Having done some network marketing myself I know that it comes as something of a shock to people that they have to do speaking in order to promote their business. Sometimes even the most confident speakers find certain aspects of it are challenging. It seems that we are quite happy to promote other people's products and services but then find it difficult to tell people about our own business.
This is not restricted to network marketers. I saw a TV programme this week where a woman had been made redundant and then decided to start her own cake making business. She said she couldn't understand why she found it so daunting to talk about her own business when she'd been doing it for years for her previous employer.
I think the difference is that your own business is personal. You are putting your head above the parapet and asking people to look at you. If you have not been used to the limelight it can be very nerve racking.
This reminds me, the general public are often surprised that actors and other performers are nervous about making speeches. You only have to watch award ceremonies to see how bad some of them are. My theory is that they are comfortable with saying other people's words (e.g. from a script) but have trouble expressing themselves on their own behalf.
I'd be interested to know what you do to overcome nerves in these situations.
Friday, 22 May 2009
Monday, 23 March 2009
A Fit of the Giggles
At the weekend I ran one of my courses on Developing Powerful Presentations. They were a great group and we had a lot of fun. By the end of the day they had become comfortable enough to be challenged to talk for one minute on any topic I gave them. None of them knew what their topic would be so it certainly set their hearts pounding.
One of the speakers stood up and launched into a speech that used some of the material from an earlier presentation. His sense of fun was very infectious and it made one of the people in the front row smile. Well that just set him off with such a fit of the giggles that he couldn't speak.
Every time he thought he had it under control he would take a deep breath to speak, catch the eye of the same person in the front row and it would set him off again. I think it's called 'corpsing' by actors. The rest of the group were quite amused by it all and it raised the question of how to cope with this situation if it happens to you.
The first thing to remember is that it is a physical reaction and it can sometimes happen as a result of nerves. The first thing is to do something to interrupt this physical reaction. This could be something as simple as taking a deep breath or moving yourself into a different position.
Once you've managed to stop the giggling you then need to prevent it coming back. Here are a few tips to help you do this:
One of the speakers stood up and launched into a speech that used some of the material from an earlier presentation. His sense of fun was very infectious and it made one of the people in the front row smile. Well that just set him off with such a fit of the giggles that he couldn't speak.
Every time he thought he had it under control he would take a deep breath to speak, catch the eye of the same person in the front row and it would set him off again. I think it's called 'corpsing' by actors. The rest of the group were quite amused by it all and it raised the question of how to cope with this situation if it happens to you.
The first thing to remember is that it is a physical reaction and it can sometimes happen as a result of nerves. The first thing is to do something to interrupt this physical reaction. This could be something as simple as taking a deep breath or moving yourself into a different position.
Once you've managed to stop the giggling you then need to prevent it coming back. Here are a few tips to help you do this:
- Avoid repeating whatever started you giggling in the beginning. If it is a particular person in the audience then don't look at them! If it is a particular word or phrase then say it in a different way!
- As soon as you feel the start of the giggles notice where it starts and where it goes as it moves through your body. You can prevent the giggles happening by reversing the movement!
- Think about something serious that is guaranteed to bring you back down to earth.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Taking the fear out of networking
Along with speaking in public, the greatest fear for many people is entering a room full of strangers. The odd thing is that someone with this fear thinks they are the only one who feels that way. It comes as quite a revelation to them when they realise that all those other, seemingly confident, people are also nervous.
It doesn't seem to matter how often someone does networking this fear can hit in the strangest circumstances. A friend was telling me recently about a group of senior managers who attend a regular forum with him. One of the managers regularly networks within his region and is quite comfortable with it. However, he attended an event in London and admitted to my friend that he had spent the whole time sitting in a corner sending texts.
What a waste!
If only he had realised that there were probably several other people in the room feeling the same way, he could have had a much more productive evening.
I remember going to my first breakfast meeting with the Institute of Directors. I stood at the signing in desk feeling very insecure because I felt that these people were 'real' directors of large companies and that I was a fraud. Then a lady spoke to me nervously saying she was new and would I show her the ropes. It was at that point that a lightbulb went on for me! I wasn't alone!
Funnily enough, as soon as I started thinking about helping other people my nerves disappeared. I now make it a policy to look for someone standing nervously in a corner and I go up and introduce myself. This has developed my network to a huge extent as well as my standing with my colleagues.
With this in mind - go out and have fun networking!
Learn about Strategic Networking https://betterlifestyle.litupp.com/course/people-strategic-networking/
Friday, 24 October 2008
Knowing how to negotiate
If you want to know how to negotiate well just observe a child who wants something. Even if they’ve been told ‘No’ they will try again … and again … and again. As they get more sophisticated they won’t just ask out right for it, they will find different ways to get their point across. They may even say something like “If I wash the car for a month can I have ….”. The main thing you will notice is that they DON’T GIVE UP.
