Category Archives: Ask An Expert

Dec 22 1 comments
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The Secret Goldmine in Public Speaking

James Malinchak wrote:


There are two main objectives in sales - to get the sale and then to increase the amount of sales. Whether we realize it or not, we are salesmen selling people on our message and we do it through various forms - books, audios and videos. We help others by providing education and knowledge through our product resources and what this does for us is open up a secret goldmine that can bring even more wealth.

I get excited when I talk about this secret goldmine because there are actually several ways that it can help anyone’s motivational speaking career - more than just money. This goldmine is often underused and overlooked as an opportunity for wealth creation but in reality, this secret goldmine can provide a firm foundation for your professional speaking success. This secret goldmine is the group of people who will buy from you over and over again - the hot list.

Start forming your hot list. The first thing to do is to start collecting the contact information of people who purchase your products or who have heard you speak at a conference. For the people who have attended your seminar, have them fill out a slip of paper with their name, address, phone number and email address. For those who have purchased your books or training material, you can easily capture their contact information as part of the receipt. You could also offer a free newsletter or bonus report as way to obtain your audience’s contact information.

Market your products and services to your hot list. What happens most often in a person’s motivational speaking career is that they will market their materials only at the conference. You basically give yourself one chance to make a sale. Then you rely on the fact that you gave out your web address for any future sales and hope and pray that somehow, your customer will make it over to your website. No! Send out flyers or informational and inspirational newsletters to keep your products fresh on your customer’s minds and watch your sales increase.

One other aspect of building a hot list is that you give yourself an opportunity to build a relationship with your client. In today’s marketing trends, consumers are purchasing more products that they feel they can connect with predicating the need to have a relationship with your client. These consumers are loyal brand users and can also prove to become very helpful in any third party promotions you might need.

Building this group of people is like building your own motivational speaking niche. Building this group of people is like building your own fishing pond. You will always have a group of people who are interested in what you provide. When you have new products to market, this niche group of people will be right there to support the sales of your new product launch. When you have a calendar of engagements you’re speaking at, this group will be interested in where you’ll be going. No matter how long you’ve had public speaking jobs, take the time and invest to build your hot list.



Dec 20 1 comments
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How to Justify Your Public Speaking Fee

James Malinchak wrote:


With public speaking, your goal is to help your audience solve a problem… and receive a fee for doing it. Many speakers charge speaking fees while some don’t, especially if they are just starting out. There are several things you can do to ‘justify’ your speaking fee to meeting planners to make your price look like a ‘score’ of a deal by anyone’s standards!

When requesting a speaking fee, the people planning the event may scoff saying it is too high. When that happens, you must find a way to justify why your fee is higher or different from other speakers.

First, you must justify your speaking fee to yourself! If you don’t believe you are worth the fee you are charging… you’re not. Most speakers tend to de-value their knowledge, expertise, and skill, so my suggestion is that you first believe you are worth the fee you want to charge.

Next, be clear to the event planner about what you are offering for your price. You can easily add value by offering free copies of your newest book. Perhaps your newly released book is based on the same topic as your speech, or the seminar you will be going to. In that case, let the event planner know that besides your presentation, you will also be giving out free copies of your book.

You may want to up the ante a little more by agreeing to provide one-on-one consulting for one session only to all those in attendance who take your book. This way you are giving even more value for your speaking engagement. When the event planner realizes the value you are presenting, he or she will no longer scoff or complain about it, especially if you are the only speaker to offer such a deal.

Remember, food for 500 people can often cost an organization $3000- $15,000 dollars… and most people will forget that by the next day. Which has more value? The meal or the speaker? Clearly the speaker… so charge accordingly.

As a speaker, you are the one to decide what your fee will be. Find out what their budget is and give your price. Make sure to justify why you charge so much if they ask or request it.

http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com is where you can find over 100+ hours of downloadable audio and video lessons that will show you how to make $100,000 to $1,000,000 dollars PER YEAR as a professional speaker. James Malinchak, the author of this article can be your online business coach and mentor. Simply visit http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com to get started today with several FREE professional speaking audio recordings.

