You’ve probably heard it before, that more than even death, Americans fear public speaking.
While the political climate in this country has caused some new fears to pop up on the radar, most reported surveys over time show that if public speaking isn’t the thing we fear most, it’s right up there near the top.
And for most people, it can just be one of those things they avoid like a spider all their lives without any great repercussions.
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, however, you would do yourself a big disservice by having the attitude that speaking in public is irrelevant to you because you’re “just” looking to start a work from home business.
Fortunately, mastering the art of speaking is not as hard as it may first sound.
Today we’re going to look at why you should care about public speaking, and cover three tips to help you conquer whatever fear you may have surrounding speaking.
Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Good Speakers
Being a good speaker doesn’t mean you have to love doing it.
Even Richard Branson, who makes hundreds of public appearances and seems completely comfortable doing it, confesses in his book The Virgin Way, that he dislikes public speaking.
But even if you don’t eventually make a habit of it, developing the skills of a public speaker will serve you well as an entrepreneur for at least three reasons.
1. Confident Speakers are Better Leaders
As a business owner, you are naturally a leader.
And you can’t really lead through silence.
Think of the people you know professionally and socially. Some are naturally timid, don’t speak up a lot, and don’t have a strong presence when they do.
These are not the people that you see leading others, in any situation, but especially in business.
Being a confident speaker gives you instant credibility and causes people to listen to you and pay attention to what you say.
2. Good Speakers are Better Communicators
Maybe being on stage in front of hundreds, or thousands, of people and getting paid to speak is nowhere on your list of goals.
That’s fine, but you should still master public speaking.
Because it will make you a better communicator in that it forces you to organize your thoughts and get them out of your head.
And as a business owner, your ability to communicate is crucial.
Most of the money-making activities in your business require effective communication, whether it’s talking to potential and existing customers, negotiating contracts with outside service providers, or networking with colleagues and mentors.
Every interaction you have, from a one-on-one conversation, to running a meeting with five or 500 people, is an example of public speaking.
3. Speaking Helps You Learn to Think on Your Feet
Another advantage of public speaking is that, no matter how prepared you are, you’re going to have to think on your feet when you get up there.
Anyone can read prepared remarks word-for-word from a piece of paper, but when you practice public speaking you’ll learn that the effective way to do it is to go with the flow of the audience and where your thoughts and experiences take you when speaking.
In business, you’ll be asked to think on your feet most every day.
Whether it’s a customer complaint or request, a technical problem that’s interrupting your sales process, or a marketing campaign that isn’t working, the ability to think quickly, adapt to unforeseen situations, and course correct without much notice is a must for the successful entrepreneur.
3 Tips For Conquering Your Fear
While there are probably a few people you know who appear to be natural-born speakers, most of us have at least some reservations about getting up in front of more than one person and giving any kind of a talk or presentation.
There are three things you can do that will make your speeches go better, and thus put you at ease as the person up there trying to make it through your allotted time without running to hide in the bathroom.
1. Engage Your Audience With Stories
When you think about listening to a speech, the word “boring” may pop into your head.
One of the key factors to being successful as a speaker is to not be boring.
If you’re boring, the audience sends you bored vibes up to the stage, causing you to panic and probably be even more boring as you try to just get through it and get out of there.
The number one rule to fighting boredom is to tell stories during your speeches.
People love stories, and they will listen to them in anticipation of the outcome.
People especially love stories they can relate to, so don’t just talk at your audience, talk with them.
Asking people to raise their hands, nod their head in agreement, or shout out simple words like yes and no, will have your engaged audience throwing love vibes up to you and will bring out the best in you as a speaker.
Where do you get the stories? From your own life, from friends, from things you’ve heard or read in line at the grocery store.
It really makes no difference, just think “stories” when you approach speaking on any topic.
2. Tap Into Multiple Senses to Keep Your Audience Focused
If you can, avoid just standing in front of your audience and droning on like a talking head.
The more of your audience members’ senses you can tap into, the happier everyone will be.
Use Visually Appealing Slides
If you’re required or allowed to have slides, don’t just list bullet points and read them to your audience.
Include colorful graphics, funny pictures, anything that’s a pattern interrupt to what your audience would expect to see.
Change slides every 60 seconds or so for maximum visual appeal.
Play a Short Video
Break things up by playing a 2-5 minute video clip.
If it’s something funny or moving in some way, all the better, but really anything to shift the audience’s attentions to another speaker for a few minutes will do.
Have a Creative Handout
Your imagination is the limit here, but it’s worth spending a little more time and/or money to come up with something your audience can hold on to and shift their attention to.
You don’t want it to be something dense, some kind of information-filled handout they spend their time reading instead of listening to you.
It could be a sheet of paper you have some pictures on to illustrate your points or stories. At the appropriate time you say, look at photo one or diagram two and you’ll see what I mean here.
Again, it’s just about keeping them involved and shifting their attentions to different senses.
It could be a two-sided piece of card stock that’s simply green on one side and red on the other. Sprinkled in your talk you could have times when you say, “Do you agree with me?”
You’ll have previously instructed people that there will be a few times that their feedback will matter to you, and could they please hold up the green side when they’re in agreement and red if they disagree.
Hopefully you get the point.
Use your creative mind to come up with anything that will keep your audience on its toes and tuned in to what you’re doing up there.
3. Practice, Practice, Practice
The only shortcut to success when it comes to public speaking is to practice as often as you can, in as many environments as you can, with as many different topics as you can.
While you may eventually end up being a speaker who demands $5,000+ just to step on stage, that’s certainly not the goal from the start.
Speak anywhere you can on any topic you can, and do it for free as long as you need to.
Local business clubs and organizations are often looking for speakers, so simply connecting with these groups in your community and getting your name and interest out there is the best way to get started.
Kids Party Characters owner Cheryl Jacobs is continuously honing her skills in this area and has found Toastmasters to be the perfect environment in which to get her practice.
With chapters all over the country, and internationally, the purpose of Toastmasters is to give you a place to improve your speaking skills in a supportive and nurturing environment.
This helps guarantee that you’ll get honest feedback that people will be naturally reluctant to give if you just ask them how they liked your talk.
Another benefit of Toastmasters is that with over 350,000 members nationwide, the group provides a good opportunity for business networking.
Chances are you’ll meet someone who can directly benefit your business, or who at least knows someone who is a good connection for your business.
The important thing is that you take that first step, start small, and get talking to anybody who will listen.
You’ll find public speaking to be an invaluable business skill and not near as scary as it first seems to most people.
And remember that Kids Party Characters is here if you need a business mentor to help you navigate the road to successful entrepreneurship.
Owner Cheryl Jacobs started out as a mom needing to feed her kids and learned how to be a successful business owner one step at a time.
She’s now passionate about giving back to the community of new and struggling home business owners.
Cheryl has created an opportunity for membership in KidsPartyCharacters.com that gives you the chance to cut through much of the learning curve and start with all the tools you need for a successful business already in place.
With membership in KidsPartyCharacters.com, you’ll get an exclusive area in which to book parties, along with access to our 200+ costumes, our casting director, and our acting coach.
You’ll also get step-by-step training from Cheryl on how to start your business the right way.
Schedule a free, no-pressure chat with Cheryl right here if you’re interested in learning more about this unique and fun opportunity with Kids Party Characters.
Also learn more about our business and get daily updates on the magic we bring to parties, as well as the strategies Cheryl has used to build Kids Party Characters into a six-figure business, by connecting with us on Facebook.
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