As a speaker, the first key area that you need to really always be focusing on building is your credibility. 

What is Credibility?
Credibility is the way that your market perceives you and it’s vital to be credible to them.

Why Is It Important To Have Good Credibilty?

Because your audience needs to trust you and promoters need to trust you.  Event planners need to trust you.  If you want to be in demand for speaking engagements then you need to be a sought-after person.

First and foremost, that means you need to be trustworthy.  You need to have a story to tell, have a reputation behind you and be credible.  Now, there are lots of ways of establishing and working on building your credibility.

What Should You Focus On To Build Your Credibilty?

1. Story
   Look at your background – what’s in your background becomes a really good reason why people should listen to you.
   What is it in your background that gives you some credibility?
2. Results
   Another part to your credibility is your results – things that you’ve personally achieved in your life.
   My credibility is based around how I made over $1.25 million in my first 12 months as a professional speaker.  That has credibility!
   We refer to this kind of credibility statement as a “hook”—it’s a hook that instantly captures people’s attention.  It captures their imagination and they get excited!
3. Profitability
   Another very important factor, especially if you’re doing multi-speaker events, where you’re doing affiliates, and you’re sharing profit etc with the host, is you need to also be a profitable speaker.  Promoters want to know that you can actually make sales.  That’s yet another thing that will add to your credibility.

Make sure that you constantly track and record your results!

4. Integrity and Authenticity
   Always focus on maintaining good relationships with promoters, event planners, and people that you’ve worked with in the past.  That’s a really vital part of it….  So that people can trust you.  Credibility is all about establishing and maintaining trust.
5. Testimonials
   Another really quick and easy way to get credibility is through the use of testimonials. 
6. Media Endorsement
   Another way of building credibility is 3rd party endorsement from the media.  So if you’ve been in the newspapers, magazines, and so forth, you can use that resource as part of your armour of credibility.
7. Success of Students
   If you’re an educator and you’re teaching people, then it’s really good to use the  success of your students, because that’s probably the best thing that you can use to reflect your own credibility.

Always look at building up credibility in order to become attractive to promoters and other presenters.

So, I’ve given you lots of useful tips here.  What one thing can you do this week to start building your credibility?  Could it be trying to get some media endorsement?  What about getting those testimonials together?  Or even working on your bio to strengthen your hook?  The sooner you start building your credibility, the more promoters and audiences will want to work with you!

In Part one of this 2 part series I looked at why to use success stories in your presentation and in this, the second part I’m expanding on how to use success stories in your presentation.  Remember, there’s nothing more influential than hearing how someone else has become successful to inspire people to action.

The “HOOK” to grab your audience from the get-go!

The best way to start a great success story is with an audience-grabbing opening question. It’s a fantastic way to engage your audience.  An obvious opening question would be,  “Does anyone here know Joe Bloggs?” 

Painting the Picture

The next step is the details of the story. When I met the person, here’s what their life was like before they joined my program.  Let the audience know the biggest challenge for that person that they needed to overcome.

Prove Success

Here is where you will explain how the tools were applied to create proven success. We are going to want to know those skills and lessons.  And then you show the results:

• Increased his closing ratio from his presentations three times
• Has more clients that he knows what to do with
• Is enjoying the financial rewards of that with his partner..

Good OR Good?!

Before Picture: My biggest challenge was!

After Picture: Ultimate benefit!

It’s key that you get into the details of the story by following these steps:

• Does anyone know …?
• Acknowledge that – “I wish you did…” or “Brilliant, you’ll love…”
• When I first met them – their biggest challenge was…
• What happened was…
• What that meant was…

Multi-Sensory Language

To take your success stories to another level, you can use multi-sensory language. This is what I call VAK:

• Visual
• Auditory
• Kinesthetic 

Provide a visual picture of what he/she looks like.  Include something he/she told you ‘She was telling me the other day..” which is the auditory part of the story. And kinesthetically, a real sense of power (you would act this one out a bit). So we get to know him/her even more.