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners**

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place. You may not modify the content and must include our resource box as listed above. You may sign up as an affiliate at BigMoneySpeaker.com and insert your affiliate links.



Dec 16 0 comments
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Public Speaking Training on How to Prevent Stage Fright

David Portney wrote:


At the core, stage fright is fear of rejection and fear of being judged harshly.

That takes various forms like being afraid to make a mistake or fear of not knowing how to handle a question or fear of tripping over your own feet and so on. But all of that is really fear of rejection and fear of being judged harshly.

Doing public speaking or seminars is a terrific way to promote yourself, generate more business, and make sales of your product or service but you’ll never do it unless you deal with the problem of stage fright.

So if stage fright is the panic and fear that hits people when they’re already speaking, what can be done to prevent it?

There is an easy solution I’m going to share with you here.

You see, people manage to “create” stage fright in a number of ways, but a very common way is to look out over an audience, and feel the eyes of a bunch of staring strangers burning a hole in them.

Who wouldn’t feel uncomfortable with all those eyes burning holes in them?

Here’s how to prevent stage fright from ever happening to you: arrive early before your talk, and make time to walk around and meet some of the audience members.

Introduce yourself as the speaker and thank them for coming, ask them some targeted questions about what they’re hoping to hear about.

Be genuinely friendly & curious - it will feel good to talk to these people. Remember this old saying: “strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet” - so make some new friends by meeting some people in your audience.

Then, when you’re “on stage”, be sure to make eye contact with ‘your new friends” consistently.

And if it’s a small group, you may even be able to meet everyone before you start your talk.

Summary:

By meeting people and being friendly before you start your talk means these people are not strangers boring holes in you with their eyes during your presentation; they’re your new friends.

Sign up right now for free weekly public speaking training at http://www.bestpublicspeakingtraining.com



Dec 12 0 comments
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3 Ways to Boost Business by Public Speaking

James Malinchak wrote:


Have you ever thought about increasing your business revenues by public speaking? It’s an incredible way to become an instant expert in your field. It can even help you appear as the ‘only’ logical choice for your customers to do business with. Public speaking for business can not only help you win new customers, but will also help you generate paid spin-off speaking engagements.

Here are a few business-gaining methods to think about when presenting:

1. Collect names You must collect the names of those in attendance at your speeches. You an do a drawing for your product using business cards. You can give away subscriptions to your e-zine. You can ask the event coordinator for the attendees’ information. Either way, you are leaving money at the table if you don’t have a way to contact your customers after your talk.

This is just as good as buying or renting a list, but better, because the clients know you and like you because of your speech. By doing this, you not only have given a valuable presentation, but you also collected leads you can use for future use.

2. Talk About Your Experience When you speak, tell stories about the struggles you went through to get to where you are now. People truly like to hear about the difficulties you’ve been through, as an invincible character is no hero at all. In order to become the hero to the audience, you must show your weaknesses and the difficulties you’ve been through.

3. Give Customer Testimonials Once you’ve explained how difficult was to get to where you are now, tell your audience stories about what you’ve done for other people or companies and how you did it. This will make you appear brilliant, makes you appear unselfish, and makes you into an expert with a record who can prove it.

Essentially, you want your audience thinking, “Wow! If he can do that for them, I wonder what he can do for me?!”

Being a great speaker is about reinventing yourself so you can keep your audience interested. It is about being creative, and providing valuable information that will help them in some way or another. Plus, being a great speaker is about using every available opportunity to gain leads for future business.

