14 minute read
Speak Up
Tips for bolstering your public speaking results
My Grandma used to say, “Don’t wish your life away.” While 2020 has been challenging, to say the least, I can’t help but to look forward to 2021. New Year’s Day is my favorite holiday. It’s a fresh start with a clean slate laid out ahead of me. And right now is an optimal time to think about goals and put them to paper.
Many of our goals focus on increasing income and the things we can do with that additional money. These goals are an end to the specific steps we take to reach these results. The actual goal simply describes the end of a journey. The same thing can be said for public speaking, both as a way to increase your income and a journey that ends with results.
Your Fastest Path to Cash
First, public speaking is an amazing tool to market your business or non-profit organization. It’s the fastest path to more clients, more donors or more awareness, which all lead to more cash. The catch is that you must be well trained as a speaker to walk on that quick path to results.
We all know people do business with people they know, like and trust. Speaking to grow your business accelerates those know, like and trust factors. When you’re the speaker, there’s a built in credibility as an expert. This is your foundation of trust. The audience is warm versus picking up the telephone
By Theresa Sperling
for a cold call. Audience members either know you’re the speaker or know the topic you’ll share. Therefore, there’s an interest and a pool of potential clients. This is your foundation of the know factor.
As the speaker, you’ll need to bring several more factors to your talk. You’ll need to be likeable to win over potential new clients. Speaking is your opportunity to showcase you. It gives the audience a significant timeframe to decide just how much they like you.
In addition, your talk should be easy to follow and provide information that’s valuable to your audience. And your delivery—meaning how you say the words and use your body to support your message— should be polished and professional.
All these aspects add to these know, like and trust factors. The better you can put all the pieces together and deliver a memorable talk, the better your chances are to get the desired results. If you’re missing a piece of this puzzle, your audience will notice something is off. That leads them to lack trust in you and what you’re offering.
This is where I come in. I can help fix what’s missing so that you’re making the most of your time in front of an audience.
It is very difficult to rebound from fumbling through your presentation. Audience members will remember this and only this. And we all know that negative information is spread more readily and farther than something positive. To avoid
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this situation, it’s your responsibility to be fully prepared. Remember, there’s an initial foundation of these know, like and trust factors. It’s imperative you do everything you can to avoid damaging this groundwork.
There are a few more concepts that contribute to that fastest path to cash. When you’re speaking to promote your business, you’re leveraging your time and your efforts very efficiently. You’re sharing your message with many people versus one at a time when making individual sales calls. Your visibility increases through promotion of your talk and press releases of the event where you are speaking. Word of mouth spreads quickly. It’s the best way to gain ideal clients. We just have to ensure it’s a positive message that’s shared.
Traditional marketing efforts typically take seven touches to get a potential client to even pay attention to your message. With the pandemic, it’s more along the lines of 17 touches. So you see speaking can save you time and effort to get someone to listen to your message.
Public Speaking for Results
Now let’s talk about public speaking as a journey that leads to results. You must decide what you want to happen from your talk. What are your desired results? This could include building your email list, scheduling a call or signing up for an upcoming event. You must know this before you plan your talk. Focus on the end result first and then work backward to build a talk around those results.
So many people give a talk and forget to make an offer. Audiences have become accustomed to hearing an offer when listening to a speaker. When there’s no offer or ask, your talk seems unfinished. If you think about it, you have put a lot of time into the whole process of writing your talk, practicing it, and then scheduling to deliver it at any number of groups. You not only have wasted that time, but you’ve missed out on an opportunity to grow your business.
In some cases, a speaker may not know how to make an enticing ask to move people to action. A similar outcome happens. That’s nothing happens. You have squandered an opportunity and your audience may leave with a negative impression. And remember, the negative information spreads more freely than the positive. In both cases, getting speaker training can help fix this problem and get the results you desire.
The Importance of the Ask
I recently had a conversation with a woman who was speaking to get donations for a non-profit. She mentioned that she was disappointed with the lack of people wanting to contribute to the cause. I asked her to tell me what she was saying.
As I listened carefully, I noticed there was an important piece missing—one that caused the audience to question her trustworthiness. I suggested she add information regarding what project would be funded by the donations. The next time she spoke, she had more success. In just a few weeks, the number of donations increased seven times over the previous results.
Who Wants More Results?
As you write down your goals for the coming year, focus on your desired results. What would happen if you learned how to become an awesome public speaker? If you added speaking to your marketing toolbox? What could you do if your income doubled, tripled
or increased by seven times?
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Theresa Sperling is founder of Awesome Public Speaking Trainer. For more information, email her at PresentersInfo@gmail.com.
The New Year is Music to My Ears
Foreign languages are extremely cool. When I was growing up, our education system had limited class options compared to what’s offered today. Back then, it was very popular to learn Spanish or French. My friends believed learning a second language gave them a better chance to one day leave Missouri and visit faraway lands.
By Rochelle Brandvein
My kids were fortunate to have had so many more language choices, including Chinese and Japanese. In fact, my daughter reached even further outside the box and enrolled in our high school district’s newly introduced sign language curriculum. She said it came in quite handy, particularly the time she stood in a fast food line and “read” the intimate, yet very entertaining conversation of two completely engaged signers.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t as lucky. I studied Latin. Yep, Latin. Here I was, a Jewish girl who didn’t even know Hebrew, poring over the yawn-producing works of Virgil and Ovid. Why on earth would anyone pick a dead language to learn?
