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Unconditional Confidence http://unconditionalconfidence.com Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:19:54 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 en What is Mark Joyner Up To NOW?? http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2008/01/22/what-is-mark-joyner-up-to-now/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2008/01/22/what-is-mark-joyner-up-to-now/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:11:08 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2008/01/22/what-is-mark-joyner-up-to-now/ Mark Joyner claims to be a blogging moron.

Yet, he’s getting a lot of folks to blog about him because of his offer to let any blogger try his new, illusive, kickass courseware that may have something to do with blogging. Who knows? But I have to find out.

So, I took the bait and I’m pasting in the html he gave me. Here it is:

 

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

  • The best blogging techniques.
  • How to get traffic to your blog.
  • How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

If you want to.

]]> http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2008/01/22/what-is-mark-joyner-up-to-now/feed/ Hey, Mr. Spielberg!Have I Got a Script for You! http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/10/15/hey-mr-spielberghave-i-got-a-script-for-you/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/10/15/hey-mr-spielberghave-i-got-a-script-for-you/#comments Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:25:17 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/10/15/hey-mr-spielberghave-i-got-a-script-for-you/ I’d rather be shot at dawn than play a game of Pictionary. Sure, it’s supposed to be a fun game, lighthearted and full of endless, squealing delight, but here’s the deal. I don’t draw. Not publicly, not privately. Not ever.

Why?

Because long ago and far away I decided that I was no good at drawing or painting or anything that resembled visual art. I’m not sure when or why I made this decision, but I did. And as a result, I don’t draw. Or, rather, I won’t draw.

Yet to this day, I envy people who can draw or paint. My friend, Jim, for example, and Tony Bennett, both who paint amazingly well and love doing so. And I’ve always thought it would be a blast to be a cartoonist. But there is no way that I will allow myself to even experiment, because my internal script says “Nope. No way. Can’t do it.”

We all have these internal scripts we’ve written for ourselves, scripts that define the character we call “I” or “me.” And from what I can tell, these scripts are based on certain decisions we’ve made about ourselves as we’ve bopped along on this journey of life. The longer we travel, the longer we recite our internal scripts without ever stopping to question if we like our lines or if this character is who we really are.

So, let me ask you now, what script have you written for yourself in regards to speaking or performing in public? Does your internal script say, “Oooo, I love to speak in front of groups! It’s a total blast! And I’m really good at it.” or does it say, “Public speaking sucks. I hate it. And besides, I’m no good at it.” Whatever your script is, it’s based on a decision you’ve made about yourself at some point along the way. Like my decision that I’m no good at drawing and therefore I can’t (won’t) do it.

There is nothing wrong with the scripts we’ve written for ourselves. They help us define who we are in this life. And much of what we’ve written is positive, strong and helpful. Scriptwriting only becomes a problem when what we’ve written keeps us from “living into our greatness,” as Kim George says, or keeps us from having what we truly want for ourselves. Or keeps us in a small, less than supporting role in our own lives.

So, when you listen at your own internal script around expressing yourself in public, do you like what you hear? Is it allowing you to live into the fullness of who you really are, or is it keeping you safe and small behind a boundary of excuses?

A script can sound like this: “I’m too shy.” “Oh, my voice doesn’t project loud enough.” “No one wants to hear what I have to say anyway.” I really don’t have anything to say.” “I’ll just make a fool of myself.” “I don’t’ know what I’m doing.” “I’ll forget what I’m supposed to say.” “It’s just not for me.” “My speech teacher in high school told me I should stick to writing.” You get the idea. Perhaps your internal script is a variation on one of these or perhaps it’s something different, but you do have one. We all do.

Anytime I conduct a Unconditional Confidence workshop, it never fails. A participant will take their turn to speak in front of the group and will end up mesmerizing everyone with their honest, natural charm and authenticity. But when I ask that same person about how they felt about how they did, they launch off into a list of negative judgments, like “Oh, I couldn’t stay focused and I didn’t know what to say, and I’m sure I said “um” too much…”

This list of judgments always echos this person’s internal script. Always.