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners**

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place. You may not modify the content and must include our resource box as listed above. You may sign up as an affiliate at BigMoneySpeaker.com and insert your affiliate links.

http://www.GetPublicSpeakingJobs.com is where you can find over 100+ hours of downloadable audio and video lessons that will show you how to make $100,000 to $1,000,000 dollars PER YEAR as a professional speaker. James Malinchak, the author of this article can be your online business coach and mentor. Simply visit http://www.GetPublicSpeakingJobs.com to get started today with several FREE professional speaking audio recordings.



Dec 10 0 comments
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How to Create a Lucrative Public Speaking Career

James Malinchak wrote:


Remember, you are not in the speaking business, you are in the business of marketing your speaker services! Speaking is just like any other type of business. It is a business with two sides. There is the speaking part… and there is the marketing part. With the right speaker-marketing education, you will find many public speaking job opportunities opening up for yourself. Public speaking jobs are within your grasp!

First, you must remember that you are in a business! No kidding! But you’d be shocked at the number of people I see who run their speaking careers as a hobby, and not as a business. You must run your speaking career just like you would run a clothing store, a restaurant, a real estate business, or any other company.

If you’ve ever seen a speaker onstage who you thought was an absolutely terrible speaker… I’ve got news for you: That person was a better businessperson than you, because they were able to get the job and you weren’t. You can be the greatest speaker in the world, but if you don’t have the marketing skills to get you in front of the people who will pay you to speak, you are going to be broke.

Delivering a powerful speech is really not a difficult task. Many speaking coaches are out there claiming that you must have proper ‘speaking mechanics.’ They say you must use proper, exaggerated gestures, that you must walk in a ‘V’ shape… whatever. I say you just have to get up there and say things from the heart that will help people.

If you have a message that will help people, you are 90% done with creating your speech. The next step is to market yourself so that you can get in front of audiences and actually deliver the message! To do this, you must discover the marketing materials that will get you booked. You must discover how to develop a list of prospects that you can mail to. You must discover how to extract as much revenue from each event that you possibly can. You must discover how to print your books for cents and sell them for $10 to $50 dollars each.

Once you combine your business skills with the content of a great speech, you’ll be helping a lot of people and making a great income while you’re at it. So, to create a lucrative public speaking career, simply commit yourself to learning the marketing skills that will get you on the stages where you can deliver your message to change people’s lives.

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners**

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place. You may not modify the content and must include our resource box as listed above. You may sign up as an affiliate at BigMoneySpeaker.com and insert your affiliate links.

http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com is where you can find over 100+ hours of downloadable audio and video lessons that will show you how to make $100,000 to $1,000,000 dollars PER YEAR as a professional speaker. James Malinchak, the author of this article can be your online business coach and mentor. Simply visit http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com to get started today with several FREE professional speaking audio recordings.



Dec 10 0 comments
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Public Speaking Training on the Root Cause of Public Speaking Fear

David Portney wrote:


Having taught many, many public speaking trainings over the years I’ve observed that at the core, fear of public speaking boils down to three common fears:

1. Fear of your mind going blank during your presentation.

2. Fear of making a mistake or not knowing the answer to a question.

3. Fear of appearing foolish.

In a way, all fear of public speaking really comes down to a single root fear: fear of rejection. Fear of public speaking wouldn’t exist if we didn’t actually care what other people think about us.

Worrying that the audience will reject you and make negative comments or have negative reactions or criticism is what creates the fear of public speaking.

In most cases it’s normal to have fear of rejection from early childhood experiences of rejection in school and these are not deep psychological problems requiring counseling. Most of the time getting some public speaking training can give you the confidence in your abilities to overcome that fear of public speaking rooted in childhood experiences.

Some people experience significant relief simply by discovering the root cause of their fear. When they confront the original experience or experiences that started the “chain of pain”, they can see it as being part of growing up and being an immature child who’s afraid of being judged by their peers.

Confronting the root cause of fear of public speaking can create a change on a “gut level”. You could think of this as “reprogramming the software” or as “deleting it from the hard drive”.

Dealing with the root cause can literally cause a neurological shift in how your brain represents public speaking, but it’s important to reprogram and reframe that early experience and not merely relive it.

