Imagine being taken on a guided tour of a magnificent palace.

Each room you enter offers a unique experience: from grandiose ballrooms that leave you in awe, to intimate parlours designed for the warmth and comfort of just a handful of people.

A well-crafted presentation should feel like a similar journey, in both the content and the delivery.

I'm always reminding the people I work with that in order to achieve effective communication we should think about pausing as something we do for the listener: a pause creates space in which to process information, so your thoughts are more digestible. Then listeners can pick up on their value.

January is my busiest time of year.

This is the month when many people decide it’s finally time to soften their accent, or improve their public speaking and communication skills.

Unconfident speakers, especially those nervous about public speaking in front of even a small audience, often focus heavily on their content to avoid addressing their delivery. This common public speaking challenge highlights the importance of balancing engaging content with confident presentation skills.

Chris Packham is a professional communicator with decades of experience of speaking on and off camera. The bar is high.

But I'm especially fascinated by the speech as an example of all the things I encourage speakers to do, when I talk about 'doing the listeners' work'.

Anyone on the internet can show you what to do, and pronounce the sounds for you. But coaching means you have an expert to listen to you and guide you.

What we can learn about how to work smarter, based on how we feel and behave in speaking situations where we don't deliver