It doesn’t matter if the rest of the group showers this person with tons of positive feedback. They can’t receive it or give it credence because their internal script is shouting a different story. This is where our scripts get in our way, keep us from moving towards what we really want and who we really are. They keep us quiet, scared and small.

But if can we can loosen our attachment to our old script and start to play with the idea of re-writing it to fit who we are becoming, who we really are in our heart of hearts, then anything is possible. You don’t even have to know what your new script will be, you just need to be willing to question the pay-off for keeping the old one around.

What would happen if you let go of the script that says you always get nervous or distracted when you speak in public? Or the one that says no one wants to hear what you have to say? Or the one that says you’re not as interesting or as knowledgeable as you should be? What if you let the old script go and start drafting a new one, one that would allow you to live out loud, fully and fearlessly?

When Kim George writes about scriptwriting in her book, “Coaching Into Greatness,” she says:
“It’s all a great big story — a bunch of hooey that’s defined by a big pile of “shoulds” that sit on an even bigger pile of “can’ts.”

What’s the script you recite to yourself about speaking in public? Is it moving you closer to your dreams and goals or does it have you stuck in a trench of excuses and old habits of thought? It’s okay, whatever it is.

But if you’re feeling a little typecast by your present script, if the lines in your head don’t fit the dream in your heart, then just know you can rewrite your script any time you want. Because it belongs to you. You are the writer, director and star in your own story, so write yourself a masterpiece that is worthy of who you really are.

]]> http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/10/15/hey-mr-spielberghave-i-got-a-script-for-you/feed/ I’m in the Top Ten!Unconditional Confidence Comes in 4th as One of the Most Influential Blogs on Public Speaking http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/10/01/im-in-the-top-tenunconditional-confidence-comes-in-4th-as-one-of-the-most-influential-blogs-on-public-speaking/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/10/01/im-in-the-top-tenunconditional-confidence-comes-in-4th-as-one-of-the-most-influential-blogs-on-public-speaking/#comments Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:07:44 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/10/01/im-in-the-top-tenunconditional-confidence-comes-in-4th-as-one-of-the-most-influential-blogs-on-public-speaking/ Oh, My! I can’t believe it! This is utterly fabulous.

PSBTop10

I was named one of the Top Ten Most Influential Bloggers on Public Speaking by THE Public Speaking Blog published by Eric Feng! What a surprise and a huge honor. I came in 4th on a very impressive list of expert bloggers who contribute mightily to the field of public speaking.

Check out this list!

#1 - Garr Reynolds - Presentation Zen

#2 - LifeHacker

#3 - John Kinde - Humor Power

#4 - ME! Nancy Tierney - Unconditional Confidence

#5 - Tom Antion - Great Public Speaking

#6 - Paul Evans - Public Speaking Success

#7 - Steve Pavlina - Steve Pavlina Blog

#8 - Darren Fleming - Executive Speaking Blog

#9 - Gary Gwee - Connexion! Communication Resources

#10 - Bronwyn Ritchie - Pivotal Public Speaking

The ironic thing is that the Public Speaking Blog, which awarded this honor, should be at the very top of ANY list about public speaking. At least, it would be at the top of my list. I don’t know anyone who writes as passionately, generously, and authoritatively than Eric at the Public Speaking Blog. Sure, I’ve disagreed with him on certain points from time to time, but that’s what I love and admire about him and his blog: he gives and gives and gives great information AND he’s open to other opinions and points of view.

Oh, and he’s pretty darned funny, too.

Maybe that’s why I feel especially honored to be included on his list. I have such respect and admiration for Eric and his Public Speaking Blog that this Top Ten honor is all the more gratifying and significant to me.

