Jeremy Jacobs at the Communicate with Clarity seminar, Barnet

There were a number of reasons why I was delighted on 2 December to be able to attend one of the first of what I hope will be many Communicate with Clarity seminars run by Jeremy Jacobs.

Firstly, it was an opportunity to finally get to meet and listen to Jeremy, who writes one of the most useful and regularly updated media and public speaking blogs, Corporate Presenter.

Then there was the subject matter itself: cold calling. For some time now, I have been hearing and reading about firms drumming up new business cheaply - and quickly - through cold calls (often finding that this is, by far, their most effective form of marketing). But it's also seen as terrifying by many (rather like public speaking!) I certainly welcomed the chance to learn more about how to promote my own services in this way.

Finally, there was Jeremy's irresistible choice of guest speaker. But I'll write about him in the second part of this post!

I arrived at Barnet Football Club in Hertfordshire on a crisp, sunny morning. There were about 35 attending from a wide range of businesses in various parts of the UK and Jeremy greeted everyone individually as they arrived.

After networking and coffee, we each had to say a little about ourselves. It's funny, I can speak on live radio, address audiences of hundreds of people for an hour, and stand up and entertain 'lively' crowds at dinners without getting particularly nervous but those 'Hello. I'm Nick...' introductions at training days still give me problems! But as I was the last one, I had plenty of time to mentally prepare so I got through it OK!

Jeremy, who has a great speaking voice, divided us into groups and then pairs and gave us some selling exercises relevant to our businesses. This varied audience participation is most important in a seminar but there are still some trainers who believe that 'chalk and talk' is the only way to teach. I was once speaking about presentation skills at a business networking club and during the questions afterwards, I got into a rather confusing conversation with one of the members about what a presentation should consist of. It was some time before it finally dawned on me that he wasn't talking about a presentation but an entire training day which he apparently thought should consist of his audience listening to him speaking - and that was it!

Public Speaking Tip #270: The longer the training session you are running, the more varied the activities will need to be if learning outcomes are to be achieved: as well as lecture content, there could be icebreakers, working in pairs, group discussion, question and answer sessions, guest speakers or videos and written materials for reflection afterwards. Students learn in different ways and cannot be expected to sit through long talks and nothing else!

We learned from each other in this supportive environment and I certainly began to feel more confident about cold calling. Jeremy then gathered feedback from all the groups and the whole topic seemed even more straightforward and less daunting.

Then, after the break, it was time for Jeremy to introduce the guest speaker...