Don’t dwell on the root cause experience; instead, transform the meaning of that root cause experience into something empowering.

Summary:

Try uncovering the root cause of your fear of public speaking - see those early childhood rejections for the simple growing pains that are natural and even necessary in life. If that causes a significant change in your fear of public speaking, that’s terrific. But if not, just move on to other techniques.

Don’t give up!-it’s 100% possible for you to conquer fear of public speaking and reap the many rewards that are waiting for you. And any public speaking training worth its salt will address fear of public speaking and support you in overcoming that fear once and for all.

For more public speaking training articles visit http://www.bestpublicspeakingtraining.com



Dec 10 0 comments
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7 Techniques to Conquer Stage Fright & Fear of Public Speaking

David Portney wrote:


Let’s put 7 of the most commonly taught methods of handling stage fright and fear of public speaking under the microscope for examination and give each an effectiveness rating from low to high:

#1: Realize that “it’s okay to be nervous”:

This is worth trying, but this only works for a small percentage of people, usually best for cerebral types. Give this a try and see if giving yourself permission to be nervous makes a difference for you. Effectiveness rating: low.

#2: Have burning passion:

Traditional advice from public speaking organizations typically start with the question “what are you passionate about?” and suggest speaking about that. Focusing strongly on your passion may cause your fear of public speaking to evaporate. What’s your burning passion? Can you connect that with doing public speaking? Effectiveness rating: medium high.

#3: Focus on your faith:

If you have strong faith, that can make fear of public speaking seem trivial, insignificant and even nonexistent. Strong faith can cause fear of public speaking to transform into a strong desire to help others. Effectiveness rating: medium high.

#4: Deep breathing:

Deep breathing works but not if you’re already talking. Once you’re up there and speaking, deep breathing isn’t going to do you much good since people expect you to be speaking and not doing breathing exercises. Do your deep breathing before you get up to speak. Effectiveness rating: low.

#5: Knowing that your audience wants you to succeed:

This works for a certain segment of the population, usually people who use reason and logic to guide their behaviors. If you hold the belief steady in your mind that your audience wants you to be great, do you find that your nervousness and fear of public speaking goes away? Give it a try and if it doesn’t work, there are plenty more techniques you can try. Effectiveness rating: low.

#6: Turn your nervousness into excitement:

On the surface, this is great advice because often the only real difference between the bodily sensations we feel when we experience excitement or fear of pubic speaking is just the label we put on it. Change the label from fear to excitement, and voila! - No more fear. Warning: many public speaking trainings encourage use of this technique - just be careful that you don’t come across as too energetic. Being excited is great, just don’t overdo it. Effectiveness rating: medium.

#7: Practice & preparation:

Practicing ahead of time can make a huge reduction in your fear of public speaking. Practice while you focus on memories of times when you’ve been extremely confident so that you form a solid link between feeling confident and making a presentation. Frankly, this is best done in a public speaking training where you can get expert guidance and feedback, and build up a solid base of confidence that will last a lifetime. Effectiveness rating: high.

Summary:

There are many, many techniques to mitigate or eliminate fear of public speaking. Don’t give up just because one or two techniques didn’t work for you. The rewards of public speaking are with the effort! To accelerate & shortcut your success, get expert public speaking training.

For more public speaking training articles visit http://www.bestpublicspeakingtraining.com



Dec 02 0 comments
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Eliminate Fear of Public Speaking With "the Esr Technique"

David Portney wrote:


To understand how this technique works, it’s important to fully understand that fear of public speaking is something that starts and “lives” in your mind.

Sure, your body feels the sweating and the nervous stomach, but what happens BEFORE the sweating and nervous stomach?

The answer is that you are running pictures and movies in your mind that are making you sweat and causing that knot in your stomach.

I’ve discovered in the public speaking trainings I teach that the movies are different for everyone – everyone has their own “recipe” to create fear of public speaking:

Some people picture the audience laughing at them.