By the way, Eric is about to release his new book, The FAQ Book on Public Speaking. You can download the first chapter for FREE here. I’ve read it, and I can’t wait for the rest of this book!

Okay, I’m off to open a bottle of champagne and congratulate myself.

]]> http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/10/01/im-in-the-top-tenunconditional-confidence-comes-in-4th-as-one-of-the-most-influential-blogs-on-public-speaking/feed/ Personal Development and the Bloggers Who Love It http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/30/personal-development-and-the-bloggers-who-love-it/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/30/personal-development-and-the-bloggers-who-love-it/#comments Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:55:21 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/2007/08/30/personal-development-and-the-bloggers-who-love-it/ Just when I was starting to wonder if anyone even reads this blog, I received word that Unconditional Confidence is on an expanding list of outstanding personal development blogs started by Priscilla Palmer. There are some pretty hot bloggers on the list, including some of my favorites, like Tuck Self of the Rebel Belle blog, Kim George of Doing What You Can Do, and my buddy Andy Wibbels, who got me hooked on this blogging thing in the first place.

I’m so thrilled to be included. And since this list has introduced me to some great blogs, I thought you might want to discover them as well. Here’s the list.

Thank you, Priscilla, for starting this!

There’s a ton more, so keep reading!

and these collaborated sites:

]]> http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/30/personal-development-and-the-bloggers-who-love-it/feed/ Your Big Mouth: Why Public Speaking Is Your Most Powerful Marketing ToolPart Three http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/29/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-most-powerful-marketing-toolpart-three/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/29/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-most-powerful-marketing-toolpart-three/#comments Thu, 30 Aug 2007 01:12:51 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/2007/08/29/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-most-powerful-marketing-toolpart-three/ On Friday August 17, I spoke at a Connections Networking meeting in Santa Rosa to a group of women entrepreneurs. The subject was, “Your Big Mouth: Your Most Powerful Marketing and Public Relations Tool.”

Since I created all this juicy content for this speech, I thought I’d share it with you here. I’ve broken it up into three installments, but if you want to hear a recording of the actual speech, you can! It’s located at the end of this post.

___________

Picking up where we left off, here are some more suggestions for creating your presentation:

Give Something Away

Don’t you love getting an expected gift? Or being the one to win a raffle prize? Well, so does your audience. People love free stuff, especially if it is something they consider valuable.

In almost every speech I give, I have a drawing and give away a prize. Often, it’s a product of mine, like the Engage Your Audience CD or a Special Report. But sometimes I give away music CD’s created by my singer friends. So, if you don’t have your own product, give away something else.

Pass around a hat and let everyone put in their business card. Then, draw a name (or two if you have more than one prize to give away) and announce the winner. This is a great way to include your audience, create a little break from the subject of your speech, and get the business card of everyone in your audience! Now, you can follow up with them, ask them to sign up for your newsletter, or offer them a special discount on something.

My singer friends, Lua Hadar and Linda Kosut used to perform together as The Kitchenettes. During one of their gigs at a small San Francisco restaurant, they passed the hat, had a drawing, and gave away fun kitchen gadgets, like an old egg beater and a crazy apron. People loved it, the gifts fit “The Kitchenettes” theme, and Linda and Lua were able to collect everyone’s business card.

What can you give away? Can it complement what you are speaking about or help to promote your business?

A Call To Action

Now that you’ve given your audience great information that they can use immediately, be sure to end your speech with some kind of call to action. Encourage your audience to take action on what they have learned. Reiterate the benefits they will experience. Double dare them to make a change!

Now, you don’t want to demand your audience to obey you. No, your speech should have already inspired them to make some kind of change so your call to action is more like an encouragement, an invitation. You don’t want to shame your audience to action but inspire them to action.

I recently saw a rerun of the Oprah Winfrey show in which Al Gore spoke about global warming. After his powerful presentation based on his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, the entire audience was aching to DO something. They were so inspired and impassioned by the time Al was done that you could almost feel them begging for information on what to do. So, Oprah and Al gave them all 5 easy things they could do immediately to diminish the global warming.

