Posts Tagged "public speaking skills training"

Of Course You’re Nervous

May 16th, 2017 |no comments

The number one fear people have when speaking, selling their services or asking someone out on a date is that they are nervous. For some it can be debilitating and others just mildly distracting.

Of course you’re nervous – you’re human.

Nervousness is an adrenaline rush and serves to prepare us to perform. Without the correct amount of nervousness you’re going to fail. The secret is to harness your nervousness so you can perform without it distracting you.

Like most things in life – It’s a balance

Cheers

Darren

Making Money With Your Public Speaking Skills

March 24th, 2008 |no comments

This blog was not created to show people how to become wealthy public speakers. There are plenty of public speaking blogs out there that can do that.

However, I recently came across this piece of advice from Patricia Fripp, a San Francisco based public speaking coach. They points are great and should be spread. You can get more of Patricia Fripps insights here.

Everything in life is about marketing. Weather you are trying to sell an idea at work or your services as a speaker you need to understand what you have to offer others. Below are some points that will help.

Successful marketing means that you identify prospective clients and position yourself in the market so they choose you over your competition. When I sit down with clients who want to position their marketing, I seek the answers to four basic questions:

1. WHO IS YOUR POTENTIAL CLIENT?

Who wants to buy or could be stimulated to want to buy? Who is in a position to buy what you sell? What geographical and financial factors affect this ability? A good way to identify future clients is to listen
— really listen — to those you have now. Their comments, especially negative ones, will help you tailor both your product and your approach to other prospects.

2. WHY WILL THEY WANT TO BUY?

What emotional and physical factors will influence them? I just worked with an east coast psychiatrist who ran a practice with ten other psychiatrists and wanted to position herself. Our conversations quickly disclosed that her community was predominantly upwardly mobile professionals. Many of the women had delayed having children. Due to fertility drugs, a high percentage of families had twins, triplets, or more. We decided to focus her practice on these families, the first practice in the area to do that. How did we do this? First, we realized her potential audience was geographical, that is, in her community rather than regional, national or international. These prospects had distinctive demographics. By appealing to a unique aspect, we hit on her core group. She’s now hugely successful in her practice.

3. WHAT ANGLE SHOULD YOU TAKE? How is your product or service unique?

Why is it perfect for your target audience? How is it different from everyone else’s? How will it fulfill your core group’s needs in a way that no one else can? This is positioning yourself in the market.
(Remember how Avis advertised, “We try harder.”) As an example, when other advertising consultants do presentations, they talk about budgets, print versus TV, soft versus hard sell. I position myself by emphasizing that you start by targeting your audience, positioning your product, and creating distinctive selling propositions. Lots of mom-and-pop businesses, confronted by super stores, can’t compete or even survive unless they find a unique niche to fill.

4. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SELL IT?

We all know people with great ideas, products, and inventions. They spend a fortune developing this product, but it sits there because they have no idea what to do with it. Is there a system in place to put your product in the customers’ hands and return their money to you? Or do you need to create one?

Cheers

Darren Fleming
Australian Public Speaking courses

Who is Frightened of Obamas Speaking Skills?

March 5th, 2008 |1 comment

Election time brings out the most unusual of campaign tactics. If your opposition is not bring skeletons out of the closet, they are trying to plant some in there.

But the current battle between Hillary and Obama seems to have found another angle to attack. Hillary is attacking Obamas strength. She is attacking his ability to stand and deliver a strong message that the people want to hear.

It is clear that Obama has great public speaking skills, and this (in part) has hurt Hillary. But why should this be seen as a target for attack? If he had great economic skills, or great military skills, would they be attacking him for that?

There is a clear reason why they have attacked Obamas great public speaking skills, and it is this: Great speakers are seen as great leaders. If you can stand at the front of the room and speak, you are automatically seen as a leader. Why? It’s because no-one else wants to stand up and speak. If you can confidently stand there, speak with composure and enunciate a clear message, you will automatically be seen as someone to follow. This is why the Hillary camp is so afraid of his speaking skills; they know that he is a better speaker than she is, and therefore more attractive to the swinging voters.

‘Til next time.

Cheers

Darren Fleming – Australia’s public Speaking Coach

https://executivespeaking.com.au

Kevin Rudd Vs. Obama

January 23rd, 2008 |no comments

There was a great article in the Sydney Morning Herald by Stephanie Peatling analysing the public speaking skills of the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with those of US Presidential Hopeful Barack Obama. It’s a great article that highlights the different styles of speaking of recent Australian political leaders and compares them to Obama. They are like chalk and cheese!

The full article can be found here. I have also copied the full article below as I do not know for how long the link will work.

