I am a confident speaker. Very Confident! But even I have my limits. If I had to speak in front of an important audience for the first time and I had to be unshaven, that would shake my confidence. That almost happened to me today. I woke up in Los angeles this morning and went to shave, but half an hour before I needed to leave the Hotel, I realized I had left my razor and shaving cream at the beach the day before back in Long Island. Oops! The clock is ticking and I look like a bum! Fortunately, I was at a first class hotel and house keeping brought me a razor and shaving cream in less than five minutes. I made my speaking engagement with a clean face.

So what’s the lesson? If you’ve got a big speaking engagement, that’s not the time to skimp. Motel 6 and Econo Lodge might be great bargains, but you are unlikely to get a razor delivered in less than five minutes. And that can make the difference between giving the speech of your life and delivering a presentation you’d rather soon forget.

We are currently revamping our sales letter websites for our workshops at Media Training Worldwide. The public speaking one is at www.presentationtrainingworkshop.com and the media training is at http://www.mediatrainingworkshop.com/. We are currently looking for ideas on how to improve the site and, specifically, what video people would like to see on the site that would be a) interesting and b) motivate people to want to sign up for the workshop. I will send anyone an autographed copy of either of my books Media Training A-Z or Presentation Training A-Z if they give me any suggestions on how to improve either site, and what videos they’d like to see. Please send to me at tj@tjwalker.com.