In life everybody negotiates about almost everything. It’s just we don’t always realise it and that’s the problem. We often think that negotiating happens at specific times, such as between customers and suppliers, but that’s not the whole story. What happens when you and your friends want to go out for the evening? There is a lot of negotiating that goes on around when and where you are going and with whom.
Negotiations in practice are a messy, almost chaotic, experience. Human beings are given to wandering attention, digressions, circular arguments, repetition, interruptions, cross-talk, irrelevancies, and a whole range of emotional responses from the passive sulk to the violent outburst.
What’s the worst thing you can do to a negotiator? Be rude? No … accept his or her first offer. Why is that? Well if someone accepts your first offer you start to wonder how high they would have been willing to go. On the other side you start to wonder if you really got a bargain.
What’s the negotiator’s most useful question? If you put the words “What if…” in the front of every question.
In life everybody negotiates about almost everything. It’s just we don’t always realise it and that’s the problem. We often think that negotiating happens at specific times, such as between customers and suppliers, but that’s not the whole story. What happens when you and your friends want to go out for the evening? There is a lot of negotiating that goes on around when and where you are going and with whom.
Negotiations in practice are a messy, almost chaotic, experience. Human beings are given to wandering attention, digressions, circular arguments, repetition, interruptions, cross-talk, irrelevancies, and a whole range of emotional responses from the passive sulk to the violent outburst.
What’s the worst thing you can do to a negotiator? Be rude? No … accept his or her first offer. Why is that? Well if someone accepts your first offer you start to wonder how high they would have been willing to go. On the other side you start to wonder if you really got a bargain.
What’s the negotiator’s most useful question? If you put the words “What if…” in the front of every question.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Can you believe it?
I was at a networking lunch recently and one of the ladies is a mortgage advisor. We had the normal networking conversation around what we do and how we find business. The whole thing took an unexpected turn when I explained how I was finding more people asking me for help because they were being asked to do a presentation as part of the interview process.
She suddenly became excited and said “Oh I wish you’d been able to help my son because he had to do one for a part-time job last week”. Imagining that he was going to be speaking to groups of people on behalf of a charity or as part of a youth training scheme I was shocked when she told me what he had actually applied to do.
He’s a university student and he dropped his CV in to a local company on the off-chance that they might want some part-time staff. They called him a week later and asked him to go in to see them. As part of the interview he had to ‘sell them an ashtray’ and then do a formal presentation.
The job he was applying for…
… was at the checkout in Blockbuster!
So, if you know ANYONE who is going for an interview in the near future tell them to brush up on their presentation skills
She suddenly became excited and said “Oh I wish you’d been able to help my son because he had to do one for a part-time job last week”. Imagining that he was going to be speaking to groups of people on behalf of a charity or as part of a youth training scheme I was shocked when she told me what he had actually applied to do.
He’s a university student and he dropped his CV in to a local company on the off-chance that they might want some part-time staff. They called him a week later and asked him to go in to see them. As part of the interview he had to ‘sell them an ashtray’ and then do a formal presentation.
The job he was applying for…
… was at the checkout in Blockbuster!
So, if you know ANYONE who is going for an interview in the near future tell them to brush up on their presentation skills
Monday, 13 October 2008
Getting Your Timing Right
Is your timing right?
Recently I've been contacted by people needing some urgent help with presentations. They've found themselves in a situation where their future prospects hinge on the success of a presentation.
It's bad enough having to make a presentation if it's not something you do regularly. When your whole future is riding on the outcome it puts you under additional pressure.
Fortunately they came to me with enough time to be able to do something about it. I was able to help by giving them some tools to control their nerves and tips on how to improve their performance.
The main key to their success was getting their timing right. We completely rewrote their presentations so that they were able to get their points across within the allotted time. This was crucial as one of them had not even made her main point before she ran out of time using her original script!
The trick is to decide what message you want to get across to your audience. You then structure your presentation so you have a clear beginning and ending with 3 key supporting points in the middle. You MUST practice saying it so that you can time how long it takes and if it is too long remove some of the material.
Someone told me recently that 200 words take about 5 minutes to deliver. This is probably a good rule of thumb, although it does depend on how quickly you speak!
Remember - good timing shows professionalism and courtesy towards your audience and other speakers, if there are any, so it is a critical part of your preparation. Don't leave anything to chance - rehearse it.