Some people picture the audience getting up and walking out.

Some people picture themselves making horrible mistakes.

Some people even picture the audience as being like giants, and picture themselves as small and insignificant.

Although the movies and pictures are different for everyone, the common denominator is the fact that they are picturing total failure, horrible humiliation, or painful rejection of some sort.

That’s what causes fear of public speaking.

Now let’s get to how to get rid of fear of public speaking… but first I want you to rate your fear of public speaking on a scale of 1 to 10 - 1 being least and 10 being most fear.

Imagine the worst possible thing happening when doing public speaking.

Now, how do you rate your fear on a scale of 1 to 10?

Okay, now let’s get rid of that fear: sit or lie down comfortably where you won’t be disturbed for a few minutes.

Take the fingertips of each hand and place them directly above your eyebrows about an inch.

Touch your forehead on those 2 spots lightly - DO NOT press and DO NOT spread out your fingers.

Now start breathing deeply into your diaphragm so that your abdomen rises and falls as you breathe.

As you breathe deeply, begin to think about doing public speaking.

Run the movies in your mind of failure, rejection - whatever bothers you most of all.

Don’t hold back, really let yourself imagine the worst most painful things you can imagine.

BUT KEEP BREATHING DEEPLY!

That is super-important.

Keep your fingers on your forehead and imagine the worst-case scenarios.

Keep touching your forehead and breathing deeply to your abdomen & keep running worst case scenarios over and over.

After a few minutes, you’ll be surprised and delighted when you notice that those scenarios don’t bother you anymore!

Now - sit up, take your hands off your forehead, and now rate your fear on a scale of 1 to 10 - It’s much, much reduced, isn’t it!

Repeat the ESR Technique until thinking about public speaking worst case scenarios don’t bother you anymore.

This technique is ostensibly very simple, yet extremely powerful, and it really works! And what have you got to lose? At the worst, you’ll lose a few minutes of your time. But the upside is that you might discover that your fear of public speaking no longer has a stranglehold on you any more.

For more public speaking training articles visit http://www.bestpublicspeakingtraining.com

David Portney is the author of “129 Seminar Speaking Success Tips and the founder of the Academy of Public Speaking located in Redondo Beach, California where he personally teaches specialized workshops and public speaking trainings. Visit David’s website http://www.bestpublicspeakingtraining.com

Fear of Public Speaking, Public Speaking Training

What if you could conquer fear of public speaking with a stupidly-simple technique in a matter of minutes?



Dec 01 0 comments
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3 Ways to Secure Public Speaking Jobs and Positions

James Malinchak wrote:


If you are new to public speaking, you may find it hard to find public speaking jobs. Speaking careers are the sought after type of careers people want to get into, because of all the money that can be made. Plus, you get to travel around the world.

Public speaking careers cover a wide territory. You may want to focus on one type of public speaking career, instead of spreading yourself too thin. When you start out looking for public speaking positions, there may be many public speaking opportunities available. You have to decide what direction you want to lean toward. There are three key ways where you can secure public speaking jobs.

Are you interested in how to become a motivational speaker and pursue this type of career? If so, you must learn the art of public speaking, but by using motivation as the key attribute. This is the main way in becoming a motivational speaker. Once you have learned the true way to deliver a motivational speech, you can actively pursue this as your career path.

Any speaker, who works to become a motivational speaker, may find many jobs in this area. It seems that a motivational speaking career is where speakers are heading. It is apparently a huge market.  One key way to secure public speaking jobs is by developing your public speaking skills and stay with a tightly focused career. This will be the way you can prepare for a wide variety of public speaking assignments.

If you looked at all the different public speaking opportunities and you wonder how to be a motivational speaker, or how to pursue a motivational speaking career, there is a way to break into this field. The second key way to secure a public speaking job is by talking to those who are already motivational speakers. They can give you first hand knowledge as to what skills you will need, and how to go about applying for the public speaking jobs. And for the third way to secure a public speaking job is to only pick jobs where you will get paid to speak. You don’t care so much for those free ones, unless you are so new to public speaking, and you don’t have any clients yet, that you need to have at least one or two under your belt.

