Emcee or MC . . .  However you choose to spell it isn’t the important part.

The important part is getting the right MC to introduce you in a way which supports you correctly.

In fact, the role of the MC is actually a lot more important than most people would assume. . .

You see, knowing how to introduce a speaker is a learned skill and although it seems very simple and straightforward, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye.

So if you are an MC in the making or if you are looking for an MC for your next presentation . . . read on!

The Purpose of Introductions
There are three main reasons to introduce a speaker correctly. The first is to grab hold of the audience’s attention, the second is to entice the audience to pay attention, and the third is to build up the credibility of the speaker. A successful MC will have the audience wanting to buy from this person even before they’ve stepped onstage.

Profiling The Audience
People who attend seminars come from diverse backgrounds, and have different purposes and reasons for being there.  It’s the job of the MC or the person doing the introduction to pull the audience together to be present and focused.

Engaging The Audience
It’s important also to establish the credibility of the speaker. The MC needs to build the speaker up and make them look fabulous. It’s their role to make the audience to be feeling really, really great and very blessed to have this particular person in front of them. The aim is to get an audience wanting to work closely with the speaker even before they go on stage

Audience
An MC also needs to build rapport with the audience to capture their attention.  They need to let them know what’s coming and why they really should listen to this person.

The Plot
Once the introductions are prepared, you don’t want the MC to just be reading out notes on stage necessarily. As an MC, you need to have the basics written down and an awareness of what key words the speaker wants you to use in their introduction. It’s that information the MC will be using to connect with the audience.

Tell The Audience Who You Are
I see this mistake a lot – the MC will get up and forget to introduce themselves.  If you are the MC, it’s important to tell people who you are and why you’re up on the stage. The only exception to not telling the audience who you are is if it’s all ready been done.

Our Next Speaker Is…
If you’re the MC, make sure before you go on stage that you know the speaker’s name by heart and you know how to pronounce it!  There’s nothing worse than pronouncing a speaker’s name incorrectly.

Go On . . . It’s Your Turn Now!
This week, why not pretend you are MC-ing for another speaker and see you can start to practice the above points. Or if you happen to be at a multi-speaker event check out the MC and see how good a job he/she is doing!

To be continued next week . . .

Mistake # 1 – Not Selling

Your message alone is not enough to inspire people to buy your products and services.  Not giving a sales pitch to your audience is doing them a disservice. In order to make a real difference in someone’s life, you must give them the opportunity for an ongoing education.  If they don’t buy from you, they’ll buy from someone else.

Mistake # 2 – Poor Organisation

This will only cause you stress and confusion but what’s ten times worse, it leaves money on the table.  That’s because if you confuse them, you lose them.

There are 3 key ways that poor organisation shows up:

a)   A confusing offer.  The Solution – spend time crafting a clear offer for your product
b)   Confusion about how to pay for the offer.  The solution – Be 100% clear on the system you are using to take the money and implement this system at your event.
c)   Lack of support staff.  The solution – Make sure you have at least one sales member to field questions and help close sales.

Mistake # 3 – A Rushed Offer

If you don’t give yourself enough time to make your offer at the end of your presentation, you will miss key points and this will cost you money.  Make sure you hit every point of your sales presentation.

Mistake # 4 – Answering Questions With Your Offer

I have seen countless presenters come unstuck by allowing their flow to be interrupted after making their offer.  Take questions and accept interruptions at other times during your presentation, just NOT at the crucial closing time.  Don’t even take testimonials.

Mistake # 5 – No ‘Stick’ Campaign

A ‘stick’ campaign is where you write a sequence of emails which are normally automated and which you send to someone immediately after they have bought your product or service to ‘stick’ the sale.  Basically take some action to reassure the people who spent money with you that they did the right thing . . .  you do not want them to be suffering from buyer’s remorse the minute they leave the seminar room!  If they take products home with them, you might want to send them an email immediately and offer them a bonus gift of an audio interview as your thanks for your business.

Summary

These 5 mistakes are easy to avoid especially now you know about them!  Believe me, there’s a lot of speakers out there making these mistakes and worse.  So this information alone will set you above your competitors.  So, this week why not go over your next presentation with this check-list in mind and see if you can make any tweaks or edits.  Perhaps spend time crafting your offer, or thinking through your sales system or just practice your close as calmly and as unrushed as you can.  To your speaking success!

 

Erm.  Hang on?  Speak  . . . speak  in public you say?

Let me just swallow my fear and choke on my cornflakes.  You want me to stand up in front of a group of strangers and talk to them?  Like give them a presentation?!

