Do you "feel the fear" when asked to do some Public
Speaking?
Public Speaking is still one of our greatest fears and it
turns grown men and women into nervous wrecks. The mere
thought of it turns our tongue to cotton wool, causes our
internal plumbing to act up and turns our knees to jelly.
Well, there's no need for all of this because help is at
hand. All you need to remember are your P's and Q's. Let's
start with the P's
Preparation -
When you sit down to write what you're going to say, bear in
mind who you'll be speaking to. Will they understand what
you're talking about; will they understand the technical
stuff and the jargon? If in doubt remember the old saying -
"Keep It Simple Stupid".
Make sure that what you say has a beginning, middle and an
end. Think of some anecdotes that help reinforce your story.
People think visually so paint verbal pictures for your
audience. And always remember, people want to know what's in
it for them - so make sure you tell them!
Place -
Have a look at the venue before the event if you can. It's
not always possible, however, even if you get there half an
hour before, you can check out where you'll be speaking.
Stand at the point where you will deliver from, imagine
where the audience will be and check that they can see and
hear you. You may even wish to place a glass of water where
you'll be able to find it.
Personal Preparation -
Before any Public Speaking event, think about what you are
going to wear; when in doubt dress up rather than down. You
can always take things off for a more casual look. Men could
remove their jacket and their tie. Women could remove items
of jewellery.
Part of your personal preparation should include some mouth
and breathing exercises. Practise saying some tongue
twisters to give your speaking muscles a good work out. Take
a deep breath and expand your diaphragm. Then breathe out,
counting at the same time; try and get up to fifty and not
pass out.
As part of your personal preparation, write your own
introduction. Write out exactly what you want someone to say
about you, large font, double-spaced and ask the person
introducing you to read it. Believe me they won't object and
will probably be pleased and impressed.
Poise and Posture -
Whenever you're called to speak, stand up or walk to the
front quickly and purposefully. Pull yourself up to your
full height, stand tall and look like you own the place.
Before you start to speak, pause, look round your audience
and smile. You may even have to wait until the applause dies
down. Remember, you want the audience to like you, so look
likeable.
Pretend -
I'm suggesting you pretend you're not nervous because no
doubt you will be. Nervousness is vital for speaking in
public, it boosts your adrenaline, which makes your mind
sharper and gives you energy.
The trick is to keep your nerves to yourself. On no account
tell your audience your nervous; you'll only scare the
living daylights out of them if they think you're going to
faint.
Some tricks for dealing with nerves are:
Before you're called to speak, get lots of oxygen into your
system, run on the spot and wave your arms about like a
lunatic. It burns off the stress chemicals.
Speak to members of your audience as they come in or at some
time before you stand up. That tricks your brain into
thinking you're talking to some friends.
Have a glass of water handy for that dry mouth. One word of
warning - do not drink alcohol. It might give you Dutch
courage but your audience will end up thinking you're
speaking Dutch.
The Presentation -
Right from the start your delivery needs to grab their
attention.
Don't start by saying - "Good morning, my name is Fred Smith
and I'm from Smith Associates."
Even if your name is Smith, it's a real boring way to start
a presentation. Far better to start with some interesting
facts or an anecdote that's relevant to your presentation.
Look at the audience as individuals; it grabs their
attention if they think you're talking to them personally.
Talk louder than you would normally do, it keeps the people
in the front row awake and makes sure those at the back get
the message. Funnily enough, it's also good for your nerves.
PowerPoint -
And for those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a
software programme that's used to design stunning graphics
and text for projection onto a screen.
As a professional speaker, I'm not that struck on
PowerPoint. I feel that too many speakers rely on it and it
takes over the presentation. After all, you're the
important factor here. If an audience is going to accept
what you say then they need to see the whites of your eyes.
There needs to be a big focus on you, not on the technology.
Use PowerPoint if you want but keep it to a minimum and make
sure you're not just the person pushing the buttons. Why
not get a bit clever at using the faithful old Flip Chart,
lots of professionals do.
Passion -
This is what stops the audience in their tracks. This is
what makes them want to employ you or to accept what you're
proposing. Couple this with some energy, enthusiasm and
emotion and you have the makings of a great public speaker.