If you do not want to go for motivational speaking, you can always look toward inspirational speaking. This is also a career choice that can bring you many rewards. The key here is to know what speaking career path you want to follow and go after it. Get the training you need to pursue that choice and you’ll be on your way to making a ton of cash.

http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com is where you can find over 100+ hours of downloadable audio and video lessons that will show you how to make $100,000 to $1,000,000 dollars PER YEAR as a professional speaker. James Malinchak, the author of this article can be your online business coach and mentor. Simply visit http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com to get started today with several FREE professional speaking audio recordings.

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners**

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place. You may not modify the content and must include our resource box as listed above. You may sign up as an affiliate at BigMoneySpeaker.com and insert your affiliate links.



May 12 0 comments
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3 Ways to Expand Your Income in Public Speaking

James Malinchak wrote:


I like public speaking for lots of reasons, but perhaps the single most reason why I love my motivational speaking career is that I will always benefit from multiple streams of income.  At any one speaking engagement, I’ll have pre-sold material ready to be delivered, I’ll charge a speaking fee that justifies my time and I’ll also have materials on hand for back of the room sales.  In my motivational speaking career, I’ve had to learn how to become a master marketer as I learned how to make money with motivational speaking.  Now here’s what I want you to do.  I don’t want you to think like a speaker any more.  I want you to start thinking like a marketer!

As a motivational speaking marketer, I want you to start thinking out of the box and start looking at your speaking engagements as an opportunity for your store to be open.  What can you sell besides yourself and your time as a speaker?  Can you write a book or get a book written about a topic in your niche that sells?  What will it take to record some audios or videos of your public speaking jobs and package them for sale?  Get all your marketing materials ready so you can focus on three easy ways to expand your income in public speaking.

The first area of income expansion is in your speaking fee.  Here’s one of many public speaking tips you’ll get from me – Don’t be afraid to ask for the big money.  People often ask me how to get bookings for motivational speaking.  What they really want to know is how to make money with motivational speaking because they’re not making any.  They are working for a low fee or even for free.  Folks!  You must overcome the mental hurdle of asking for $10,000 versus $5,000 a gig!  When I did just that, I found that I was the only one stopping me from professional speaking success!

The second area of income expansion is through pre-selling materials.  Sell your knowledge through books, CDs, DVDs and training systems.  Here’s how I pre-sold my book at a conference I spoke at.  I asked the conference planner if she was interested in giving a copy of one of my books to every person attending her event without it costing her a dime.  She said she was interested so what we did was include the cost of the book in the registration fee for the conference.  I then had her send the difference after the conference ended.  So basically, I made money with my speaking fee and I pre-sold my book to every person attending the conference for $10.

The third area of income expansion is through the back of the room sales.  Again, I don’t want you thinking like a motivational speaker.  I want you to think like a motivational marketer.  You can boost your sales by making your audience hungry for more of the information you’re sharing with them.  Give them nuggets from your book or CD / DVD sets and then super charge your sales by making irresistible offers.  A couple of offer strategies include:  discount pricing for today only or promoting your training program as “power packs”.

Start working these extra avenues of income and watch your motivational speaking career take off!

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners**

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place. You may not modify the content and must include our resource box as listed above. You may sign up as an affiliate at BigMoneySpeaker.com and insert your affiliate links.

http://www.GetPublicSpeakingJobs.com is where you can find over 100+ hours of downloadable audio and video lessons that will show you how to make $100,000 to $1,000,000 dollars PER YEAR as a professional speaker. James Malinchak, the author of this article can be your online business coach and mentor. Simply visit http://www.GetPublicSpeakingJobs.com to get started today with several FREE professional speaking audio recordings.