Are you cuh-razy?

I can’t speak in public!

No, I am not crazy.  In fact . . . I am about to offer you the fastest ticket to success you could ever imagine.  You know Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and the Golden Tickets . . . well speaking is YOUR golden ticket to success.

Look, I know for most people there might be a few fears to get over (although for the rare few there are none)  . .. but let’s imagine you’re the norm and not the exception and you do have a bit of stuff around speaking in public. That’s ok. Maybe you have a lot of stuff around speaking in public!  Because public speaking is (apparently) the number one fear that most people have.

Which is such a shame!   There are so many benefits to becoming a speaker – for your business, your bank balance, for your lifestyle AND for your own personal confidence – I can’t even cover them all in one mere blog post so I’ve highlighted the top 5 for you!

Read on . . .

The Top Five Benefits Of Public Speaking

1. Increased Self Confidence

Once you have mastered speaking in front on an audience, whether it be in front of a crowd of ten or a crowd of thousands, your confidence levels will go through the roof.  Through the roof ok? Do this, and you can do anything.  Honest.

2. Reach More People

Do you have a vision which is close to your heart, a vision which could shape the world, a vision which could heal?  Yes?  Well stop holding onto it and start sharing it.

Does it make more sense to talk to one person at a time, or a roomful of people?  Which method will spread your vision faster?  Remember, a vision flies when you stand on stage.  You give it wings.

Allow yourself to fly.

3. Make More Sales

Regardless of what you are selling -  your ebook, your 3-day seminar, your coaching or your membership site, you will multiply your sales and in far LESS time when you speak to a hundred people as opposed to  selling one on one.

This is a MASSIVE benefit of public speaking – the opportunity to make more sales in one sitting. It’s call leverage.  And it can make you a lot of money.  Fast.

4. Build Credibility

When you are on stage you become an authority in your field.  People look up to you.  Their opinion on you changes simply because you are standing on stage.  Strange but true!

This credibility will open up more opportunities and earn you more recognition which in turn builds credibility and gets you more opportunities.  It’s a winning cycle.

So time to get on it!

5. Make Big Money

I saved the best benefit for public speaking for last.

Public speaking is one of the easiest and best ways to make money.  Big money.   I’m not suggesting this will happen the first time round (although it can and it does all the time) but if you have researched your market, determined your niche, sent out a compelling message to this market, built a big-pack product and added tonnes of value to it, then why not?

Go On . . . Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway!

So, now you’ve seen the benefits of public speaking, why not go out there and stretch your comfort zone this week?

If you’ve never spoken at an event (but always secretly wanted to), is now the time to book your first one? It doesn’t have to be huge!  A few people is as good as start as any.  Or if you’ve only ever spoken to smaller audiences, could now be the time to step up to the next level?  Or if you’ve spoken to large audiences, what could you do differently that will stretch you this week?

There’s always another step out there.  This week could just be the week to take it.  I dare you.

It’s all in the mind this week.

Have you heard all heard the saying that success breeds success?

But where does success actually start?

I believe it starts with a willingness to step outside the comfort zone.

You see it doesn’t matter what level of game you are playing right now- there is always another level you can go to.  And what usually holds you where you are is this thing called a “Comfort Zone”.

Have a read of this by Bob Riggs.

Do Something Outside Your Comfort Zone

By taking yourself out of your comfort zone you begin to expand.

In that expansion comes self confidence . . .in self-confidence comes a more confident mindset  . . .in that confident mindset comes success. . . . and in success there comes more success . . . and more confidence . . .and more success and so on!

You are currently inside your own comfort zone.  So am I.  But the good thing about a comfort zone is that every time you DO SOMETHING outside of your comfort zone, your comfort zone expands.

Picture a circle getting increasingly larger – each time you step out of your comfort zone, your circle expands. Now this something could be anything – say kayaking on the sea, a bungee jump, going on a singles holiday, walking into a bar by yourself . . . but here let’s apply it to speaking:

• So for you, speaking might currently be outside your comfort zone.
• Perhaps speaking is inside your comfort zone but selling from the stage is outside your comfort zone.
• Perhaps selling from stage is inside your comfort zone but hitting 30% conversions is outside your comfort zone.

Take a Mini Risk

It doesn’t matter what level you’re at in your speaking business, there’s always another level to go to.  It’s just a matter of stretching your comfort zone.  And you can do this by taking a series of little risks. Not huge risks, just little steps outside your comfort zone.  As your comfort zone expands, so too does your definition of yourself.

The mini risks do not have to be related to speaking by the way.  I have a friend who recently went camping for the very first time.  This was a really big deal for her.