You’ll love this TIP!

If you don’t have any success stories, go to your clients.

• Ask them what successes have they had.
• Find out what people have been up to or get on the phone to your clients.
• You can run “The World’s Greatest Testimonial Competition!”

Summary

By now, you know why and how to use success stories in your presentations!  So, if you still haven’t got any success stories, why don’t you make it your focus this week to gather as many as possible so that next time you give a presentation you can inspire  your audience to take the next step with you.

There’s nothing more powerful than using a success story in your presentation to prove what you say is true.  And there’s nothing more influential than hearing how someone else has become successful to inspire people to action.

Why You Need To Use A Success Story In Your Presentation

This is a bit of a no-brainer but I thought I would spell it out anyway.  Why do you need to use success stories in your presentation?  The key benefits of using success stories are:

• They hammer home your credibility.
• They convince your audience that you do what you say you do – that you can deliver; the bigger the results the better.
• They prove you have market trust in you – this makes your audience more receptive to putting their trust in you.
• It uses social proof perfectly – other people have risked their time and money investing in you.  It worked for them so it could work for you.
• By using someone else’s words to promote you, and not just you saying how good you are, it’s a compelling call to action.

What Makes A Good Success Story?

A good success story in a presentation should be brief and to the point. It should be a balance of enough detail and enough emotional impact and yet still be nice and clear.

The lesson in the telling of success stories of other people is take them back to the place where they were emotionally.  Paint out that journey from struggle to success. Share these stories with your audience as faithfully as you know them.  This is a really key point – be honest in your success stories because if you aren’t, this lack of honesty will come back and bite you.

The 5 Keys of How To Make A Good Success Story In A Presentation

• The “hook” to grab your audiences’ attention
• Painting the Picture
• Prove Success
• Using Multi Sensory Language
• A Success Story for when you don’t have a Success Story

A success story in a presentation is not about proving how good you are at what you do, although it certainly does that. It’s about opening up the emotional place and allowing people access to it. And then of course, you give them the tool that allowed you to make the shift. It’s this change that makes all the difference in the world.

In my next article, we’ll break this down and examine the 5 key components in more detail.  So in the meantime, if you don’t have any success stories why don’t you ask your clients and ask them what they’ve been up to.  Get on the phone to them and see what successes they’ve had.  You could even run the world’s greatest testimonial competition!

Good luck!

How To Make An Impact

Public speaking is very much about improving our communication skills, for when we know how to communicate effectively (to one person or to an entire room full of people) we also know how to inform, inspire and persuade others.

Each and every time you open your mouth, you tell the world who you are.  People form opinions about us, based not only on our appearance but also on our communication skills. And while many people go to great lengths to look good, dress professionally and so on, very few people take any sort of action to improve their communication skills. And believe me, there is nothing more effective than standing on stage for improving your communication skills!

Many of the world’s most successful people are also highly developed communicators. They have taken the time and energy to develop and hone their communication skills. As a result, they know how to inform, persuade and inspire others.

Public speaking is a sure-fire way to improve your communication skills.

Do You Want To Be In High Demand?

Strong communicators are in high demand.  Next time you pick up the newspaper have a look at the careers section – regardless of whether you speak on stage or not. Virtually every job listing requests that applicants have good or excellent ‘communication skills’. Your success lies in your ability to communicate your message – regardless of which platform you speak from. If your message is unclear and you appear unconfident, this dramatically impacts on your end result.

But just like any other skill, public speaking is a skill which must be learned!

So, why don’t you make a point to practice your presentation and hone those communication skills even further?  You can never stop learning how to communicate more and more effectively – and this will serve you in almost every walk of life, be it professionally or personally.

Creating emotion has a few key elements that cannot be missed. These are:

1. Awareness
2. Intention
3. Vocal strength and flexibility

1. Awareness

The first key is to recognize the power that the voice has in impacting and creating change in another human and as such, how this can generate more sales.

