Taking the Stage with Confidence to Increase Profits

Standing in front of a group of people is always a scary experience. But it just takes practice. Have you ever noticed that there are some people at the age of 15 that can stand up in front of 50 people and feel confident? Most likely, this was not their first time. If you want to make a bigger impact on this world and mentor more people you must speak in front of people. It will grow your business and increase profits.
If you feel you are awful at presenting, you might want to join a local Toastmasters group. This is an excellent way to brush up on your skills. Make sure you attend all of the groups in your area before choosing one to attend. You will want to find a group that you are comfortable with, but also gives members great feedback after presenting. This is the only way you can get better.
Perhaps Toastmasters is not the right thing for you, then take some time and doing the following.
1. Find out the logistics of the speaking event – who are your speaking to, how long, what other topics have already been covered, are you allowed to “promote” yourself from the stage, will a table be available for you to give out information, are you allowed to collect information from the audience such as email and name, if you have handouts who will the making copies, etc.
2. Next define your topic – the best thing to do is have a few topics and lectures ready to go. That way you are only tweaking what you already have written instead of scrambling at the last minute. It is also a great way to promote yourself because you could write a few sentences about each topic and provide these to the organizer to choose.
3. Opening – you need to hit you’re the audience right between the eyes. Get them to lean forward and truly be interested in what you have to say. Here are some ways to open your presentation.
• Tell a joke
• Tell a story
• Ask questions and be sure to pause before moving onto the next one. This gives them time to think.
4. Provide statistics and give the source
5. Objectives – clearly define at the beginning of your speech your talking points. Be sure that when you are presenting to let people know you are transitioning to the next talking point. The worst is when someone says they are going to be talking about A, B, C and you have no idea at the end of the program if they talked about B or C. So be clear in your learning objectives and state them throughout.
6. Engage – the worst thing a presenter can do is have the audience sit there for 30-90 minutes and not have them do one thing. Blaire Singer studied audiences for hours and found out if two things. You must do something with your audience every 5 minutes or they will do something on their own. This is called a “change of state”. The audience changes their state by moving in their chairs, reaching in their purse, going to the bathroom, looking around, looking at their phone, etc. In a moment, we will discuss how you as the presenter can change the state of a room. The second thing Blair Singer said is that once a presenter losses control of a room, there is no going back. Meaning, you must be in control at all times by using changes of state.
So what are some examples of changes of state?
• Ask for volunteers to assist you
• Ask a question and have them shout out the answers
• Have them work in pairs or small groups
• Have them work alone
• Have them stand up and share about the subject you are discussing
• Group stretching
• Moving chairs into a different patte

7. Close – wrap up the contents of your presentation by reviewing briefly what you discussed. Always leave them with something to think about.
8. Self Promotion- you need to be very clear with the host as to whether you are permitted to promote your products and/or services from the stage. If they do not have a problem with it, you will want to be “seeding” (mentioning) your product throughout the speech. Otherwise, find creative ways to collect names.

• Give away a book, CD, gift, etc.
• Tell them there is a signup sheet in the back to get great tips, etc.
Again, be sure you review with the host the guidelines for promoting. It can make or break whether you are ever invited back again.
Don’t be shy. Get out there and declare it with confidence. It can be for 5 or 100 people, but just start somewhere. If you have not been asked to present, find a place so you can begin to make a bigger impact on this world by mentoring groups of people. As you get better, it will not only improve your confidence, but also increase your profits.