Friday, 20 June 2008
Your voice says a lot
When people find out that I help with presentation skills I often get the comment "You couldn't help our diector/chairman/boss could you? He speaks in such a monotone it's boring". This is a common problem. Our voices rise and fall naturally when we speak with passion but something seems to happen when we have to make a presentation.
I don't know if it’s nerves or the formality of the occasion that causes the stilted style of a lot of speakers. Admittedly there are some people who do have a limited range to their vocal variety, even in everyday conversation, but even these people are able to enrich their vocal abilities with a bit of practice.
I think that some people believe that serious topics require a serious voice and that they will lose credibility if they put a bit of emotion into it. This is not the case - your audience wants to know you feel strongly about the topic you’re presenting. It helps them form an emotional bond with you that makes them more likely to listen to what you’re saying even if they don’t necessarily agree with it. They also want to be informed, stimulated and, yes let’s admit it, entertained!
So what can you do about your vocal style?
You obviously need to practice, but your colleagues would find it a bit strange if you suddenly started putting on silly voices or speaking like Laurence Olivier, particularly if that's the complete opposite to your normal style. I’ve found that children make a good audience to choose for practice as they expect to be entertained and they love anything that is silly and makes them laugh.
An ideal time to try out new ways of speaking is the bedtime story for your children or grandchildren. You can afford to be as wild and whacky as possible with the different voices you use for the characters. There is usually a variety of emotions involved in a story so you can also practice how these will sound. This helps you to expand your vocal comfort zone and you get instant feedback!
If you don’t have access to any children you could perhaps find a ‘speaking buddy’. This is someone who also wants to improve their vocal skills. When there are two or more of you in the same boat it is easier to be supportive and to get feedback. You need to agree to support each other in being as outrageous and silly as you can so that you can expand your comfort zone.
A good exercise when working with other adults is ‘emotional expression’. Take a couple of words such as “I’m fine” and take it in turns to say them. Before each person speaks the other one must state the emotion that the speaker is attempting to use and then feed back if they achieved the goal after the words have been spoken. The aim is to use as many different emotions as possible and to work towards fine graduations of emotion so that you can differentiate between angry and annoyed for example.
Another exercise is to stand at opposite ends of a long room and practice shouting at each other and then whispering so that you can still be heard. The trick here is to use your breath control. You actually speak on the out breath so you will need to take in a lot of air to increase volume. Remember to use your stomach to produce volume not your vocal chords.
If you can do all this in a ‘safe’ environment it will seem a lot easier to do more toned down versions when you are in a ‘scary’ environment making a speech.
I don't know if it’s nerves or the formality of the occasion that causes the stilted style of a lot of speakers. Admittedly there are some people who do have a limited range to their vocal variety, even in everyday conversation, but even these people are able to enrich their vocal abilities with a bit of practice.
I think that some people believe that serious topics require a serious voice and that they will lose credibility if they put a bit of emotion into it. This is not the case - your audience wants to know you feel strongly about the topic you’re presenting. It helps them form an emotional bond with you that makes them more likely to listen to what you’re saying even if they don’t necessarily agree with it. They also want to be informed, stimulated and, yes let’s admit it, entertained!
So what can you do about your vocal style?
You obviously need to practice, but your colleagues would find it a bit strange if you suddenly started putting on silly voices or speaking like Laurence Olivier, particularly if that's the complete opposite to your normal style. I’ve found that children make a good audience to choose for practice as they expect to be entertained and they love anything that is silly and makes them laugh.
An ideal time to try out new ways of speaking is the bedtime story for your children or grandchildren. You can afford to be as wild and whacky as possible with the different voices you use for the characters. There is usually a variety of emotions involved in a story so you can also practice how these will sound. This helps you to expand your vocal comfort zone and you get instant feedback!
If you don’t have access to any children you could perhaps find a ‘speaking buddy’. This is someone who also wants to improve their vocal skills. When there are two or more of you in the same boat it is easier to be supportive and to get feedback. You need to agree to support each other in being as outrageous and silly as you can so that you can expand your comfort zone.
A good exercise when working with other adults is ‘emotional expression’. Take a couple of words such as “I’m fine” and take it in turns to say them. Before each person speaks the other one must state the emotion that the speaker is attempting to use and then feed back if they achieved the goal after the words have been spoken. The aim is to use as many different emotions as possible and to work towards fine graduations of emotion so that you can differentiate between angry and annoyed for example.
Another exercise is to stand at opposite ends of a long room and practice shouting at each other and then whispering so that you can still be heard. The trick here is to use your breath control. You actually speak on the out breath so you will need to take in a lot of air to increase volume. Remember to use your stomach to produce volume not your vocal chords.
If you can do all this in a ‘safe’ environment it will seem a lot easier to do more toned down versions when you are in a ‘scary’ environment making a speech.
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