Cindy Tonkin

Profile

Cindy Tonkin turbo charges high-potential, smart teams make better people decisions.

Using improv techniques grounded in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and other brain sciences, she has over 30 years of on-the-ground experience with corporates. She entertrains, infotains and gets the message across with you laughing all the way. She has a gallon of great stories of corporate change, team work and meeting challenges.

The author of more than a dozen books, all of Cindy's fun is grounded in pragmatic ideas. She is direct, extroverted and motivating.

Expertise

Talking Points

Make 'no' sound like 'yes'

If your team is overloaded, has problems with scope or they're working too long and too much, then they need to know how to say no� but make it sound like yes.

You've worked hard to get here: don't let nerves undermine your presentation

Too often people think that you're under-confident because you're incompetent. But confidence and competence are not the same thing (go hang at a karaoke night for the living proof!). Learn the 6 keys to confidence under pressure. Impress with your confidence (and seem even more competent than you are).

A sundial in the shade is worthless: discover and use your strengths

Every team member has parts of the job they love and parts they hate. Identify and play with your strengths based on your MBTI, Enneagram, Strengthsfinder or DiSC profiles.

Faster preparation

The world is accelerating. Sometimes you have less than half an hour to prepare a presentation. Learn the best practice way to get it done and look like a champion. Think faster, prepare more quickly for better results in a fraction of the time.

Hurry up and decide. Help your clients make a decision more quickly

Discover the underlying structures of how and when people decide. Leverage that to get it happening on your timetable!

Don't be the dragon: Your customer's Hero's Journey

Sometimes just getting your product or service is an epic journey for your customer, complete with trolls, witches and fire-breathing dragons. Walk a mile in your customer's shoes and discover how to be seen as the wise mentor, not the evil wizard.

Story sells

The ways story works and why you should be using it to sell, service and delight your customer base. The principles for collecting, remembering and even how to build stories from scratch. Fun, entertaining and useful!

Think in synch

Harness the principles of group mind from the art of comedic improvisation to build a more resilient, dynamic and aligned supportive team. So they can take on any new challenge! Life is not a rehearsal, so start improvising. Be a calm and creative team even when you're under pressure.

It's not you, it's them: The science of sussing out your customer's style

Pick a person and persuade them. Listen and learn how they let you know what they like. And then lean into it.

Giving bad news and keeping the relationship

You can't always give your client exactly what they want. No one wants to deliver bad news but everyone has to do it at some time. Be the hero of your own adventure and rescue the client in distress. They'll thank you for it.

Ask excellent questions

Shine the spotlight on what matters and ignore the noise. Be clear on what you need to know, when to speak and when to shut up and smile. Active, passive and really want to know� listening styles. Listening past the facts. Hearing what they didn't say, reading between the lines, making the implicit explicit. Reading people like a book.

I didn't do it! Recovering after a mistake

No one wants make a mistake, but they occur, just when you least expect it. You can't control a system failure or a procedure change. Nor can you change history. But you can keep that relationship, that customer, that account. Here's how.

Pre-suading: influencing before you begin

What you do before you ask for the sale, reprimand a staff member or request time off influences greatly the outcome you get. Listen to the stories of failure and success in pre-suading and take what works so you can get what you want, every time.