Obama offers hope for the art of speechmaking

Stephanie Peatling
January 21, 2008

Cast your mind back to election night. It’s not that long ago, not even two months. It’s hard, because to go there is to remember the speech Kevin Rudd gave as he claimed victory for the Labor Party after 11 grim years in Opposition.An occasion, one might think, for a rousing, stirring, passionate speech full of hope and optimism.Instead, there was a lengthy dissertation on the task ahead and a short, sharp reminder that even though the night was one for celebration it would be followed by an early morning of work – a none too subtle hint to staff not to let frivolity get in the way of a clear head.For months before that night Rudd had kept the media entertained with his frequent use of metaphors – the bridge too far, the fork in the road, the base camp of Everest. He is a far cry from the walking thesaurus that was Kim Beazley, a Labor leader who would never say “unquestioning underling” when “myrmidon” would do; would never use “wordy” when “prolix” could be dusted off; or “useless activity” when “boondoggle” was there for the taking.A press gallery favourite was “termagant”, which Beazley once hurled at Tony Abbott, who no doubt scurried to check its meaning (“an imaginary Muslim deity portrayed as a violent and overbearing character in medieval mystery plays”) before responding.

But although Beazley tossed out words not used by the average person for several decades, it was done with delight and love for language. He would never have told journalists he did not want the gathering of federal, state and territory leaders known as the Council of Australian Governments “to become a sort of dead horse”.

“I want it to be a workhorse, not a dead horse. I don’t want to whip it. I just want to stroke it gently … Just lately the poetry’s lacking. But my intention is to meet it regularly and actually turn it into a real workhorse of the Federation,” Rudd said in one of his first press conferences as Prime Minister.

John Howard ushered in a new era of no-frills speaking and there is not yet much evidence to suggest the new Prime Minister wants to return to the sweeping verbal landscapes of Paul Keating. Rudd’s use of language so far is functional and administrative. In English, at least. In Mandarin he seems to get a far more appreciative response.

Rudd does have a staffer whose job includes speechwriting but not someone whose only job is speechwriting. Keating had the lyrical Don Watson as his speechwriter. Before him went Graham Freudenberg, the great Labor speechwriter who wrote Arthur Calwell’s 1965 censure of the Vietnam War, Gough Whitlam’s “It’s Time” speech of 1972 and also wrote for Bob Hawke, Neville Wran, Barrie Unsworth, Simon Crean, Bob Carr and Sir William Deane.

Freudenberg wrote in his elegant autobiography, A Figure Of Speech, that his retirement at the age of 70 allowed him to take a new interest in the role of political language and speeches. He attributed much of his interest to George Bush, whose presidency, he wrote, is “being defined by the speeches and the phrase-making of his speechwriters”.“The United States seemed to have become a rhetocracy, ruled by professional wordsmiths: ‘axis of evil’, ‘war on terror’ and ‘shock and awe’ are all speechwriters’ phrases … Despite my professional admiration for the craftsmanship of Bush’s speeches, the whole process seemed to me an absurd and dangerous separation of rhetoric and emotion from substance, argument and reason.”Freudenberg goes on to cite a 2004 essay by the philosopher Raimond Gaita, who speculated that the running down of political language was due to the fundamental cynicism among voters, who, instead of seeing the possibilities for good in politics, saw only the chances for personal gain and self-protection.Maybe the language of Australian politics merely reflects the broader popular culture, with its Big Brother participants and Corey Worthingtons and seeming lack of room or desire for elegance and subtlety.

But maybe there is hope.

Thousands of Americans are responding to the speeches of Barack Obama, whose emotive use of language is propelling him towards the White House.

“Years from now, you’ll look back and you’ll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope,” Obama told people gathered to hear him claim victory in the Iowa primary earlier this month.

“For many months, we’ve been teased, even derided, for talking about hope. But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it.”

If Americans can respond so enthusiastically to such flair there is no reason to doubt Australians would do the same.

All we need is for someone to start speaking.

Top Tips for Nailing that Speech

December 17th, 2007 |no comments

I came across this article on public speaking today.

It opens with a great point, if you want to make a speech, have something to say. Too often people get up to speak because they feel they have too, or they simply want too. This bores the audience! (the classic example of this is the Boss that stands up at the Christmas party and goes on and on and on and on about nothing, all because he feels that he has to make a speech. They’d be much better to say “Merry Christmas and have a good drink” and be out of there in 30 seconds than to crap on for half an hour! Trust me, those at the party will appreciate it more. After-all, what do you want to do at a Christmas party – listen to the boss go on, or have a drink and relax!

So here is the article. It is well worth a read. http://www.forbes.com/home/entrepreneurs/2007/08/01/sun-microsystems-nokia-ent-sales-cx_ll_0801byb07_publicspeaking.html

Merry Christmas!

Cheers

Darren Fleming

https://executivespeaking.com.au