If you want your next speech or presentation to put you, your company, or your service on the tip of everyone’s tongue, consider hiring a presentation coach.

If you’re like most people, when it comes to improving your public speaking and presentation skills, there’s a lot at stake– both personally and professionally.  

I often hear prospective coaching clients say things like this:

“I’ve been avoiding public speaking opportunities at work for years, and it’s starting to affect my ability to be promoted.”

“If I don’t get better at managing my anxiety when I give a presentation, I’ll not only keep losing sales, I could lose my job.”

“I don’t know how to put together or deliver a presentation that can motivate my team.”

“I just want to be able to think clearly and be myself when other people are looking at me.

“If I don’t get better at “owning the room” in meetings and presentations, my clients and colleagues are never going to take me seriously, and my ideas will go to waste.”

“I’m going to be delivering a critical presentation at a major conference, and I’m worried I’m going to blow it.”

“I feel like I need a speech coach, but I’m afraid that public speaking coach rates will be far beyond what I can afford.”

“I’ve tried Toastmasters, other public speaking classes, and joined various public speaking groups, but I don’t get the expert one-on-one attention I need.”

Whether you’re delivering a breakout session, keynote speech, seminar, webinar, or even sharing your thoughts in a meeting, public speaking is a vital part of doing business and being perceived as an effective leader. It can also be incredibly stressful—no matter how experienced you are as a speaker.

The fact is, the less confidence you have as a public speaker, the more you’re apt to avoid opportunities to speak in public. And the less you speak in public, the less confidence you have as a public speaker. It’s a vicious cycle.

The right presentation coach can help you break this cycle, improve your presentation skills, and ratchet up your public speaking confidence is to take the time to examine and address what’s stopping you from showing up, speaking up, and stepping up in the first place.

That’s why I offer personalized, one-on-one presentation skills coaching sessions, tailored to your specific needs—sessions designed to help you to gently come face-to-face with your strengths and limitations. As your presentation coach, I help you bolster what’s working, minimize what isn’t, and ultimately bring your most confident, real, and best self to your presentations.

If you are considering hiring a presentation coach (which I assume you are since you are so astutely reading every word on my website!), then here are 17 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Presentation Coach.

Here’s how I work as a presentation coach:

We meet in my quiet, private office, away from eyes and ears—or by phone or Skype. You can choose a coaching plan that works for your busy schedule, and that ranges from individual 90-minute Pinpoint Sessions to my popular 6-session coaching package.  For an even deeper dive, you can also choose the Transformational Presence Coaching Package, a 10-session, soup-to-nuts training curriculum complete with workbook and audio materials.

No matter which coaching option you choose, I take you through a three-part process:

1. Identifying beliefs and habits that are holding you back.
2. Replacing limiting beliefs with ones that are more effective.
3. Applying these new beliefs and behaviors in real-time speaking situations.

We’ll use videotaping and audio recording, role-playing/simulation, discussion, scripts and monologues, improvisation, and written, creative exercises that stimulate insight and self-awareness, to help you find your unique voice as a speaker.

After each session, you’ll leave with specific homework to complete that will further extend the development occurring in your coaching sessions. When our time together is complete, we will have built you a customized toolkit of presentation preparation tools that you will use for the rest of your life.