whole thing is the dinner party planner.

And this is the idea that you will have a dinner party, not just a meal.

So you will have.

You will be thinking about the entirety of it.

And I actually, for the protein, I took stuff from our dinner party planner because we really go into depth with this dinner party concept.

So with the dinner party planner, you're thinking about the guest list.

That's the audience.

So what you want them to think, feel, and do, you're thinking about the recipe.

So how you put the entire sort of meal, if you will, together, which structure?

We have different structures, like past, present, future, or problem solution benefits.

There's different ways of structuring your presentation, and that's like the recipe.

You also have the amuse bouche, which is how you start, because, as I said before, you really need to start with a hook.

That's hugely important.

And finally, you have your dessert.

So how do you wrap it up in a way that is meaningful and impactful and also within each bit.

So, for example, with spice, we have seven kinds of spice.

So I describe with the wellbeing example that it's about a unique perspective, a story, but you can also have a statistic, or you can also have a funny picture.

There's so many ways to find the spice, but it's about.

You can have humor as well.

So it's about finding your unique ways of getting to spice that work for you as well.

So the dinner party planner is the same kind of things, but way more comprehensive.

And we do it in our powerful storytelling course, which basically is really good for bigger speeches when you really want to spend days getting the full picture of the speech.

Well, if I'm ever brave enough to book myself in or get booked for a really, really big speech, I will be coming to you, Emma, for tips and to work my way through that whole dinner party plan.

As you were talking, it was making me think, oh, this would be great in a book.

Have you thought about writing a book?

I have written two books.

They're a few years ago eight years ago.

And they have a lot of the tools.

So the bigger book is the communication equation.

The communication equation is authenticity plus connection equals engagement.

So a plus equals e, so ace for short.

So authenticity is the.

I care about what I'm saying.

Connection is I care about you, my audience, and then engagement is you care.

So that's the communication equation.

So I did write the first book.

There is so much new content now.

I've basically written for smaller books, and we have four new products, so they're each like an 80 page manual.

They're basically like a book.

So, question mark whether I turn them into actual books.

But yes, I have been thinking about it.

Wow, this is very exciting.

I had no idea that you'd written the first book or that you have got all of these other ones in the pipeline as well.

So I'll make sure that I find a link to your book and pop that in the show notes as well for anyone who's listening.

And so the manuals that you mentioned, are they available for sale as well, or is that just, just something people get access to if they come and have training or sign up to any of the programs at London speech workshop?

It's exactly that.

So if someone signs up to, let's say, powerful storytelling or authentic presence, those are two of them, they would get the manual and then start working through it.

At the moment, they're not for sale individually, and I think they're so packed with tools and exercises that work so well with coach that they wouldn't.

While they are very useful, it's when they come to life with a coach supporting you that it's like, wow.

We get that wow factor.

I totally understand.

Well, talking about books, that brings us perfectly onto my next question, which is.

The one I try to ask every.

Guest who comes on the show, and that is, have you got a non fiction book recommendation for us today, or would you prefer to share a confidence building tip?

I will share a book recommendation.

I did think about this a lot, because there's a few, and I know that you've had Dale Carnegie already on how to win friends and influence people, which I thought about because it's a great one.

But what I came to was a book by Marshall Rosenberg, and it's called nonviolent communication.

And our navigating conflict, pillar and course is based on that.

It's incredibly beautiful.

And it's the whole idea of how to have challenges and conflict in a way that is graceful and mutually respectful and always leads to a mutually respectful and supportive and very humane outcome.

And they've used it all over the world with mediation in all kinds of situations.

They use it in prisons, they use it across the board.

It's quite complex, which is why I created our method around it, because it's much simpler.

But it's.

The ideas within it are so beautiful and humble and full of grace, and so it's well worth a read.

Well, that sounds like a brilliant recommendation.

It is a book that I have sitting on my bookshelf that I have had there for years and I've never got to.

So I'm going to have to move it up towards the top of my reading pile after hearing that personal recommendation.

And that brings us to the final question for you today, Emma, which is for anyone listening who would love to learn more about you and your work, or to get in touch with you.

What is the best way of them doing that?

Well, we are London speech workshops, so a good way to find us is to pop onto the website londonspeechworkshop.com.

then there are tasters, which are the discounted from the usual price, and they're an hour long one to one session.

So that's a really good way to actually experience the tools.

Another way is to jump on a call with one of our amazing client success managers, and those are free.

And that way you can just find out more about what we offer and get a sense of if it feels like a fit.

Our big thing is to experience.

So either experience through a taster, through a discovery call, but basically see if it feels like a fit.

Because I think for this journey, it is deep and it is potentially life transforming.

And therefore, when you're working on your communication, you're working on your relationships, you're working on yourself.

And so it's really important to feel really good and sort of wholeheartedly engaged with whoever you work with on the journey.

So for us, it's a good idea.

If you're interested, get a feel for it, see if your heart's saying yes.

And if it is, go for it.

Fantastic.

Well, I will make sure that I pop a link to your website in the show notes.

And all that leaves me to say is a huge thank you for your time today.

It has been fantastic getting to learn more about your brilliant meal plan.

Oh, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

You're very welcome.

That brings us to the end of this episode.

I loved learning about Emma's meal plan approach, and I hope that you did too.

I think it's such a clever way of helping us all improve our presentations.

I'm definitely going to be trying out her advice and trying to remember to add protein, vegetables and spice to my presentations from now on.

I'd love to hear if you decide to try out her ideas too.

Please do get in touch to let me know if you do.

It's always brilliant to hear from you.

You can always reach me through my website, which is Brightsky Careercoaching, or you can find me on LinkedIn.

I'm there as myself.

So Faye Wallace and that's Faye without an e on the end and Wallis is spelt with an is on the end instead of an a C E.

If you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful, I would be hugely grateful if you could take a moment to support the show by rating and reviewing HR coffee time on your favourite podcasting app, or perhaps share it with a friend who you think might find it helpful or recommend it on social media.

Thank you so much.

I hugely appreciate all your support and I'm looking forward to being back again soon with the next episode.

For.