Tag: speaking in public
10 New Tips For Successfully Promoting Your Book On Talk Radio
For nearly two decades, weíve been telling you about the value of talk radio as a means for promoting your book to the masses. As one of the countryís top providers of radio shows around the country, we schedule anywhere from 50 to 100 interviews week in and week out. As a result of our close working relationship with the media, we know what works and what doesnít. Because we want you to succeed with talk radio, here are ten new ìinsideî tips to help you become the kind of guest every host wants to have on his or her show:
1. Be real. Present yourself the way that you really are. Donít put up a false or manufactured front. If an audience perceives you to be fake, your message will fail. Be REAL. Be who you really are.
2. Be sensitive about political views. If you are discussing a controversial political issue, always try to acknowledge that the other side has some good points. Remember that radio audiences are diverse. By ìgiving and taking,î you will win credibility points with your entire audience.
3. Familiarize yourself with the current news climate. Stay up to date on current events and present yourself as the ìexpertî on your topic. Donít be caught unaware about a current or breaking news story that pertains to your book. Projecting yourself as knowledgeable will help to build your credibility with listeners.
4. Tie-in a local angle if at all possible. Whether you are talking to a radio show out of St. Louis, Detroit, or Sacramento, be sure to tie the local area in to what you are saying. For example, if your book is about the economy or real estate, talk about the unemployment rate or real estate values in that particular city. By localizing the message as much as possible, you draw your listening audience in even further, and more importantly, you keep them tuned in and interested in your message.
5. Do NOT use a cell phone. Always make sure to use a secure landline for all of your interviews. Cell phones are unreliable for on-the-air interviews and you stand the chance of getting cut off in the middle of your interview. Obviously, this is a major pet peeve of talk radio hosts as they now have to fill the time originally set aside for your interview. No host likes to have the timing and pace of his show screwed up. If your interview is cut short due to cell phone problems, donít expect them to put you back on the air or reschedule you.
6. Donít forget to hit on your key points. Sometimes you can get so wrapped up in the conversation you are having with the host or from call-ins by listeners that you lose sight of your main message. Try to always remember your main focus and donít get too off-topic.
7. Match your interview pace with that of the radio host. If the host is a ìfast-talker,î pick up the pace. If the hostís style is slow and easy, do your best to adapt. By adapting to the hostís rhythm, youíll develop a better camaraderie with him. The positive rapport between you and the host will keep regular listeners interested in your message.
8. Limit numbers and statistics during your interview. If you have a particular statistic that you think applies very strongly to your message, use it and hammer it home. But be carefulÖif you throw too many numbers at the audience, you will lose their interest and they will tune out.
9. If you are in the dark about an issue, donít fake it! If you arenít familiar with an issue the host brings up or donít know the answer to a question, donít be afraid to admit it. You will lose immediate credibility by pretending to know something when you really donít. On the other hand, your credibility goes through the roof when you are perceived by listeners as being honest.
10. Try to give your interviews an intimate feel. Remember that radio is a one-on-one medium. Talk to the host in a personal and conversational manner, and if there are callers, do the same with them. This will help keep the audience interested and theyíll be more likely to relate to you.
Remember—your intention for every interview is to enlighten the listening audience about your book and interest them in purchasing it.
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8 Super Selling Things to Do Before You Write Your Book Sales Letter
Every marketing campaign should begin with a plan. Sales letters are no different. No plan and you may miss the mark of High Sales you are aiming for. Set a roadmap that you can follow to explosive sales every time with every ebook. Focus and aim your sales letter with these 8 preparation tips. Then get ready to sell more than you dreamed:
1. Write a list of frequently asked questions for your ebook.
You want to make sure you pin point what your prospects and visitors are looking for and then give it to them. Find out what their burning questions are and then answer them in your sales copy and product. Before you write the benefits of your products you need to know the problems that audience face.
2. Develop a list to help your prospect visualize using your product.
Answer the questions: “When will your prospect use your product?”, “How will they use it,” “Why will they use it?” For example, if your new product was an ebook: will they read it on their desktop, laptop or will they print it out. Will they relax on the couch and read your insightful tips. Perhaps they will print them and read on the way to work or during lunch break
3. Write down what your up sell offers or possibilities are.
This is where a lot of small business professionals miss out. They fail to create up sell offers. Create your up sell offers and opportunities before you even write your sales letter so that they can be woven into your back end pages and sales messages.
4. Write a list of Benefit Bullets.
What do they get will they experience upon purchasing this product, what will this product give them.
5. Make a list of bonus gifts.
Select bonus gifts before you write the sales letter. This way you can include the benefits in your sales message as a part of your product.
