Presentation Summit 2016: Conversation with Jim Harvey

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Jim Harvey is an entrepreneur; he has taken three businesses from start-up to sale since 1991. His job is simple—to help his brilliant clients sell their ideas, products, and services more effectively all across the globe. He started learning how to sell while working on his uncle’s market stall in Birmingham, UK back in the 1970s. He’s still learning today. He started Presentation Guru with two of his heroes from the world of presentations; Emma Bannister and John Zimmer.

In this conversation, Jim discusses his session at the upcoming Presentation Summit 2016 series.

Geetesh: You are presenting the No Excuse for Not Being Charismatic and Is English EFL or ESL? sessions, the latter with Emma Bannister; what motivated you to choose these topics, and what you believe an attendee will take away from these sessions?

Jim: What motivated me—I used to look at speakers who could make their audiences feel real emotion and wonder how they did it? I wanted to find out for myself so I could teach and sell and speak with more power, and I’ve spent 25 years watching great communicators & learning how. Not the big names, not the famous, or the rich, but the ordinary, everyday charismatics who do so much good in our schools, businesses, and homes.

What will people get out of the No Excuse for Not Being Charismatic session? I think that most people would like to be more charismatic at work and in their personal lives. Some people think they are and aren’t. More people think that they aren’t and they really are. This session is to help every attendee understand that they are already as charismatic as they will ever need to be, they just need to be more careful to show it and use it. They’ll learn:

• The link between power, wealth and fame and charisma.
• The single most important skill in becoming more charismatic.
• 3 simple steps that will make every one of us more charismatic more often, everyday.

About what motivated me about the Is English EFL or ESL session—I work every week with speakers from all over the world building their skills in presenting to international audiences in English at global political, scientific and business events. I’ve noticed that the most confident and worst understood are often the native English speakers. Yet the most easily understood, though more worried and nervous are the ESL and EFL speakers. The English naturals (English, US, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South Africa etc.) are often immensely unaware of their weaknesses as ‘international speakers’ and I want to put that right for the benefit of every speaker, and every international audience out there.

What will people get out of the session? I think that most experienced speakers are aware of the basics of effective speaking to International audiences in English. I want to reinforce those things and deepen our knowledge in a unique and practical way with my colleague Emma Bannister.

They’ll also learn:

• How to write and design presentations for an international audience in ways that no-one else does- and gives you a commercial advantage when pitching for that kind of work.
• The single most important performance skill in speaking English live to an international audience.

Geetesh: Jim, you recently launched the Presentation Guru site—can you tell us more about this endeavour?

Jim: I wanted to create a truly global perspective on world-class presentation design, delivery, and the latest presentation technology because I couldn’t find one place that was truly expert and truly global in all of those things. So I looked around the world and started the site with three people I’d know and admired from afar for years. The team is John Zimmer – Canada, Emma Banister- Australia, Jim Harvey, UK and Farshad Iqbal in Pakistan.

Our mission is to provide free and inspiring information, education and advice in three core areas (Design & content creation, Performance & Technology) for our readers all across the globe. Who’s the Guru? It’s our global community of designers, presenters, coaches and geeks who give their time energy and expertise to us so that our readers can change their worlds one presentation at time.