How attractive are you as a speaker? This isn't a question of your resemblance to some Hollywood starlet but rather a question of how your words entice clients and convince even the most jaded of meeting planners and panel groups. Having created a professional speakers bureau from the ground up, I have come up with seven pithy precepts that could help you improve your speaking skills.
A Pithy Presentation. You want to have something to share to your audience that they can use to their advantage. Be mindful of your voice (keep it deep and low pitched), your personality and attitude (positive), your tone (soft, loud. Encouraging as needed), your style, your vocabulary.
Connect To The Audience. You would most likely not be speaking if your audience did not have any pressing concerns. Tug on the audience's heart strings and do not make them think needlessly.
Passion. Are you enjoying what you are doing? If so, then keep on moving forward, and if not, find that niche or specialty post-haste!
Network With Other Speakers. Make sure you are networking with a group of at least fifty other speakers. They become your referral sources. Off the record, I can tell you that I am part of the National Speakers Association, which boasts a four thousand-strong membership and regularly holds seminars locally that could help you enhance your marketing skills. Call 480-968-2552 (Arizona)
Selling Products. Use media forms old and new to etch a larger presence - book or e-book, audio cassette or podcast, VHS tape or DVD. Having products will catapult your speaking career and make you more valuable to your clients. This "passive" income is like having frosting on the cake.
Value Added Means Valuable! Why not go the value added speaker route? Provide handouts, attend the cocktail reception before your program, stay after your speech, offer follow-up teleclasses, offer your consulting services, be a facilitator.
Enlisting A Coach. I'm sure a lot of you like sports - I like football, and watching Monday Night Football reminds me that behind these phenomenal athletes' success are men whose job is to make them into better athletes. Tom Brady would probably be some random schmoe from San Mateo, CA with no supermodel wife, and there would be no Super Bowl rings for the Patriots if not for Bill Belichick, their masterful COACH and mentor.
A Pithy Presentation. You want to have something to share to your audience that they can use to their advantage. Be mindful of your voice (keep it deep and low pitched), your personality and attitude (positive), your tone (soft, loud. Encouraging as needed), your style, your vocabulary.
Connect To The Audience. You would most likely not be speaking if your audience did not have any pressing concerns. Tug on the audience's heart strings and do not make them think needlessly.
Passion. Are you enjoying what you are doing? If so, then keep on moving forward, and if not, find that niche or specialty post-haste!
Network With Other Speakers. Make sure you are networking with a group of at least fifty other speakers. They become your referral sources. Off the record, I can tell you that I am part of the National Speakers Association, which boasts a four thousand-strong membership and regularly holds seminars locally that could help you enhance your marketing skills. Call 480-968-2552 (Arizona)
Selling Products. Use media forms old and new to etch a larger presence - book or e-book, audio cassette or podcast, VHS tape or DVD. Having products will catapult your speaking career and make you more valuable to your clients. This "passive" income is like having frosting on the cake.
Value Added Means Valuable! Why not go the value added speaker route? Provide handouts, attend the cocktail reception before your program, stay after your speech, offer follow-up teleclasses, offer your consulting services, be a facilitator.
Enlisting A Coach. I'm sure a lot of you like sports - I like football, and watching Monday Night Football reminds me that behind these phenomenal athletes' success are men whose job is to make them into better athletes. Tom Brady would probably be some random schmoe from San Mateo, CA with no supermodel wife, and there would be no Super Bowl rings for the Patriots if not for Bill Belichick, their masterful COACH and mentor.
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