It was a great demonstration of inspiring an audience to take action and leaving them with a feeling of empowerment.

Give Them an Excuse to Engage with You Again
As I mentioned in Part One of this series, public speaking is like going on a first date with everyone in your audience. It’s the beginning of your relationship. So, if you want to further develop this relationship by having your audience members become clients or referral sources, be sure to give them an easy way to engage with you again.

Offer your audience a special deal, discount or offer that is irresistible. Or tell them how they can receive more information from you for free. Make it easy for them to find a reason to engage with you again.

Michael Port of Book Yourself Solid tells his students to always have something you can invite people to that has no barrier for entry. Meaning, have something that anyone can participate in for free, like a free teleclass, newsletter, open house or mini-consultation. What can you offer that has no barrier for entry, that makes it easy for your audience to continue their relationship with you?

You can also offer products and services that have a price, but be sure to include something that anyone can take part in, whether they can pay the price or not.

Q &A
All too often speakers will take questions at the end of their speech. Don’t do it! Why? Because the end of your speech is your grand finale and you want full control of that final act. If you end with questions and answers, you never know how your speech will end, what final words your audience will be left with. Therefore, you’ve virtually dumped your final act into the lap of chance. Sure, you could still go out with a roar, depending on what question you get and how you answer it, but you could just as easily go out with a whimper.

Don’t leave your ending to chance. Even if you take questions towards the end of your speech, always leave time to give your own strong ending that sums up the main thrust of your speech and calls the audience to action.

In conclusion, I hope you now see just how powerful and multifaceted public speaking is as a marketing and public relations tool. There is nothing as comprehensive, compact, or cost-effective that also has such quick yet long-lasting results in attracting new clients, referral sources and business connections.

Use what you have learned in this series to craft a presentation that gives good, usable content, invites audience interaction and is outrageously fun for you. Throw in a few surprises, give something away, and always give your audience a way to engage with you again.

Now, go get ‘em, tiger, and if you need help creating your presentation, you know where to find me.

Here’s the audio file of the speech I gave last Friday, August 17.


MP3 File

]]> http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/29/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-most-powerful-marketing-toolpart-three/feed/ Intermission: Now a Word from EricOr How to Create Great Content for Your Speech http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/29/intermission-now-a-word-from-ericor-how-to-create-great-content-for-your-speech/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/29/intermission-now-a-word-from-ericor-how-to-create-great-content-for-your-speech/#comments Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:15:23 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/2007/08/29/intermission-now-a-word-from-ericor-how-to-create-great-content-for-your-speech/ Before I continue with the Your Big Mouth series, I want to take a quick intermission to turn you on to some expert advise on creating great content for your speech.

My blogging buddy, Eric Feng, is a master public speaker who is currently blogging a great series of posts, called “7 Eric-trifying Ways to Charm The Pants Off of Your Audience,” that complement what we are talking about in the Your Big Mouth series. Especially Part II of his series where Eric talks about Solid Content & High Speech Value.

If there is no substance then there is really no point wasting your audience’s time delivering the speech. And for those of who are always seeking to impact your audience, this would be a good starting point.

Here are three questions to consider as you prepare your speech or presentation:

1. Does my speech contain substance?
2. Can the audience use it right away, like today?
3. Do they get better after hearing my speech?

Okay, hopefully some of that sounds familiar. But Eric continues with a cool way to set up an expectation of value by how you start your speech.

Also, Eric has some very fun ideas for jazzing up your speech in Part 3 of his Eric-trifying series. Though I can’t believe he suggests peeing with your mic turned on so the audience can hear you. That’s one way to get their attention!

While you’re checking out Eric’s blog, be sure to sign up for a free chapter of his soon-to-be-released book, “The FAQ Book on Public Speaking.”