2 years ago camping was the last thing she would ever do as being clean and comfortable was far more appealing  . . but recently she ‘got’ that to increase her financial success she needed to do more things outside of her comfort zone.  That way her comfort zone around money would also expand . . .

. . .  So off camping she went. Also during her holiday she was doing white water rafting, rock climbing and other ‘scary’ activities.  It’s why I like the high ropes course so much  . . . we push ourselves to take risks on the ropes and see what happens when we don’t fall.

Same with life.

Your Next Adventure?

So if you’re feeling comfortable right now – this week it’s time to expand yourself, and commit to something new.  What mini-risk can you take this week to step outside of your comfort zone and start cultivating that successful mindset?

 

What’s in your head when you’re on stage?

Are you focused on connecting with your audience and building rapport . . . or . . . are you so consciously aware of everything you’re doing you have an internal dialogue raging in your right ear?

(blah, blah, blah!)

If you’ve done a number of presentations, you will have had the experience of delivering your well-designed “speech” to a few different crowds.

But one thing I have noticed with speakers time and time again is that when they are actually on stage, sometimes their focus is on the wrong place.

 

• “I stood still most of the time like you say Jo, but at one point I thought I should move around a bit so I did.”
• “When I was building the need I know I said it all wrong and it threw me for the rest of the close.”
• “I didn’t think I was going to remember the questions, but I asked about 4 questions in first 2 minutes is that enough?

What’s Wrong Here?

On the one hand, it is great that people have awareness about what’s happening on the stage. The problem with these speakers was that with further questioning I discovered that while on stage, MOST OF THE TIME they were thinking about what they were doing, and whether they were doing it right!

While you’re busy focusing on whether you’ve asked enough questions, or changed state enough or built enough need, or been clear enough- you are stuck in your head. While you’re stuck in your head you are not doing the one thing that you should do on stage and that is:

Connect With Your Audience!

That is your single biggest and most important job once you get on stage. All you should be focusing on is connecting with them and taking them on a great journey.

That’s it.

Practice Makes Perfect

This is why practice is so important.

When you repeat things and practice things over and over you’ll get them embodied in your unconscious mind so that by the time you are on stage it is a habit. You should not be consciously thinking “I need to cross my arms now” on stage. If you are, you have forgotten your primary purpose for being on the stage.

So here’s how to prepare for your presentations:

Write out your script. It doesn’t have to be word for word ( I never write word for word scripts) but it should have all of the key points you are going to make.

Then practice it.

In fact don’t just practice it once. Practice it several times focusing on different elements each time:

1. Practice for timing
2. Practice for energy management
3. Practice for stage use
4. Practice for sensory based language
5. Practice by taking everything over the top, much bigger than you imagine it should be.

And then pretend you never did any of that. Because you are already perfect, aren’t you?

So on the day of your actual presentation forget about all your practice, and get yourself in the right mindset to connect with your audience. Remember, it’s all about connection. That’s all.

As soon as you hit that platform, focus on being present and connecting with every person in the crowd, and authentically taking them on a journey. Find the yummy moments!

Blah, Blah, Blah. . . . Now It’s Your Turn!

So, this week, forget about getting it ‘right’ on stage. Focus instead on practicing your presentation and then when you’re up there, forget all of this and instead build your connection. And then write in here and tell me about the results…

One of the best public speaking tips I can give you is this  . . .

. . .  always seek feedback!

Remember, when you’re speaking in public, either on stage or during a presentation, the aim is to not just to educate but also to leverage your time and bring in extra sales for your business. Selling 1:100 is much more powerful than selling 1:1 . . .which is why getting feedback on your performance can make all the difference to your bottom line profits.

Therefore, feedback is one of the most vital tools that you have at your disposal. You to have to test and measure everything you do. So, as a business owner, you need to measure every promotion you do. As a speaker, you need to measure every offer that you make. The proof is in the measure of your results.

Feedback on your performance can be measured in the following 4 ways:

1. Money:

The most important measure is from a financial perspective. If you seek out feedback on your presentation you can increase your sales conversion rate from a public speaking engagement.

For example, by seeking the appropriate feedback, instead of closing, say, 30% you may increase your conversion to 35% or 40%. Increasing your conversions means bringing in more money. Thus, your business is more profitable and everybody’s happy.

2. Increasing your memorability:

To be memorable is to increase the impact you make on people’s hearts and minds. Seek feedback on your public speaking skills from your audience about how much they enjoyed your presentation, whether it was easy to digest, and what they remember most.