Give your presentation a bit of oomph and don't start
telling me - "I'm not that kind of person." There's no need
to go over the top but you're doing a presentation to move
people to action, not having a cosy little chat in your
front room.
That's the P's finished, so let's look at the Q's.
Questions -
Decide when you're going to take them and tell people at the
start.
In a short speech it's best to take questions at the end. If
you take them as you go then you may get waylaid and your
timing will get knocked out.
Never - never - never finish with questions; far better to
ask for questions five or ten minutes before the end. Deal
with the questions and then summarise for a strong finish.
Too many presentations finish on questions and the whole
thing goes a bit flat.
When you're asked a question, repeat it to the whole
audience and thank the questioner. It keeps everyone
involved, it gives you time to think and it makes you look
so clever and in control.
Quit -
Quit when you're ahead. Stick to the agreed time; if you're
asked to speak for twenty minutes, speak for nineteen and
the audience will love you for it. Remember, quality is not
quantity.
One of the most famous speeches ever - "The Gettysburg
Address", by President Lincoln, was just over two minutes
long.
Right, that's my cue to quit when I'm ahead.
Now that you're armed with this information you too can
minimise your fear of Public Speaking.
10 Sure-Fire Steps to take the Fear out of Public Speaking
10 sure-fire measures to become the boss’s favorite
Any office has two kinds of people, a group that works hard but is never noticed and the other who immediately spring to mind. The second kind are the ones who are noticed and at the forefront of all activities. Career success means more than working hard, being qualified, meeting crazy deadlines, and being diligent. To be truly successful you need recognition from the boss.
In order to be remembered and noticed by the boss you will need to:
1. Be friendly and pleasant. Have a nice thing to say to everyone, ooze good manners, and have a ready smile and caring attitude. Don’t be brash and ride rough shod over others or be judgmental.
2. Refrain from gossip. It is the one thing that can make life uncomfortable. Know what’s happening in the office but stay away from discussing it or spreading things however tempting it may be.
3. Update your skills and knowledge constantly. The world today moves at a fast pace and one needs to keep up with technical innovations as well as global business trends. Make all efforts to be ahead of developments in your field of work.
4. Be efficient in your work and have facts and figures at the tips of your fingers. Always prepare for meetings well be a visionary and make suggestions that can be backed up by action. When you speak it must be “pearls of wisdom.”
5. Practice the art of listening. Analyze what others know and can tell you. Absorb knowledge like a sponge. Never restrict yourself to only your department. It pays to know other functions of the organization.
6. Be a leader in all aspects. Be the first to accept extra responsibilities, to take over someone else’s load when they have problems, lend a hand when a team is working to achieve a deadline. Make valuable suggestions. Let people know they can depend on you for just about anything.
7. Respect and obey the rules of the office. Be disciplined and spread the culture to all others.
8. Always be in control, never appear to be stressed. Keep personal life and work separate—never form a relationship with a colleague or boss. Dress well everyday and stand tall.
9. Be methodical and organized in your work. Use filing methods that anyone can use—if you are away anyone in your department should be able to locate the papers. Keep your work area neat, computer files uncluttered. Device a workable backup schedule such that under no circumstance is your work lost. Disaster management measures must be in place.
10. Be poised, stylish, and approachable. Look good and smell good—excellent personal habits are always appreciated. Carry breath mints in your pocket along with a fresh hanky. Keep a laundered shirt on hand for emergencies.
It takes more than talent to impress a boss. Be ahead in the race for success.
An Overview Of How To Create A Surefire Stream Of Prospects For Your Network Marketing Business
Copyright 2006 Roger Loh
Have you heard the saying, “Prospecting is the lifeblood of network marketing”?
Picture yourself having this “leaking bottle” and your objective is to fill it up with water to its brim.
Because there are holes in this bottle, when you start filling it up, some water will simply leak away. Thus, in order to achieve your objective, you must fill the bottle at a rate faster than the rate at which the water is leaking out.
You see, your network or downline organization is just like a “leaking bottle”. Whether you like it or not, you have to realize that some of them are going to drop. So, in order to build your network, you must replenish your downlne at a rate faster than the normal attrition rate.