And now on to Part III of “Your Big Mouth: Why Public Speaking is Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool.”

]]> http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/29/intermission-now-a-word-from-ericor-how-to-create-great-content-for-your-speech/feed/ Your Big Mouth: Why Public Speaking Is Your Most Powerful Marketing ToolPart Two http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/24/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-most-powerful-marketing-toolpart-ii/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/24/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-most-powerful-marketing-toolpart-ii/#comments Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:14:23 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/2007/08/24/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-most-powerful-marketing-toolpart-ii/ Last Friday, I spoke at a Connections Networking meeting in Santa Rosa to a group of women entrepreneurs. The subject was, “Your Big Mouth: Your Most Powerful Marketing and Public Relations Tool.”

Since I created all this juicy content for this speech, I thought I’d share it with you here. I’ve broken it up into three installments, but if you want to hear a recording of the actual speech, you can! It’s located at the end of this post.

________________

Now that you know the impact public speaking can have on your marketing and public relations plans, what are you going to talk about? How do you design a 20-minute speech that will represent you well, show your expertise and richly benefit your audience?

Whatever you choose to speak about, here is a good rule of thumb: Give your audience something they can put to use that day. Give them information, tips, tools, whatever, that they can use to make a change, to move them closer to where they want to be.

It doesn’t have to be complex or profound. It can be very simple. For instance, if you’re a nutritionist, you could tell your audience to drink an additional glass of water every day. Or three tips on how not to get sick on an airplane. If you’re an esthetician, it could be as easy as telling your audience to use sunscreen.

Give, give, and give good, usable information. In fact, think of your speech as a mini-training. What can you teach your audience that will allow them to make a change that will benefit them? A change they can start to make today?

Go deep, not wide. What I mean by this is, dig deep into one or two points rather than shallowly skip through 17 points. If you have 20 minutes, you have enough time to dig deep into one or two points, maximum. Maybe three if you push it. But why push it?

Your audience needs time and repetition to really digest and integrate what you are telling them. You already know what you know, but your audience may not. So, take the time to flesh out each point you make by using examples, stories, statistics, and anecdotes. Give people a lot of ways to get your point.

Anytime you can use a story to illustrate your point, use it. People love hearing stories, and they can more easily take in information when it comes in the form of a story.

I have a client who speaks on the driest material imaginable. Budgeting and cost analysis. His presentations are full of graphs, charts, and long columns of numbers. What a snooze fest!

But he enlivens his presentation with these great stories of his experiences in working with people, stories that sound like excerpts from a soap opera. These stories illustrate his point while keeping his audience awake and amazed.

Another way to illustrate your point is with a demonstration. Another client of mine is a hair stylist, and she did this fun yet highly informative talk on how to talk to your hair stylist. She asked for audience volunteers to role-play an imaginary conversation, making her points all along the way.

Invite audience interaction. How can you include them, get then involved in what you are talking about? This could be as easy as posing a question and having each person turn to the person next to them and talk about it for a few moments. Or you can use props, toys and handouts that become part of the party. Tom Antion is famous for having some kind of toy or gizmo at each person’s place that he effortlessly ties into the theme of his presentation.

Whatever you choose to do, do it your way. I can throw out ideas and suggestions, but you need to create a presentation that works for you as well as your audience. I may love using audience volunteers, but that might not sound all that great to you.

Always ask yourself this question: How can I offer this information in a way that would be outrageously fun for me? Let go of all the rules and suggestions and instruction, and ask yourself, “How can this be outrageously fun for ME?” Because if it’s fun for you, it will be fun and enthralling to your audience. And when you tune in to your sense of fun, you are tuning into your own creative juices and your natural confidence.

My client Sheila was so nervous about an upcoming presentation she had to give at an industry conference. She hadn’t done any public speaking for so long, and this was an incredible opportunity for her to establish herself as an expert in her field, and she was really scared of blowing it.