It has been said that the words that we choose are only 7% of the message that we communicate.  38% of our message is due to our tonality, and 55% of it is due to our physiology, our physical action.

So over a third of your outcome depends on your voice.

Create awareness of your own voice and use it dramatically.

Listen to how you use your voice, listen to the vocal range that you have.

Start to listen to other people’s voices, how they use them, and then start to bring awareness to the extremes that you use in your own voice. Do you have extremes or is it all flat lining? 

You will make more money from stage AND make it easier to listen to you if you can work on your voice variation.

2. Set the intention

These are the intentions you will want to set if you want to make more money from stage:

• That you will start to expand your vocal range
• You will create moods with your voice
• You will carry your confidence in your voice
• And that your voice will take people on an emotional journey.

3. Vocal Strength and Flexibility

If you start to learn how to use your voice in a powerful manner, then you’ll find that it will be more powerful for longer, and you will be able to preserve and conserve your voice.   You want to use your voice in such a way that it touches the hearts and minds of the people in your audience and thus create more sales from speaking.

Don’t Be Just Comfortable, Be Memorable
If you’re committed to becoming, not just a profitable speaker, but also a memorable speaker, then the next step is to get masterful with your voice.

Be the sort of person that when people leave the room they continue to talk about you, not just because of your content, but because of your style, your charisma and your ability to take them on an emotional journey.   And be the sort of speaker that makes massive money from stage!

So, What’s Next?
Well, my suggestion would be to go and see a high drama movie!

Listen to the way these highly trained actors use their voice to create mood.
Notice the high, the loud, the soft, notice the pace changes, notice the volume changes.
So this week I want you to spend the whole time listening to people with a new intention and then see how you can utilize this in your next speaking gig.

And remember, have fun!

Making the time to develop your voice increases your ability to emotionally move roomfuls of people and in turn increases your conversion rate.  Public speaking is an area with the potential to make a lot of money so it makes sense to invest time on your voice.  Remember….

Your voice becomes your money-making machinery.

Developing your voice also:
Builds your confidence on and off stage
Having a strong and powerful voice builds and carries your confidence to every member in your audience.

There are two sides to this coin:

1. It’s your voice that will give you away if you’re not confident.
2. A confident voice will cause you to feel more confident in your presentation and in yourself generally.

So with a good strong confident voice you’re going to really make that lasting impression we are after.  It is a positive feedback loop.

It enables you to perform and create whilst on stage

A powerful and flexible voice gives you the ability to create the most incredible moods. These are the moments where it is just you and the audience, hanging on your every word, feeling your every nuance.
Your voice enables you to create a full palette of moods:

• Conspiracy: “shhh- don’t tell anyone but…”
• Expectation:  “when all of a sudden, you would not believe it…”
• Pain: “It was the most heart-wrenching decision I had ever had to make…”
• Elation or hysteria:  “I was stunned, rapt, we were wildly celebrating…”
• Seduction: “As I looked at the options, I could tell there was really no choice but to…”

You name it…with your voice, you can create it.

When you become a master of creating mood in your audience, what happens is you become a master of the emotional journey of your audience.

A salesperson who is in control of the emotional journey of the person in front of them can control the action they take on that journey…and there you have it – “sales” in a nutshell.  This is why sales from public speaking is so powerful.  You’re not just converting one person, you’re converting hundreds!

When you can control the emotional journey of your audience you can control the action they take on that journey.

So, next time you stand on stage with the aim of making sales, why don’t you spend some time focusing on creating mood in your audience and then see what happens when you take them on an emotional journey.  You never know what magic might happen to your conversion rate!

Speaking is a key area in almost every business, be it negotiations, promotions and of course, speaking and selling from stage. 
This makes it ALL THE MORE important to know just how powerful your voice can be. 