6. Develop your guarantee.
Think about it? A lot of businesses shake in their shoes when it comes to developing a guarantee. But think about it; most small businesses have a built in guarantee. If someone ask for their money back, most small business professionals will just give their money back. They don’t haggle over whether they should or shouldn’t.
7. Gather your testimonials into one file.
If you don’t have any yet for a new product, use famous quotes about your field until you get some. Sprinkle throughout your copy.
8. Go look at your competitor’s sales page.
Examine their FAQs (see if you missed any), what are their bonus gifts, what is their guarantee, what is their up sell, if any? I made this step last so you wouldn’t be tempted to just be a copy cat. But you can use your competitor’s sales pitch as a measuring stick. How did you measure up? Did you whiz past; leaving them in a cloud of dust? Or did you miss a few things that you will now add after examining their pages?
Preparation for your super sales maker will give you the competitive edge you have been looking for. Put these steps into place before you even write your sales letter and sell more. Enjoy the journey and life is made easier.
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7 Steps to Help Increase your Google Page Rank:
Google Page rank is based on back links. Back links are Links pointing to your website from another website. The more back links you have the higher your PR will be.
1. Join forums, forums are a great way to achieve links to your website. In most forums you are allowed to have a signature and in your signature you can put a link to your website. But another important note to look on is making sure the forum is somewhat related to your website. You will still get credit if it’s not, but if it’s related to your website than you will be accomplishing two tasks at once.
You will be advertising for your website (bringing in targeted traffic) You will also be building your websites presence.
Your websites presence is very important to your survival. The more people see, or hear about your website the more credibility you will have and this increases your chances of having these visitors come back and possibly become leads.
2. Submit to search engine directories. Search engine directories are a good way to get a free link to your website. They also increase your chances at being listed higher on popular search engines like Google, and overture.
Most search engine directories allow you to submit to their website for free. This will allow you to increase your web presence by being listed on another search engine, and it will also be a free link.
Remember the more links you have the higher your PR will be
3. Using ezine ads (or newsletters). Creating an ezine will probably be the most beneficial step you can take to increasing your web presence. When you create an ezine you will be able to keep visitors coming back to your website for more by using signatures and giving special deals.
Ezine’s will also allow you to increase your back links. By creating an ezine you can submit your information about your ezine to an ezine directory. This directory will than link to your website(thus giving you a free link).
4. Creating and publishing articles. Articles are an easy source of generating new traffic. You can include your signature in your article. This will bring in more traffic from article submission directories.
Your signature usually consists of 4 to 8 lines. Usually the first line would be the title of the website that you are trying to advertise. The last line would be the link to the website and the lines in between these would be a sales pitch to draw your viewers into your website.
5. To increase your PageRank, or more precisely the PageRank of one of your pages (the homepage or any other, think of this), the first thing to do is to get links from other sites.
Getting External Links…
Here are some councils:
* Try to obtain a great number of links to your page (read our councils on this subject)
* Choose first the pages having good PageRank (be careful to distinguish the PageRank of a site and that of its pages: the PageRank of a site is by abuse of language that of its homepage, but the link towards your page will be perhaps located on another page having very bad PageRank)
* Choose pages having the least links possible (especially if their PageRank is small)
* Check that the page which put the link is well indexed by Google, otherwise its PageRank is worth zero and that will not bring anything to you. In particular, it should not contain any directive indicating to the crawlers not to index it (file robot.txt or META tags), and it should not be orphan (otherwise Google cannot index it).
* It can be more effective to have a link from a page with PageRank 4 with only a few links that a link from a page with PageRank 6 with a great number of links.
* The two best examples of links to be obtained are those of directories DMOZ and Yahoo! who seem to play a great role in Google’s algorithm. See our special pages about these two directories!
6. Importance of your internal links
Getting links from other sites is a very good thing but it is hard to control. On the other hand the links between YOUR pages, you can and must attach importance to it.
Thus, it is crucial to organize your own site well to optimize PageRank of all your pages. Indeed starting from the study on the formula of PageRank, we can consider that each page has a reserve of “points” (its PageRank) it can make some benefit to other pages by “transmitting” them a part of it.
Let us take the example of your homepage which succeeded in having good PageRank thanks to the exchanges of links with other sites. Your other pages can profit from it if you put a link from the homepage. Attention, the same rules apply: if you do many links, the share of PageRank transmitted to each one of your other pages will be weaker.
If you try to optimize your own site, it is better thus to avoid putting outgoing links (towards other sites) on your pages which have good PageRank, because an important part of your good PageRank will be spread and not transmitted to YOUR other pages. It is thus rather traditional to make a link from your homepage to a links page which will contain outgoing links.
