This comes up because I was fortunate enough to be the Keynote Speaker at the Social Day event last week. What I love about this event is that when Lucy organizes it, she chooses ordinary people like us to do the speaking.
It just makes it more real and transparent, and people take a lot more notice. The people doing the speaking are actually doing — and people notice it.
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But there is ways to improve your speaking opportunities. Now, if you are new to this, you will find these tips very inspiring.
There are many invites — there are BNI’s, networking, women’s groups, meetups, chamber of commerce events and all the things you can imagine.
You should trying to be getting into those. They are always desperate for speakers.
Now — you may be thinking, what could I talk about? If you have been in business any length of time, you can talk about things like what you have learned, what you have failed at, and what you have progressed through over the years.
Then, after you speak, people will come up and talk to you — so you need to try and do some of these events.
So — here are a few tips to improve your speaking.
Practice
Before you go and speak, practice — practice in a mirror, in front of your spouse, or with a friend. If this is your first event, it may only be 20 minutes, but you do not want to get up there without having practiced a bit.
Even when you are driving in your car, you can say your speech over and over again to make sure you know it by heart and know what you are saying.
The top keynote speakers, the ones that make thousands, they will practice it to death — that is why they are so slick!
Don’t Pace
Now, when you are up on stage talking to your audience, do not pace back and forth. Please do move, you should cover the stage and the whole audience.
Move to one position on the side of the stage and stand there and talk for a while. Then move to the other side and do the same.
Move back and forth between the sides every now and then, but do not pace.
Look Your Audience in the Eye
Now, obviously you cannot look everyone in the eye, but when you move to the sides, pick someone in the audience, and not just those in the front row and make eye contact with them.
Then look at someone else and make eye contact and talk to that person, because when we have conversations its much better.
When you are broadcasting or speaking, it is much better to have a conversation with one person because you get sort of an emotional response from them.
They will smile and it might make them nervous and think why is he looking at me, but it just makes it more real and it will help when you speak.
Speak Clearly
You need to make sure that you speak clearly and slowly enough, especially if you are from another country.
You want to make sure that you speak slow enough that everyone will understand you.
And — if there is a microphone, you don’t have to speak as loud, but you do need to make sure that you speak clearly.
When I was at this speaking engagement, they had a swan mic so I had to stand still to talk and really speak into the thing.
Some of the people had been mic up and some had handheld mics –which reminds me to tell you to make sure to put the mic on your chin and speak into it. Don’t let it slip from its place and then we can’t hear what you are saying.
Do not use it as a pointer. When you do that, your voice gets lost and people cannot hear you.
Do Not Put Your Entire Speech on Slides
Now, when it comes to slides, I find a lot of pressure putting together slides. Do not put together all of your speech on slides. First of all, it makes it really hard for the audience to keep their eyes on you because they are trying to read.
Then — if you are in the back of the room, it makes it really hard to read.
Put a single statement every now and then on the screen — like your killer statement and that is all you need.
If you are going to put up slides, quite often, people cannot see the bottom of the screen, so I put mine up higher so that everyone can see.
If you are not sure, you can ask the event coordinator how low the screen is. Then, you can add simple touches like I did such as the event logo in the bottom of the screen.
Then I added my logo in the other corner, and the event people were impressed and made me look more professional.
It made me look like I was more important.
Also — please do not turn your back on your audience to read your slides. There are tons of people in the audience and they do not want to see your back.
Tuesday Toolbox Tip
Today is Tuesday and that means that it is time for a toolbox tip. Today I am going to recommend the tool Habatica. It is kind of like a todo list that has been gamified. It is great because a lot of people struggle with their todo lists. They have gamified it and you will get rewards for doing certain things. It is really very neat and helps out a ton with your work. Click here to instantly download our FREE Book “The 71 Ultimate Marketing Tools”
Now, tomorrow we have Wade Foster for our interview so be sure to tune in so you can check out that interview. It is one you will not want to miss.