Your Voice Is Your Money-Making Machinery.

Understanding this will make you a truly exceptional speaker with the power to move roomfuls of people AND make you huge sales from your public speaking.  If you’ve ever watched any great speaker, the people that stand out in your mind well after the story has ended are those who create a mood in the space. They convey emotions so powerfully that it takes you on the journey with them.
Interestingly, sales are about the emotional journey too. A big part of being a speaker and taking people on an emotional journey is the use of your voice.   An even bigger part of being a speaker is to make sales.

How Improving Your Voice Will Make You More Memorable, Captivating and Entertaining As A Speaker

There are many great and profitable speakers out there who have never considered how improving their voice could benefit their sales, so that’s where you already have a leg up on them!

Whilst your voice is not the most important thing that will directly impact your sales from your public speaking on the day, it WILL directly impact how memorable, captivating and entertaining you are as a speaker…so think of those referrals and the long-term goals of your business!

In other words, WHY should you consider becoming a vocal artist?

The benefits of becoming a vocal artist

• If you learn to protect your voice and rehearse effectively you will have a long and profitable career as a speaker
• Great vocal control builds your confidence on and off stage
• Powerful vocal technique gives you flexibility to perform and create whilst on stage

If speaking is a key element of creating your business, be it promotion, sales or communication, your voice becomes your money-making machinery. If your voice is not in shape then essentially you are losing your uniqueness in the marketplace and losing sales from your public speaking.

Remember, your voice is your money-making machinery, so what can you be doing right now to start caring more for your voice?

If there’s one thing I love more than public speaking for sales, it’s helping others speak and sell from stage too

Why Do It, Jo?
 
Many sales professionals never consider the opportunity to do workshops, seminars and presentations in front of the public. If you are one of them, then you are missing a golden opportunity.

Public speaking is my number one strategy in capturing sales from my potential clients. Speaking allows me to get in front of prospective clients and to share my passion with them. It allows me to showcase my knowledge and expertise. Many times, I have secured clients, even before I leave the room.

By speaking on a regular basis, this has allowed me to be in front of hundreds of people at any one time.  Let me ask you a question, “What is your time worth hourly? Maybe it’s worth $50 or a $100 or $200-plus an hour. Will you have a better chance accomplishing that one-on-one or in front of a roomful of potential clients and opportunities?

If you have a cause close to your heart, will you have a better chance of accomplishing this cause one-on-one or in a room with 500+ potential followers?

As a sales person, public speaking is the best way to present your products or your services to a wide audience and it’s one of the most lucrative ways to make money.

Showcase Your Knowledge And Shine!

Getting in front of a group of potential clients speaking allows you to showcase your knowledge and it also allows you to showcase your dreams to a far wider audience.

It gives you tremendous visibility and credibility over time. The more you speak, the greater the chances that over time, people will consider how successful you are, and they will look upon you as the authority in your field.   And in turn, the more sales you will make.

So, why not book your first public speaking gig of the year and get out and there and start to sell?  It’s time to showcase your talents to the world and shine!

If you are too busy working in your business to notice that your life has been on hold for a few years now- then chances are you don’t even have time to read this article.  But I promise you if you do, you will be richly rewarded.  You see, as Michael Gerber said in the The E-Myth most of us get into business because we want to be our own boss- and then our Lifestyle goes down the tube in a flurry of tax preparation, stock taking, hiring and firing and general stress!

But times are changing and more and more business owners are undergoing what I refer to as “The Lifestyle Shift”.  They are waking up to the fact that they are the boss, and they should be able to design their business to match their lifestyle.  From the ground up.

If it’s time for you to have more time for yourself, your family, and for your dreams, then read on…

Your lifestyle is ultimately your life’s work. We are all artists, whether we acknowledge that or not. And every day we are gifted with a canvas upon which to create our design. We are now operating in the Information Age, at a time of great wealth and great possibility. Yet seemingly intelligent people continue to operate under old assumptions. Too many people I know “work hard” for no other reason than they thought that’s what they were expected to do. There has never been a greater time than now to design a life the way you want it.

