15 Reasons Your Business Should be Using Office 365 

Office 365 has been around for a long time, but should your business start using it? The short answer is yes, particularly if you care about productivity! To embellish on this, here are 15 reasons your company needs to use Office 365, starting today:

Improved Planning 

With the calendar requests feature, you can schedule and plan meetings with so much ease. This dramatically enhances efficiency around the office.

Effective Collaboration 

Office 365 calls upon things like Skype and SharePoint to make collaboration easy through the cloud. You can even work on documents with employees – at the same time – while in different locations.

Constant Updates 

Using this platform means you automatically get updates for all other Microsoft packages like Word and Excel. It supercharges your productivity by saving you from having to go out and buy new versions whenever they’re released.

Excellent Cloud Service 

You get access to the Microsoft cloud service so you can securely store data online without needing to pay for or maintain a physical server.

Office 365 apps can be used to improve productivity
Office 365 provides a huge range of apps

Work On The Go 

Everyone in your business can now use Office 365 on their phones, tablets, and computers. It means they can work on the go, regardless of where they are.

A Huge Email Inbox 

Don’t worry about your business inbox running out of space, you get a whopping 50gb of storage when you use Outlook on Office 365. To learn how to use it to your advantage, our Microsoft Outlook time management training may come in handy.

All The Best Applications 

Your business will improve its performance by having access to some of the best applications around, such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and more.

Save Money 

The cost of Office 365 is pretty incomparable when you look at the alternatives. It’s a small fee per month, and you never have to spend money on servers or new office applications.

Virtually Always Running 

This platform stays up 99.9% of the time. As such, your business performance won’t suffer from frequent periods of downtime.

Excellent Scalability 

Small business can use a basic level of Office 365 that suits their needs, but you can also add new apps and tools as your business grows. So, you get excellent value for money as well.

Easy-To-Use 

All of the apps are so easy-to-use and understand. Plus, with things like our Office 365 End User Training Workshop, you can quickly hone your skills to improve business productivity.

What is Office 365? Microsoft's best productivity apps

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Improve Professional Image

By using things like Outlook and Word – and calling upon their professional templates – it improves the image of your business. Therefore, you can potentially improve your profitability by standing out from the crowd and encourage more people to choose you.

Increased Privacy

Keep all of your data secure by using Office 365. It has safeguarding features that means everything is privacy protected.

Can Be Installed Up To 5 Times 

Everyone in your business can install Office 365 up to five times on different devices. So, if their work computer crashes, they can install it on a new one free of charge!

No In-House IT Team Required 

The whole purpose of Office 365 is to provide businesses with a platform they can work from without needing an in-house IT team to manage everything. All the server management is done by Microsoft, freeing up your time to improve efficiency and run a more profitable business.

If you’re looking for something that makes your business more productive, improves your all-round performance, and can easily be scaled, then Office 365 is the perfect choice for you – find out more about our Microsoft Office 365 training courses.

5 Secrets of Great Public Speakers

Public speaking is an art form that needs to be mastered. There are certain traits that all of the best public speakers share, which is what makes them so good at addressing rooms full of people and captivating an audience. In this blog, we’ll share five tips that will help you become a better public speaker: 

Confidence is Key 

When you’re talking to a room full of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people, it will be daunting. It’s natural to feel nervous about your performance, but the secret is to find your inner confidence. Recognize that pretty much everyone in that room would be just as nervous as you if they got up to speak. The moment you embrace the fact that your nerves are normal, it makes you feel more confident. Now, you can deliver a speech that’s clear and concise!  

Speaking Up Without Freaking Out | Matt Abrahams | TEDxPaloAlto

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It’s All About Efficiency 

Efficiency is critical when it comes to public speaking. The great speakers will deliver talks that only last a handful of minutes. Ask yourself, what would you rather sit through; one hour of pure waffle or fifteen minutes where you get all of the same key points thrown at you? Audiences lose interest the longer a talk goes on, so be more efficient. Cut down your presentation, so you only focus on points that people want to hear. 

Rehearsals are Essential 

You can’t go on stage and expect to give a great talk without a proper rehearsal. All of the top public speakers will spend time going over their speech and rehearsing it on the stage the day before, or in their hotel room at night. This gives you an accurate idea of how long the speech lasts, if you make all the right points, and helps with pacing.  

Use Visual Aids 

One of the best ways to captivate an audience is by using visual aids to help you out. This helps supplement your endless talking, and it gives people something to look at and take in. Make sure your words complement the visuals, so they work in tandem with one another to get your points across. For example, if you’re talking about facts and figures, displaying a graph is a great way to help people visualise what you’re saying.  

Improve your public speaking with effective visuals
Use engaging visuals

Always Hold Something Back 

Lastly, the secret to being the best public speaker is to keep some information back. This way, you engage the audience with helpful advice or tips, but you leave them wanting more. As an example, you could give them advice on your to improve productivity in their business, but to truly achieve maximum profitability, they need to contact you after and sign up for your services. This helps you use a public speaking role to generate leads. If you give them everything in the talk, then they can just go away and won’t need more of your assistance.  

If you want to get better at public speaking, then you need to be confident. You have to plan an effective presentation with visual aids that provides lots of valuable information but holds back on a few key points. At STL Training, we actually have a public speaking workshop that can help you with all of this and make you a better public speaker – check out our public speaking class London.

 Also check out our infographic with techniques for increasing confidence when speaking:

Increase confidence in speaking with techniques in assertiveness
Build confidence with these assertive tips