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About Bob Ferguson
Bob’s passion for helping people gain maximum business and
personal benefit from speaking out with confidence, grew out
of his own development as a public speaker.
Over 15 years ago he joined Toastmasters International, a
well-known public speaking organisation, to reduce his own nerves (hard to believe
now), and improve on some of the presentations he saw in his
professional life.
As a Chartered Engineer with an MBA, Bob spent 30 years
consulting in the Aerospace industry where running
successful space programmes is largely a matter of good
organisation and communication skills. Bob feels this
experience brings a practical grounding to his skills and
presentations.
Engineers, like many of the professions, have the problem of
delivering complex information and yet retaining the
audience’s interest, and achieving this was one of Bob’s
main challenges.
Not only did he succeed, but found that he enjoyed speaking
in public. He achieved Distinguished Toastmaster, the
highest award available within Toastmasters and in 2002 he
was the Toastmasters International, UK and Ireland
International Speech Champion, taking a well-earned place at
the San Antonio World Public Speaking Championships.
Since then he has added the 2005 Evaluation championship and
runner-up in the 2006 Humorous Speech Championship to his
role of honour.
But one of the skills that developed without Bob realising
it was the ability to mentor and coach others so that they
could also realise the benefits of confidently
communicating.
He knew he had good coaching skills from his
12 years as a qualified FA coach training youth footballers.
During this time he learnt how to encourage people to make
the most of their potential. However by acting as a mentor
and coach to novice speakers Bob found helping people gain
their confidence is the most rewarding things he’s ever
done.
Although the industry he worked in relies heavily on good
teamwork, Bob claims his understanding of how teams work
comes from his years playing a tenor saxophone in a big
band. He feels that the experience of paying well together
shows people what good teamwork is about and believes it
should be compulsory for anyone speaking on teamwork to play
in a musical group.
He combines his ability to deliver high-value information,
in an entertaining way, with his business and engineering
experience, and actively uses both skills to achieve the
desired objectives of his clients and himself. To find out how speaking with confidence
can
help your business, or to book a place on one
of our First Steps sessions call 0781 256 9360 today!
Toastmasters International is a not-for profit public
speaking organisation helping people develop speaking and
leadership skills. You can see all the clubs in the world on
their Headquarters web-site
www.Toastmasters.org
Information about the UK Clubs can be found at
www.d71.org |
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