Episode 06

Katja Schleicher

International speaker on conversational intelligence and the power of communication

“The no-nonsense approach toward communication: passion with a cool mind”

Welcome to Public Speaker World Starts 14th March 2022 Public Speaker World

Learn about Katja / Contact / Key lessons in the episode

Why you should listen to this episode

Katja Schleicher is a non-nonsense speaker who works with people to help them communicate in business.

When what you say can make a firm succeed or fail, Katja’s role is vital in helping people craft both internal and external communication.

For event organisers, Katja helps attendees focus on what they say to achieve the maximum effect.

For speakers, Katja is someone who can share some powerful ideas on how to make the talks you deliver quotable in boardrooms long after you have finished speaking.

About Katja

Katja Schleicher has always been a communicator.

From an early age, she fell in love with different languages and found that she naturally wanted to try them around people. But it wasn’t just the words that fascinated her.

Katja describes herself as quite direct, something that is often seen as a “male” approach to communication, she says.

This led her to begin studying the differences between “feminine” and “masculine” communication styles. What she found was that by using different parts of each style, people could begin to communicate in a much more effective and powerful way.

One of Katja’s favourite moments in her speaking career was when she was speaking at a camp for startups. A lady came up to her afterwards and said, “Thank you for helping me find my voice.” Katja says it’s moments like that, that make speaking worth it.

Katja’s Top Speeches

  • Thank you for being misunderstood – intercultural communication
  • Try a little genderness – why the best boss is feminine and masculine at the same time

Contact Katja

  • Word Power & Power Words
  • Agile communication in practice
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Key lessons from this episode

  • To communicate well, think about using a different communication style to your own.
  • Good talks can sometimes be about simply helping people get in touch with what they already know and showing them how to utilise it.
  • Some people see the stage and normal life as different but Katja sees the whole of life as being a stage.
  • Katja designs talks like this – Get a concept, it could be as small as a tweet. Test lines and ideas on anyone you know to see if the idea resonates. Once she has 10-12 one-liners, she puts them in order in order to form a body of her talk. She then looks for research about each point and places them under each point in her notes. The talks then build themselves.
  • “Virtual” public speaking requires you to be more of a presenter who can talk to people in the room BUT also to the audience watching you passively online.
  • Always research your audience. The moment you relax it will bite you.
  • Think, “how can I make this talk quotable”. What phrases do I want my audience to leave the room still thinking and saying?
  • When talking to corporations they want to achieve things by the end of your talk. Simply “talking” is not enough. They want results.
  • When working out your talk, ask yourself, “how am I going to ease your pain?”