Bill Acheson's first keynote speech is called "Buying Signs: A New ‘Look' at Selling." In it, he examines how skills associated with rapport, personal power, and deception, come into play whenever prospects or clients meet face-to-face with sales professionals.

In "Nonverbal Communication: The Hidden Message," Bill Acheson examines how professionals deal with each other on a day-to-day basis and the impact that understanding nonverbal communication can have to enhance their effectiveness.

Learn how we communicate both emotional and relationship messages through body language. "The Hidden Message" examines professional and social settings to learn how people use time, space, appearance, posture, gesture, voice, facial expression, eye contact, touch, silence, and even smell to communicate both conscious and subconscious messages. Special attention is given to gender differences and how they may account for some forms of misunderstanding.

In this session you will learn strategies to help you to project personal power and speak with greater accuracy and impact, improving your presentation skills. You will also discover techniques to more accurately assess the attitude and intent of those with whom you conduct business.

"Guerrilla Tactics for Effective Presentations" provides stand up speaking skills for all types of professionals. In this keynote, Bill Acheson tells you not what to say, but shows you how to say it with impact, style, and an emphasis on personal power.

The best presentations are a combination of information and energy. They are the products of speakers who inform, entertain, persuade, and motivate. No longer is "the great orator" the model for an effective speaker. With new developments in technology, speakers need an up-to-date strategy for projecting themselves so that they stand can out to best effect.

Guerrilla Tactics examines the skills and techniques needed for improving sales presentations. It examines how to prepare for a sales presentation. Keynote speaker Bill Acheson demonstrates how position, presence, and voice come together to produce a winning performance.

Personal power is "the ability to get things done," but what does it look like? In conversational speech it is controlled and relaxed. In presentations personal power is dynamic and forceful. Men tend to be overt in their displays of power, while women practice subtlety. In this presentation, you will learn more of how we communicate through body language

Power is defined as the absence of fear. The key to projecting personal power is to maintain a relaxed muscle tone. While standing, maintain an erect, but relaxed posture. While sitting, a backwards lean is most effective for men; erect posture is more appropriate for women.

As a rule, movement and power are inversely related. Your hands and feet should move less than average. For males, steepling, with fingertips together and palms apart, and hand to chin behavior indicate high levels of personal power. For women, unobtrusive steepling, with fingers pointed downward, indicates personal power without overt aggressiveness.

When movement is desired, gestures should be purposeful and dynamic. Men tend to be slightly exaggerated when gesturing; women restrained.

In "Personal Power," we examine professional and social settings to learn how people use time, space, appearance, posture, gesture, voice, facial expression, eye contact, touch, silence, and even smell to communicate messages about power.

Identifying Deception
The ability to identify deception is critical in a world where things are not always what they seem. Deception is a conscious act that tends to create involuntary physiological responses on the part of the speaker, providing an opportunity to determine when we are being deceived. As a rule, the bigger the lie, the easier it is to detect through nonverbal communication. A review of research data shows that it is harder to lie successfully to a member of the opposite sex or to a person you perceive is more attractive than you.

Unskilled liars avoid direct eye contact, often looking downward while speaking. They fidget with their hands and feet, often covering their mouths while speaking. Their speech contains many "nonfluencies." Liars often tense their muscles, blink noticeably, swallow hard, bite their lips, and in extreme cases may perspire or blush.

Skilled liars hold eye contact for "too long." They tend to control their hand movements, often concealing their hands or holding one hand with the other. They use far fewer gestures than usual. Their speech is "too fluent," sounding contrived or practiced. Skilled liars tend to conceal and release tension through their feet. They may also resort to using "truth talk."

Rapport Building
A look at "Rapport Building" includes how to approach prospects, as well as the differences in approaching men and women. Learn the six styles of handshakes and how to differentiate both conscious and subconscious nonverbal cues.

It takes only 1/24th of a second to create a first impression at the subconscious At three seconds that first impression is established and unlikely to undergo further significant change.

Nonverbal messages in first meetings are as much as ten times more powerful than words in establishing personality. Even simple behaviors have strong impacts. For example, to establish rapport when meeting others, remember to approach women "head on," but to approach men from a slight angle.

Nonverbal communication may be conscious or subconscious. The subconscious signals are far richer in message value. When you shake hands with someone, for instance, you provide a firm grip, smile, and establish eye contact. These are conscious signals. But a subconscious cue, the non-shaking hand, is often the best indicator of attitude and intent on the part of the other person.

Listening skills are equally critical in building rapport and in themselves are good nonverbal indicators of successful business communication. Do you know if your prospects are listening to your message? Do they believe you are responsive to their message? In this session we also take a look at projecting and interpreting listening behavior.