To make matters worse, the conference organizers demanded that all presentations follow a specific format that was highly restrictive and left no room for creativity or imagination.

I told Sheila to just forget about all the rules and regulations for now, forget about the prescribed format, and just ask herself, “How can I present this material in a way that would be outrageously fun for me?” As she sat with that question, she came up with a great idea that involved a ventriloquist dummy and some outlandish costumes. From there, she was on her way to creating a presentation that she couldn’t wait to give. And, yes, she was even able to make it all fit within the limitations prescribed by the conference.

We forget that self-expression can be fun. When we were kids, we knew that instinctively. We sang and danced and play-acted our days away, recruiting our friends to play along. I used to make my father sit through my created-in-an-instant musicals, filled with bad dance moves and questionable scriptwriting, but I was having the time of my life.

What kinds of self-expression did you love most as a kid? What venues of self-expression do you most enjoy now and how can you incorporate them into your speech? If you love to talk endlessly with friends, then you’ve got it made. Just get up there and chat away. If you love to draw, you can use flip charts, or create your own vaudeville-type announcement boards that announce each point as you present it. I love to sing, so if I can incorporate a song that ties into my speech, you can bet I’ll sing it!

In the next installment, we’ll talk about some more ingredients you can use in your speech that will make it fun and powerful for you and your audience.

Here’s the audio file of the speech I gave last Friday, August 17.


MP3 File

]]> http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/24/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-most-powerful-marketing-toolpart-ii/feed/ Your Big Mouth: Why Public Speaking Is Your Most Powerful Marketing ToolPart One http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/23/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-more-powerful-marketing-toolpart-one/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/23/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-more-powerful-marketing-toolpart-one/#comments Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:15:51 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/?p=90 Last Friday, I spoke at a Connections Networking meeting in Santa Rosa to a group of women entrepreneurs. The subject was, “Your Big Mouth: Your Most Powerful Marketing and Public Relations Tool.”

Since I created all this juicy content for this speech, I thought I’d share it with you here. I’ve broken it up into three installments, but if you want to hear a recording of the actual speech, you can! It’s located at the end of this post.

___________________

I’m going to confess right here and now, I am a marketing junkie. I love marketing. From the tried and true, good old-fashioned variety to the slick, new internet marketing. And I have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on all kinds of marketing tools, marketing plans, marketing trainings, and thousands more learning how to use blogs, podcasts, vlogs, article marketing, MySpace and Craigslist as marketing tools.

Gee, you would think I would be famous by now!

What I have learned from all this expense and experience is this: There is still no single marketing/PR tool that is more powerful, cost-effective, comprehensive and essential than your own big mouth: your ability to talk about who you are and what you do.

Because you can have the flashiest website, the most spectacular direct mail marketing piece, a stellar press release, and all the promotional do-dads in the world, but sooner or later, you are going to have to talk to someone. Someone is going to call you on the phone or come up to you at a networking meeting, and say, “Hey, tell me what you’re all about.” And what you say, how you say it and who you are being while you say it, is either going to move the relationship forward or stop it dead in its tracks.

You use your big mouth as a marketing tool all the time. When you go to networking meeting and you talk to others about your business. You use it all day long as you engage with clients, potential clients, vendors, associates.

But today, we’re going to talk about the big banana of Big Mouth Marketing, and that is public speaking.

Public speaking is the Swiss army knife of marketing and public relations. It is compact, easy to carry, and yet it holds a multi-faceted array of tools and opportunities for you to effectively market your business. I will be bold enough to say that one 20-minute speech can accomplish more for you than four months worth of other marketing projects.

Let me give you an example.

If you go to a networking meeting, and if you’re lucky, you will meet anywhere from 2 to 7 new people. Of those new acquaintances, maybe two of them will walk away from that meeting with a clear idea of your expertise, what you offer, and why you’re the one to do business with. Maybe.