Through my three years of network marketing experience, I have developed a simple 3-step strategy that creates a surefire stream of prospects for me:
1. Attend Networking Events Regularly
2. Create A List Of Names Daily
3. Contact Your Daily List Of Names
Step 1: Attend Networking Events Regularly
This article focuses on the “networking” part of a network marketer. (Let’s leave the “marketing” part to another article.) It is extremely important that a network marketer learns how to network well and attend networking events regularly.
First, attend networking events regularly. Why? It’s because you need to replenish your name list which is most likely limited to a few dozen names.
Once you collected their contacts, add these names to your master name list that your upline or your network marketing company tells you to make when you first start out in your network marketing business.
Step 2: Create A List Of Names Daily
This is a daily list of names that you create from your master name list.
Each morning, I create a list of 10 prospects to contact. I use a simple notebook to write down the 10 names so that I can carry it in my pocket everywhere I go.
Step 3: Contact Your Daily List Of Names
Throughout the day, I will contact as many of these prospects either by phone or short message service (or sms).
Depending on my relationship with each of these names, I will “talk” to them accordingly. When I receive a response, warm up the relationship a little before asking for an appointment.
By doing this consistently, you will find that after a few weeks, you would have created a surefire stream of prospects for your network marketing business.
2 Surefire Ways To Maximize Your Adsense Earnings
Most webmasters know that Adsense generates a sizeable source of additional advertising income. That is why most of them use it to go after high paying keywords. They have with them the lists that tells what the keywords are and have already used various methods of identifying them. And yet, after putting up these supposed-to-be high paying keywords into their pages, the money they expected to come rolling in is not really coming in.
What is it that they are doing wrong?
Having the pages is with the proper keywords is one thing. But driving visitors to those pages is another matter and often the factor that is lacking.
The thing is, to get visitors to your high paying keyword pages, you need to optimize your site navigation.
Stop for a moment and think about how visitors are using your website. After a visitor has landed on a certain page, they have the tendency to click on another page that sounds interesting. They get there because of the other links that appears on a page that they initially landed on. This is site navigation. It is all about enabling visitors to move about your site. And one way of maximizing your Adsense earnings.
A typical website have menu links on each page. The wording on these links is what grabs a visitor’s attention and gets them to click on one of the links that will take them to another page of that website. Links that have “free’ or “download” are oftentimes good attention-grabbers.
This navigation logic can also be applied to driving traffic to your high paying pages. There are some websites that are getting a lot of traffic from search engines, but have low earnings. The trick is to try and use come cleverly labeled links to get the visitors off that pages and navigate them to the higher earning ones. This is one great way of turning real cheap clicks to real dollars.
Before you begin testing if this same style will work for you and you website, you need to have two things. Something to track and compare and some high earning pages you want to funnel your site traffic to. An option is to select a few of your frequently visited pages. This is ensuring fast result to come by.
Now, the next thing to do is think of ways to get visitors viewing a particular page to try and click on the link that will take them to your high earning pages. Come up with a catchy description for that link. Come up with a catchy and unique description for the link. Think of something that people do not get to see everyday. That will trigger their curiosity enough to try and see what that was all about.
You can also use graphics to grab your readers’ attention. There is no limitation to what you can do to make your link noticeable. If you are after the success of your site, you will do everything it takes just to achieve that goal. Just be creative. As far as many Adsense advertisers are concerned, there are no written and unwritten laws to follow regarding what they write. Just as long as you do not overstep the guidelines of the search engines, then go for it.
Also remember that it is all about location, location and location. Once the perfect attention grabbing description has been achieved, you have to identify the perfect spot on your page to position that descriptive link to your high paying page.
There is nothing wrong with visiting other websites to see how they are going about maximizing their site navigation. “Hot pages” or “Most read” lists are very common and overly used already. Get to know the ones that many websites are using and do not try to imitate them.
Another way of doing it is to try and use different texts on different pages. That way you will see the ones that work and what does not. Try to mix things around also. Put links on top and sometimes on the bottom too. This is how you go about testing which ones get more clicks and which ones are being ignored.
Let the testing begin. Testing and tracking until you find the site navigation style that works best for you site.