Presentation Skills: Vulnerability

I learned a great tip, at the recent National Speakers Association convention
while standing around talking shop in the hotel lobby. John Meluso,
spent some time with me and noted that I was not showing any vulnerability at all near the
beginning of my program. I would roll along and then tell a signature story at the END
of my talk that bared all. John, pointed out to me that being the hard charging kind of
speaker that I am, that I probably have been alienating many of the more sensitive audience
members. It is likely that my style ran over them right from the start and caused them to retreat
for cover, thus making them very distant from me emotionally. Because of his astute observation,
I will change the order of some of my material to better connect with more subdued audience
members.

An old boy coal miner friend of mine once told me, "The schoolhouse door is always
open." John, I want to thank you for reminding me that we all can get better.

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Public Speaking: Audio Marketing

Technology is moving fast and has now made using audio to your
strategic marketing advantage cheap and easy.

You can have customers phone in a testimonial about your speeches
or for your products and services and have their voice up on your
website almost immediately.

Have them email you a picture of themselves to go with their
audio clip, or grab one from their website and you have an
awesome and powerful promotional tool to put on your
website.

Last week you received a 4 minute Audio Postcard with a speaking
tip on delivering punchlines. If you missed it, turn up your
speakers and visit:
http://members.audiogenerator.com/postcards/?1802719

This postcard required no technical expertise whatsoever. You
don't even have to have a website. You can just email your
prospects and customers the link to your audio tips and
promotions.

Here is a sample page of testimonials from people who attended my
retreat center weekends on Internet Marketing.
http://www.GreatInternetMarketing.com/retreattestimonials.htm

You can also put an unlimited amount of audio clips of up to 30
minutes each that showcase your speeches, stories and humor.

To get this tremendous and easy to use audio technology for
yourself I've posted a link at one of my websites
http://www.KickStartSound.com



Shopping cart system that Tom uses. You get a three-hour
orientation with Tom narrating to lead you through the basic set
up and advanced sales strategies.
http://www.kickstartcart.com

Public Speaking: Contract Marketing

Smart speakers attempt to maximize the amount of money they make
at each speaking engagement. Contract marketing is one way to do
it.

The idea is to put a mention of other products or services in
your contract / agreement after you have landed the speaking
engagement.

It could go something like this, "Additional learning materials
available to match this presentation."

You would put this in a prominent place in your agreement.

Many organizations have budgets to buy educational materials for
their members or employees. Why shouldn't they buy them from you?

You might say, "Tom, why don't you just discuss additional
product sales up front with the meeting planner and put the deal
right in your contract?" The reason is that the meeting planner
doesn't always know how much budget that is available for this
until all the top priorities are under contract.

When the final review of the contracts occurs your reminder in
your contract could land a very big deal doubling or tripling the
value of your engagement.

Attention Speakers: Learn To make $5500 Every Time You Speak!

Public Speaking: Simple Sells

I've come up with example after example over the past couple
years of how having a simple, yet professional website attracts
business better than a complicated flashy site. Again, this month
I've got an awesome example of a site that for a very tiny
investment has brought me an enormous return. That site is
http://www.public-speaking.org

This month it got in the very prestigious section of "Inc.
Magazine" called "Best of the Web." Not only did it get in the
section, it got the highest rating of all the other sites, some
of which were backed by extremely large corporations. You can
read the entire article here
http://www2.inc.com/search/23233.html

Folks, this didn't happen by accident, although there is always
an element of good fortune when something like this occurs. My
experience has shown that gaining knowledge in your field usually
accelerates your good fortune.

The technique I used with this site was to prepare it
specifically for acceptance by Yahoo! the grandaddy of all the
search directories. It has a clean and simple appearance. It's
extremely easy to navigate. The name is alphabetical so it gets
listed higher in the directory. It has a nice graphic banner with
the organization name on it. The site has many other nuances that
I teach in Butt Camp to secure a good Yahoo! listing. The only
thing at all that moves on the site is a pop up box that I only
recently put on to get more ezine subscribers.

Here are some of the comments from their panel of CEOs: "Quick
and easy to use. The glossary lists most of the important things
that all speakers should know." "Excellent content." They didn't
say, "I was so impressed with a hard to load annoying Flash
presentation" now did they?

Get people that don't know you, or that don't know you well to go
through your website and pick it apart. Yes, it might hurt after
you've sunk tons of money into some fabulous artistic design, but
it's going to hurt worse if no one comes to your site because
they can't find it easily and if they come there and leave
immediately because they can't figure out what to do.