But when you are the speaker at the networking meeting, you are introduced to everyone. You get to meet and talk with everyone in the room. You share your expertise with everyone. Everyone walks out of there knowing who you are, what you do, why and when they should contact you or refer to you.

In a tiny 20-minute segment, you can communicate what you know and establish yourself as someone who offers valuable information that people can really use. You can also collect everyone’s business card (and I’ll tell you a fun way to do that in the next installment) so that you can follow up with these new potential clients. And in some cases, you can sell your products and services right then and there.

But what is truly extraordinary about public speaking is that it allows you to start a relationship with everyone in the room. It’s as if you’re on a first date with a whole crowd of people. And since you’ve already been on a first day, this gives you the perfect reason to invite them on a second date by calling them up or sending them something that says, “Thanks for coming to my presentation. I hope you received some valuable information, etc., and by the way, I’m offering this free teleclass. Would you like to attend?”

There is one other aspect of public speaking that trumps all other marketing endeavors, and that is the shared experience. When you speak to a group, you are creating an experience that is shared by that group, and there is something so powerful, even magical, about that. Something happens when a group of people experience something together rather than separately.

For instance, if you go to see a play and you are the only person in the audience, it is a totally different experience than if you see it with a packed house. It’s the same play, the same material, the same content, but when it is experienced with a group, there is an energy of shared experience that transforms the play into something more than just it’s content.

This is what happens when you speak in public. You are co-creating a shared experience for you and your audience. And because you all experienced it together, there is a level of intimacy and trust that no press release, brochure or even a one-on-one interaction can come close to duplicating.

So, why don’t entrepreneurs rush to do tons of public speaking? There are usually three reasons. They don’t feel confident about getting up and being in front of a group. In other words, they don’t want to experience the stage fright, the nervousness that comes up for them. Another reason is they aren’t sure how to really connect with an audience. Sure, they can talk and talk and talk, but they don’t know how to engage a room full of people.

And the third reason is they don’t know what to speak about. They don’t know how to put together a speech that will show them in their best light, get the message across and work within the restrictions of that particular occasion.

In the upcoming installments of this series, I’ll be giving you some tips on how create great content for your speech. This isn’t an area I usually talk about, so I’ll be pulling in some other experts whom I admire to give you even more pointers and tips. Until then…
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Here is the audio file of the actual speech I gave on August 17.


MP3 File

]]> http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/23/your-big-mouth-why-public-speaking-is-your-more-powerful-marketing-toolpart-one/feed/ Maybe You Should Be Afraid http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/12/maybe-you-should-be-afraid/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/12/maybe-you-should-be-afraid/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 02:12:14 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/?p=89 My friend Michelle, who is a fabulous NLP practitioner, always says that the fear of public speaking is irrational because audiences may hate what you have to say but they don’t come chasing after you with torches and pitchforks.

Oh, yeah?

Well, if a karaoke singer can be attacked, why not a speaker?

It happened on Thursday, August 9, in Seattle, Washington. A well-meaning guy got up to sing a Coldplay song and a woman not only yelled at him, she went up on stage, pushed the guy AND PUNCHED HIM!

Here’s the whole story:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/327017_karaoke10.html

Gee, you all, I feel like a owe you an apology, especially in light of my post about relying on the kindness of strangers. But I really think you’ll be just fine as long as you avoid singing songs by Coldplay.

]]> http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/12/maybe-you-should-be-afraid/feed/ Moving my blog http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/08/moving-my-blog/ http://unconditionalconfidence.com/blog/2007/08/08/moving-my-blog/#comments Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:30:51 +0000 Nancy Tierney http://unconditionalconfidence.com/?p=88 I recently moved my blog out of MoveableType to WordPress.

Gotta say, I’m loving it. But I need to switch all my Technorati stuff.

Hence, this post. It’s just a post to tell Technorati that I’m here in my new home.

Technorati Profile

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