I began my Latin journey in middle school, studied it throughout high school, and even minored in the strenuous language in college. Please don’t ask if I remember any of the specifics today. I don’t. But I’ll admit the English portion of my SATs was easier. And I was literally the only person at work who actually knew what carpe diem meant before the movie “Dead Poets Society” popularized the phrase in 1989. That’s when I thought, “Hey, maybe Latin actually is cool.”
But it isn’t. Not for my Dad, who studied it before me, or for my three children who begrudgingly studied it after me. Latin is sold as a language that enables you to learn other languages more easily. At least that’s what my teachers and my Dad said. It was once deemed a universal language. I saw nothing universal about it.
To me, music is the universal language. It speaks volumes—whether the lyrics accompany the melodies or not. In fact, you don’t really need to understand the words at all. The music alone makes you feel all the feels are possible in the universe: happy, sad, scared, relieved, peaceful, amused, and much more.
As we inch toward 2021—or MMXXI for my fellow Latin lovers—I hope music serves as the inspiration for our universe to do better and be better. I’ve paired some of my musical favorites with groundbreaking nonprofits in an effort to show their harmonious relationship and inspire everyone to feel the music.
Greatest Love Of All
Whitney Houston topped the charts with her 1985 rendition of this song, which eloquently touted the words, “I believe the children are our future/teach them well
and let them lead the way/show them all the beauty they possess inside/give them a sense of pride.”
Share the love: Founded in 1904, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (www.bbbs.org) is the nation’s largest donor and volunteer-supported mentoring network. The organization creates meaningful matches across the country between adult volunteers (“Bigs”) and children (“Littles”) ages 5 through young adulthood. The result: Positive relationships that have a lasting effect on the lives of young people.
Imagine
John Lennon visualized a world where all people lived in peace and harmony, citing, “You may say I’m a dreamer/but I’m not the only one/I hope someday you’ll join us/and the world will be as one.”
Embrace the imagination: The Nature Conservancy (www.nature.org)—a leading US and global conservation organization that works with public and private partners to ensure our lands and waters are protected for future generations. The organization makes a lasting difference in 79 countries and territories around the worldwide.
We Are The Champions
This Queen song is an anthem to all everyone who has struggled and overcome. “We’ll keep on fighting till the end” summarizes the feelings of hope and resilience since, both now and in the future, since there is “no time for losers/‘cause we are the champions.”
Support the champions: National Alliance on Mental Illness (www.nami.org), the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization, is dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. NAMI provides advocacy, education, support and public awareness so that all individuals and families affected by mental illness can build better lives.
Beautiful
“You are beautiful no matter what they say/words can’t bring you down.” Eloquently sung by Christina Aguilera, this is a battle cry for those who have been made to feel less than they actually are.
Picture the beauty: The National Women’s Coalition Against Violence & Exploitation (www.nwcave.org) helps inform, educate and prevent violence against women and children nationally and internationally. This volunteer-operated nonprofit focuses on everything from human trafficking, bullying, hate crimes, missing children, sexual assault, and all forms of violence and exploitation against women and children.
I’m Still Standing
Elton John and Bernie Taupin cemented our thoughts with lyrics that included, “I’m still standing better than I ever did/ looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid.” John, who kicked his addiction to drugs and alcohol, recently celebrated 30 years of sobriety.
Stand by the standers: The Amy Winehouse Foundation (www.amywinehousefoundation.org) was created by her family in 2011 after the extremely talented English singer/ songwriter tragically passed away at the age of 27. The foundation works to prevent the effects of drug and alcohol misuse on young people through a range of initiatives and programs.
Brave
“Say what you wanna say/and let the words fall out/honestly, I wanna see you be brave” was co-written and sung by Sara Bareilles, who says it was a message to a friend struggling to come out as gay. Bareilles says the song also was about herself in that “we could try to be stronger than our weaknesses.”
Encourage the brave: The Trevor Project (www.thetrevorproject.org)— founded in 1998 by the creators of the Oscar-winning short film TREVOR—is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ young people under 25 years old.
Don’t Stop Believing
Journey’s song instructs the listener to “hold on to the feeling” of one’s optimistic aspirations. The words are based on a phone call that co-writer Steve Perry had with his dad, who after his son said his dream of becoming a famous musician wasn’t working out in Hollywood, responded with the “don’t stop believing” phrase. It later became one of the greatest rock anthems ever sung.
Believe the believers: For more than five decades, the Special Olympics (www.specialolympics.org) has helped people with intellectual disabilities discover new strengths and abilities, skills and success through the power of sports. The organization provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for both children and adults so they can develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage and experience joy.
Strictly Speaking
While I did learn a lot from studying Latin, I still cannot speak the language (it’s pretty much deemed a dead language anyway) or hear the language (unless I attend mass in the Vatican City.) But I can definitely feel a sense of serenity wash over me when listening to “musica” (the Latin word for “music”) in my universe, which gives me peace of mind and hope for our world after the year we’ve had.
What songs have gotten you through the tumultuous 2020 and are preparing you for the upcoming year? I’d love to hear about your inspirations.
Rochelle Brandvein is the owner of Brandvein-Aaranson Public Relations, a 30-year-old PR agency that pivoted to solely handling nonprofits and companies with a philanthropic arm or foundation. Her company specializes in publicity, copywriting, and creative services.
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