If they remember you and they love your information then they’ll go out and tell their friends about you. This may lead to a purchase down the road. So it is really important that you’ll always be looking to increase your public speaking skills from an entertainment and education perspective as well.

3. Rapport :

Here’s another great sales tip – increase your level of trust and responsiveness you have with your audience. The level to which your audience wants to be involved is a measure of how they are responding to your presentation. The more rapport you have with people, the more profitable your business will be and the more sales you’ll make.

4. Be Real:

This one is the sales tip overlooked and most important. I believe feedback is widely important because it keeps your feet on the ground. Be open and aware. It keeps bathing you in humility. It’s very easy to lap up the accolades. But you are human. So you do need to keep your feet on the ground and your heart in the right place. I think feedback is a very vital part in keeping one humble.

So remember, feedback is in the form of:

• Your conversion rate = $$

• How you affect the hearts and minds of your audience

• Your rapport with your audience

• Be Real

Now It’s Your Turn!

So this week, why not seek feedback on your presentation. If you don’t have any presentations scheduled, maybe deliver it in front of a colleague or friend, or record it so you can listen to yourself back. Feedback is the most powerful public speaking and sales tip I can give you. Be open enough to receive it.

During any sales presentation the aim is to not to get a round of applause but to make as much profit as possible.  Whether you succeed or not is mostly down to the strength of your presentation, the passion in your pitch and the trust the audience have in you.

But there are also a handful of smaller details most speakers often overlook – but which can also have a subtle impact on you sales.

So here are some practical sales tips to help make your presentation as smooth as silk.

Presentation Sales Tip 1: Order Forms

For any sales of bigger ticket items (products or services with a high monetary value), you’re going to need some order forms with some legally binding terms and conditions. It sounds simple but believe me, get this wrong and you will miss out on sales.

So sales tip number one – make sure you’ve got more order forms than you think you’ll need as some customers like to keep a copy for their records. Also pay attention to the information you asking your customers for when they fill in your Order Form? Name, email address, postal address?

Presentation Sales Tip 2: How Are Customers Paying You?

If you are doing a sales presentation have you given any consideration to how your customers are going to pay you?  So sales tip number two – think about your payment methods.

Are you taking cash? If yes, remember to think about what you’re charging and what change you might need. For example, if you’re charging £47 for something, it’s pretty likely people will hand over £50 so make sure you’ve got plenty of £1 and £2 on hand. Might sound like common sense, but gets tricky if that’s the one thing you forgot to pack and it’s a Sunday and the banks are shut.

If you’re taking credit cards, there’s no cash involved but there are other issues. Do you  have your own merchant facility? Or are you running everything through PayPal? There are fees involved for each so get plenty of information.

When are you processing payments? If you’re processing them after the sales presentation, you may want to refrain from giving out any physical product or bonuses until people’s orders are processed and cleared. This avoids any difficulties afterwards.

Presentation Sales Tip 3: Payment plans – Yes, No, or Never?

Sales tip number three – are you going to offer your customers a payment plan?  The up side of payment plans is that they offer more flexibility for people to purchase your products who might otherwise not and means that overall sales are likely to be higher as a greater number of people can buy.

The down side, there will be people who default on their payments, whose cards expire and fail and who have changes in their life circumstances that mean they won’t be able to pay on time. This will take you (or someone in your team) TIME and EFFORT to follow up and manage

What’s your refund policy and guarantee? Think about it BEFORE you sell the product, know it, clearly state it, then stick to it.

Summary

A little bit of planning about what systems you are using in your sales presentations will make your product or event launch run smoothly. So next time you run a presentation, pay some attention to what information you’re collecting from your customers and how you are using it and how you can maximize your sales.

 

How to market your seminars is one of the greatest obstacles I find with people starting out in the public speaking business. But once you overcome this, you’ll be increasing your bottom line profits as you run full to the rafter events and seminars.

But first here are some questions commonly asked about marketing your seminars:

Who on earth am I going to present to?

Where are they?

And how do I get them into a room?

The first step is to locate your target audience. Because once you know who your ideal prospects are, it’s just a matter of marketing your seminar to them effectively.

So, let’s looks at 2 easy strategies to find your target audience

1. Pre-existing groups.
   This is by far and away the simplest strategy for effective seminar marketing. Once you have determined your ideal audience, the next logical step is to ask yourself:  

   “Where are groups of these people already gathering?”

   Your target market, more often than not, are already meeting together in groups somewhere:

   • clubs
   • associations
   • seminars
   • workshops
   • social groups
   • companies
   • small businesses

   All these organisations are having regular events or meetings looking for someone to come and add value and inspiration to their members or employees. Why not try marketing your seminars to them?