How do you “Design Your Life?”

The first step is a simple one. 

Wake up to the fact that YOU  ARE THE BOSS.  Your life is the way it is because you let it be that way- either by your actions or non-actions.   You are tolerating it, or fostering it, or forcing it to be just how it is.  Most of us get so busy just getting the work done that we forget to take stock and remember who’s in charge.

You started your business.  It is a direct reflection of you.  So isn’t it time to take responsibility for your deepest desires and start making it JUST HOW YOU WANT IT?

My greatest wish for the world is that everyone lives a life of self-expression. By that I mean that one’s life is an expression of that unique identity within them. It honestly breaks my heart when I speak to business owners who describe their lifestyle as anything less than awesome. As business owners we are in pole position to craft our lives the way we want to. For heaven’s sake, if the guy or girl running the show can’t have it they way they want it, what hope is there for anyone else? I think it’s just that we get lazy. We get lazy because questioning our assumptions and making changes in the way we operate is actually harder to do than work 70 hours a week! 

So what can you do? 

Take a half a day for yourself.  Get out of your routine.  Go to a place that conjures up “the sacred” for you.  That is different for everyone.  For some its a church, for some a park, for some a bookshop or the Virgin Megastore!  Wherever you feel connected to your creator, the universe or your higher self.  Spend a couple of hours just hanging out with yourself, and then in that space – ask yourself one simple question:  “is your business supporting your lifestyle or eating away at it?” 

Make no mistake- if it is not actively building it up, it is wearing it away slowly through attrition.  There is no middle ground here.

Commit to taking one action this week that will allow you to reclaim your lifestyle.

I’ve been speaking from stage for around 8 years now and within that time I’ve seen some very strange myths about speakers.  

Today, I’m going to dive into them and dismantle them one by one!

Here are four common, and untrue myths.

Myth #1: You have to be educated to become a public speaker.

Although education is a great asset, it is not a requirement to start a speaking career. Although a high educational qualification may appeal to some buyers it all depends on your niche. If your market is highly academic and scholarly, then a good educational background can pull interest from buyers.

On the other hand, most of the market does not demand a highly educated speaker. A lot of speakers do not have college degrees but still earn hefty amounts of money from bookings and selling from stage. In some niches, blue collar speakers with little or no education may possess more mass appeal because the audiences can relate to them. It all depends on the topics and the chosen niche.

Sometimes, to motivate people, a speaker must show that they are human and a lack of higher education may do just that. A speaker can show the audience that even though they are not college educated they have achieved professional and financial success. It is an inspiring premise.

Myth #2: You have to possess the gift of speaking in order to stand up in front of people to speak.

Public speaking is a skill and just like any skill, it can be developed and practiced. There are formulas that anyone can use to create great speeches. All you need is a message and the willingness to deliver that message to your audience. After a few tweaks, revisions, and rehearsals; you can present a knockout speech even without the possessing the “gift of speech”.

Technique and practice are the key factors in improving public speaking skills. If someone dedicates himself or herself enough, anybody can be great.

Myth #3: You have to be different or change who you are to speak.

Many people will often say that a career in public speaking will make you fake, somewhat pretentious and change your personality.

If this is the case, public speaking seems like very hard work but in reality, you do not have to change in order to become a speaker. Great speakers are individuals who stay true to their characters, including their weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. It makes them human.

Myth #4: You have to work hard to be a public speaker.

This can be rather subjective. Yes, it can be hard work if your heart is not into it. Any endeavor without passion is not an easy task. However, if you are really committed to the career and loving it, it won’t matter, will it?

Moreover, once you get the hang of it public speaking will come naturally to you.

I love speaking- and when you love it- it’s easy.  I hope I can share that enthusiasm with you!