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Public Speaking: Spread Your Content

The business model for a content website is that the site owners
gather as much content as they can on a particular topic. They
then try to attract as many people as possible who are interested
in that topic. The more people that visit the site, the more the
advertising on the site is worth. You can tap into this large
volume of website visitors for free.

Let's say a site is totally about automobiles. They have all the
new models listed along with articles on leasing, finance,
insurance, how to buy a used car etc. Guess where they get all
these articles. Of course, from subject matter experts like you.
You generally don't get paid for the articles (it's possible you
could), but you get paid by your bio line and link back to your
website.

WHY IS THIS GOOD
This is good in several ways. First, a link from a very high
traffic site is worth more to you than a link from a low traffic
site. The link alone helps your search engine rankings because of
"link popularity." Second, the article you write has high
credibility for appearing on a large respected site. This means
that people that click over to your site are already predisposed
to like what you have to say and believe you are credible before
they ever pick up the phone to call.

You only need to land a few of these deals to add a tremendous
number of website visitors to your site . . . all of whom could
spend money with you in one way or the other.


HOW TO DO IT
To get your content listed, search the Internet for sites that
are related to your topic area. They don't have to be "exactly"
related. For instance, customer service experts would be welcome
on any business related site either small or large.

Email, write, call, fax or do anything it takes to get through to
the powers that be at the website of interest. Persistence pays
off in this game. Offer your credentials and sample articles and
you just might be their next featured columnist . . . and that
means millions of potentials leads for your business.

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Great Public Speaking: Speaker Humor

=> A boring speaker: One who doesnt go without saying.

=> With some corporations quality is their middle name.
The problem is that their first name is "lousy."

=> America is a great country. Where else could a CEO
lose a billion dollars and get a 14 million dollar
bonus for it.

=> I bought a dog that is a cross between a pit bull and
a labrador retriever. At least if he bites my leg
off, he ll bring it back to me.

=> Health care executives are now wearing rubber gloves.
It s not for sanitary reasons. They just dont want
to leave fingerprints on your wallet.

=> Im shooting for immortality. It is a long shot I admit,
but someone has to be first.

=> I listened to my motivational tapes backwards and
became a failure.

=> I always wondered when Im flying if the seat cushion
becomes a flotation device, why cant the plane
become a boat?

=> Old Age: When it takes you longer to get over a good time
than to have it.

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Public Speaking: Look At This Offer!

I have offered my Wake 'Em Up Video Professional Speaking System on eBay!

Times are tight right now so I thought I could save you a couple of bucks on this fantastic system. Click the link above to go directly to that page in my store.

Learn to make $5500 or more per speech!

Public Speaking: Doors And Windows

When deciding how to set up a presentation room when you have full control of the logistics, pay close attention to these two major distracters . . . doors and windows.

DOORS CAN BE A PROBLEM IN SEVERAL WAYS.

A. They may have squeaky hinges -- Solution: ask maintenance to oil them.
B. They may have really loud latches -- Solution: use the masking tape in your accessories bag (you do have one right?) to tape the latch so that you don't hear it engage when the door opens and closes. Also, make a sign and have it with your notes that says,"In session. Please enter quietly" or something like that.

If possible you want to face the doors so that every time someone enters or leaves they are not distractingly in the line of site of the audience. If you are a humorous presenter, you may deliver pre-planned ad libs to people coming and going because you will see them instantly.

WINDOWS (not the computer kind although we know they can betrouble too :) )

Windows can cause lighting problems when showing visuals and be extremely distracting especially if there is beautiful scenery orother distractions outside. I try to close the curtains if at all possible to knock out both of those problems at once.
If there are no curtains, you may have to really scramble to rethink your visuals which in bright daylight might be impossible to see. In desperation circumstances I've taped up , flip chart paper (it's not that good) wrapping paper, and news paper, but in every one of those case things still weren't that good. One time I hung my overcoat over a window. The more you know about the room in advance, the better you'll do.

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Public Speaking: WOW Your Audience

What do you do during your presentations that cause the audience to say WOW? Dewitt Jones, a former photographer for National Geographic uses slides that literally give you goose pimples. Tom Ogden, an award winning magician from the Magic Castle in Los Angeles uses, what else, magic. Dave Gorden tells a story about Walt Disney. I use a special freeze frame video segment and shoot fire in the air.

In fact, there are many things that you can use or do to make your audience say WOW! You may have great voice quality like my friend, author and former radio announcer, Rick Ott. You may use your appearance like professional speaker Larry Winget who wears funny glasses and ties. You might sing or play a musical instrument or juggle or use props.

If you want to push your name up the memorability chart, put something unique in your presentations that causes the audience members to go WOW!

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