John Ball announces the return of his podcast after a year-long hiatus. In this new episode, he shares his experiences working with The Speaker Lab, a company helping individuals build professional speaking businesses. John emphasizes the podcast's renewed focus on improving presentation, influence, and persuasion skills for professional communicators and says that the show will continue to provide value through high-quality guest interviews and practical advice.

The episode also introduces another podcast John co-hosts with Angela Besignano, 'The Coaching Clinic,' aimed at helping build successful coaching practices.

00:00 Welcome Back to Podfluence

01:01 The Speaker Lab Experience

02:17 The Importance of Presentation Skills

04:37 Influence and Persuasion

07:14 Revamping the Show's Focus

08:44 New Ventures and Continued Support

13:40 Future Episodes and Conclusion

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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.