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Spotlight on Dana Zemack,
Chocolate expert and public relations business owner
Chocolate expert and public relations business owner
©2007, RiverWays Enterprises
All rights reserved.
There
are a few things in life that will never fail to grab a listener’s
interest—and one of them is chocolate. That’s why chocolate
expert Dana Zemack is pretty much assured of a rapt audience whenever she
gives a talk, especially since her listeners know that before long they’ll
get a chance to taste her subject matter.
Through her chocolate business, The Tasty Show (http://www.thetastyshow.com), Dana (pronounced “DAH-na”) has hosted numerous chocolate tastings and chocolate sculpting classes for public and private events since 2003—everything from bachelorette parties and baby showers to corporate icebreakers and fundraisers. Yet until recently, she turned down every request to present an auditorium-style lecture on chocolate.
“When I do tastings, I’m more of a guide, and I’m not speaking for more than a minute at a time, as opposed to talking nonstop for 20 minutes or so,” she said. “I had no idea what I would even do with a large group if I didn’t have chocolate to pass out the whole time.”
When Dana enrolled in Carla’s 12-week Speaking with Confidence for Results program, she was thinking not about chocolate but about her public relations business, Zemack PR & Communications. As the company’s engaging website (http://www.zemackpr.com) states, “E-mail is golden and multimedia is key, but nothing replaces human contact.” Dana wanted to boost the confidence and presence she brought to small group meetings, phone calls, and one-on-contacts with clients and media.
Over the 12 weeks, Dana benefited from the group conversation and support, the techniques and exercises, and the opportunity to practice her new skills between each class. Dana was particularly affected by practicing eye contact with what Carla calls the “gentle gaze.”
“Just being able to practice that and get feedback on it was one of the most powerful things I took away from the program,” she said. “I’ve found myself practicing it in daily life in almost all my conversations. It’s amazing how practicing the principles Carla introduced, a little bit at a time over several weeks, helps ingrain these concepts into your everyday life. It just becomes part of you. The program gave me the chance to slow down and explore what’s actually happening when I’m speaking to other people, which I don’t usually have time for, or even space in my mind for.”
When it came time to plan a 15-minute presentation to deliver to the class at the end of the 12 weeks, Dana realized this was the perfect opportunity to find out what it would feel like to give a auditorium-style talk on chocolate. With all the information at her fingertips, she put together a basic outline, fleshed it out with details, and rehearsed it several times in front of the class before the final presentation.
“One of the greatest challenges is the issue of comfort—being sure you have something of value to share that people can learn from and enjoy,” she said. “A lot of it is about confidence in yourself, being able to take the time to speak slowly and clearly and to pause when you’re speaking. My first impulse is to rush through it so I don’t feel like I’m wasting someone’s time. It’s about treating the audience as if they’re going to hear something wonderful and they deserve to hear it in a relaxed way.”
Right after she graduated from the program in January, Dana got a call from someone inviting her to do an auditorium-style talk and tasting—and this time she said yes. Since then, she has presented several such talks—focusing on the history and culture of chocolate and how it’s processed—and finds they make her chocolate events much more complete and satisfying for participants, allowing them to “experience a new dimension of the chocolate we all know and love.”
Of course, audience members always get a chance to savor some chocolate
after Dana’s talk, she says: “Not giving them some chocolate
to taste after listening to me talk about it for 20 minutes would be just
cruel.”
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We are centrally located in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire close to the intersection of Interstates 89 and 91. As such we are in in the heart of New England and close to Boston and all of Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York and Maine.
Travel time from:
Albany, NY — 2.75 hours
Boston, MA — 2.25 hours
Brattleboro, VT— 1.25 hours
Burlington, VT — 1.5 hours
Concord, NH — 1 hour
Hartford, CT — 2.5 hours
Portland, ME — 3 hours
Portsmouth, NH — 2 hours