2. Create your own group
   If you already have a business or a client list – even if there are only 8 people on it- this is a great way to market your seminar. You market to the people already interested in you and your services and because they are already engaged, you increase the percentage of them buying again from you. 

   One of the simplest marketing things you can do is have a “Client Appreciation Night”.

   Invite your clients to bring a guest along to an evening. Put on a drink or two and share with them some ground breaking information in your industry. At the evening you then do your awesome presentation and make some sales right there on the night to people who already know and love you, and their friends.

   Of course if your database is 1000 people- the numbers get more fun more quickly, but I want to stress on you that you can start marketing your seminars on a small scale.

Now that you have 2 easy strategies to find to your target market and then market your seminars to that audience, why not plan your own client appreciation night or even approach an organization to book yourself a public speaking slot!

There are 7 Key Elements to a Profitable Sales Presentation.

These 7 Keys are spelled out here assuming you will make a sale at the end of your presentation. But these same 7 Key Elements are will work even if you are not closing a sale.

You can use these same 7 steps with a little creativity to inspire someone to book in for a one on one consultation or to get your prospects contact details to add to your database.

All the principles are the same.

But right here I focus on sales presentations – because once you can do that- you can do anything!

Before I share these 7 steps the first thing you need to do however is be really clear what action you want your audience to take at the end. This is not about getting you a round of applause remember – this is about getting you more business. So what do you want them to do?

Do you want them to:

• Buy your product or service on the spot?
• Book in a consultation with you or one of your sales people?
• Join your mailing list?

Get really clear in your mind what the outcome from the sales presentation is and then it’s as simple as these 7 key elements:

1. Create Connection:
   Become a welcome guest and inspire trust and responsiveness in your audience.
2. Get Permission To Do Your Thing:
   Demonstrate credibility and earn the right to be speaking to your audience by illustrating your past results as powerfully as possible.
3. Engage with Your Content:
   Decide on the action you want the audience to take, and craft the backbone of your presentation with this end in mind.
4. Establish a Need:
   Create dissatisfaction in your audience by illustrating where they are vs where they want to be.
5. Reveal the Product and Build Tension:
   Give a benefit driven description of your product.
6. Make a No-Brainer Offer:
   The most important part of your sales presentation – package up your product with bonuses, and ensure you create urgency and take away risk
7. Invite Immediate Action:
   Finish powerfully with a commanding invitation to buy.

For Your Next Sales Presentation, Try This!
If you have products and services you’re passionate about then in your next sales presentation make a commitment to yourself that you will follow these 7 steps. See what a difference it makes to your presentation. Become a speaker who influences action, not just a speaker gets a round of applause.

Did you know that speaking is the most powerful lead generation tool you can use to grow your business?

Number One Business Growth Strategy…  Use This And Watch Your Profits Explode!

Speaking on stage is not just about turning up, making a speech and getting paid for it.  This is old school.  The kind of speaking I teach is how to set up a profitable speaking business.  If you’re looking for one simple thing to do which will grow you business . . . look no further than speaking on your topic.

Give a 90-minute presentation full of valuable content (and believe me, you could be in ANY business!) and within this presentation include an irresistible offer for your audience to take the next step with you.

You can use speaking to generate new leads, bring in new clients or make more sales in an afternoon than you made all month!  It’s not uncommon for some of my clients to add $100, $1,000 or even $10,000 to their income EVERY MONTH.

Start Small

If you’ve never spoken publicly before, a great way to start is to speak in front of just a handful of people.  The confidence you will draw from this experience will allow you to get up in front of a bigger audience.

I’ve got many successful clients who decided they were going to learn how to present from stage precisely because they were so terrified of it. They knew if they didn’t overcome their fears it would hold them back from all the other opportunities life throws us.

From Painfully Shy Child To $130,000 In Ticket Sales In 3 Short Months

As a child I was incredibly shy.  Like many other people, I had to work through my own issues about getting up on stage.  It was about letting go of the past and stepping out of my comfort zone.

Once I had mastered that, I made over $130,000 in ticket sales in 3 short months and without even a database of my own!

I don’t say this to toot my own horn . . . I say this to show you what is possible when YOU use speaking on your topic to grow your business.

Go For It!

So now you know speaking on your topic is the single most powerful, the fastest and the most effective way to grow your business, why not plan your first presentation and get out there and see your sales soar? So right now, make a commitment to yourself that you will take some action.  I look forward to seeing you on the platforms of the world.