Get Paid to Do Your Own Marketing, Part II: Be an EFFECTIVE Speaker

Tips to help you create a distinctive and memorable speaking style.

(Shel Horowitz's Frugal Marketing Tip, May, 2001)

The thing that shocked me about both the conferences where I spoke in March—one in Chicago, one in Marin County, California—was how few of the other speakers had made any effort to create an approachable presentation style.

By and large, they mumbled, stayed in a monotone, and made little effort to interact with their audience. Maybe they really are too terrified to make the audience feel valued—and you can stand head and shoulders above the pack with a few simple techniques:

1. Be animated—with your voice, your body language. Don't be afraid to move your hands. Make eye contact. Act as if you're excited about your topic.

2. Just forget about the number of people watching you. Imagine that you have two or three good friends in the audience; speak as if you're talking on the phone with them. You can even pick out a few friendly faces in the crowd to make more than the usual amount of eye contact—and pretend they're your good buddies.

3. Try for personal rapport. If there's a break, mingle and notice name tags. Then, in the Q&A period, you can call these people by name.

4. Keep brief. Don't try to cover a book's worth of knowledge. Pick a few areas to concentrate on, and stick to them—unless, like me, you encourage open and wide-ranging questions, which can take you a bit farther afield. Leave at least half the time for questions, but be prepared to keep talking if you have a dead audience.

5. If there have been other speakers ahead of you on the program, or if you're going more than an hour, lead the audience in a stretch break. Here's one I use a lot: If speaking to business owners, I say, "Reach for higher profits" (stretch arms to ceiling). "Expand your horizons" (arms out to the sides). "Watch the bottom line" (arms to floor). "Contract the budget" (hug yourself). If speaking to community organizers, I change it to "higher objectives" and "down to the grass roots."

Thank you reading this back issue of Shel Horowitz's Monthly Frugal Marketing Tips, published every month since May, 1997; please click here to view the complete archives, grouped by subject. Shel is an internationally known copywriter and marketing consultant, author of Grassroots Marketing Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and several other books, and creator of the Frugal Marketing web site. Please click here to contact Shel.


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