Conversely, you can also build your site so as to improve PageRank of some of your pages (with the detriment of others). For example it is common to seek to have best possible PageRank for your homepage. Make therefore a link to this one on each page of your site, by putting for example your logo in the top left.
7. Links from related websites. Gaining links from related websites can be one of the most frustrating tasks you can attempt.
They are very easy to find, but can be somewhat difficult to obtain links from.
To find related websites, all you have to do is go to a search engine… say Google… and type in your subject. Maybe your website is based on ford mustangs.
You go to Google and type in ford mustangs, than you look around for pages that are somewhat related to your website. After you have done this (which should be very easy) you have to contact them in some way to get your link posted on their website. This can be the most difficult task because a lot of webmasters ignore e-mail’s from people requesting links because they don’t see the importance of it at the time. Some other reasons could be that they are rarely online, or they delete spam mail and sometimes delete their important emails in the process.
Important note: When looking for link partners don’t just link with websites that have a page rank of 4 or higher. Link with anyone and everyone you get a chance to. If you link to someone that has a page rank of zero, this will not hurt your page rank. It will only increase it because you are getting a link back to your website. Google doesn’t look at your back links page ranks to determine what yours is going to be. It simply looks at how many back links you have.
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5 Tips to Magnetize Your Book Web Site With Benefits
What will make your home page interesting? Good design plays an important part in your site’s overall effectiveness. But it’s not the flash that will interest your audience. It’s not the jingles that will connect with your visitor. It’s the benefits – the ‘what’s in it for me’ list that create interest and even desire.
Would you like to create a magnetic home page, one that magnetizes your visitors? Webster’s Dictionary defines magnetic as ‘powerfully attractive.’ Best selling author and owner of the largest advertising agency in the 20s, Bruce Barton said, “The theme (any advertisement) ought to be based on two principles-first that a man is interested in himself, second, that he is interested in other people.”
What will make your home page interesting? Good design plays an important part in your site’s overall effectiveness. But it’s not the flash that will interest your audience. It’s not the jingles that will connect with your visitor. It’s the benefits – the ‘what’s in it for me’ list that create interest and even desire. Create a home page filled with benefits and it will pull your visitors in. What you say your product/service can do is much more attractive than a beautiful web page with weak copy.
Promote with benefits instead of your bio, your credentials and even the features of your product/service. Put them in their proper place on your site. But your audience will most want to know the value of your product to them.
You must answer questions like, “Will it solve my particular problem?” “What will I gain?” “What will I lose if I don’t use your service?” Some universal benefits answer the how tos: getting more passion, more energy, less fatigue, more money, good relationships, more time, less trouble, less stress, less drama and trauma. Here’s a quick tutorial on magnetizing your home page:
1. Develop a list of 10-20 benefits of each product and service. For example, a client of mine realized her audience didn’t just want to know how to get articles written, they wanted to know why should they write them?
So on the home page selling her article writing ebook, she started with a list of good reasons to write short articles to promote: For the serious marketer this ebook explains step by step how to promote your business, build a gigantic Opt-In List, increase your traffic, get qualified links, increase your page rank, grow your affiliate base, become a recognized expert, and collar more sales.
2. Be specific. List specific benefits. Describe how your customer will feel after buying your product. For example, after you buy my service of teeth whitening, you’ll look and feel 10 years younger without plastic surgery. Then post a picture of what your client looks like before and after the teeth whitening service. Let them see how happier and more confident they look with whiter teeth. Make your page magnetic with specific benefits.
3. Let the passion for your topic show in your marketing copy. Which arouses your interest more? “A 9-Step Power Plan to decimate and dominate the Consultant’s Marketplace” or “The 9-Step Plan to Become a Better Consultant.” “How to Convert More Buyers Into Customers” or “How to use the ‘FTP’ factor to pull amazing clickthrough rates that most marketers will only dream about!” Magnetize your web page with passion that creates desire and sales with your audience.
4. Develop the skill of writing headlines. Provocative titles will stir interest. Provocative statements capture our attention like a fish on a hook. They throw out the baited hook and reel a captive audience in every time. The shocking statement ‘Wives Who Don’t Want Sex’ even if they don’t have this problem will get the attention of the curious.
Use the Command statement for an immediate effect, ‘Become an Internet Millionaire!” Even if it’s a well worn claim, it still captures a large share of attention. Don’t forget the power of the simple ‘How To” information title. It alerts your audience that the information that follows will be simple and easy to digest. Capture the attention of your audience with a home page filled with magnetic headlines.
5. Give your links the power of benefits. We have added magnetic pulling power to our bulleted list, headlines, and titles. It’s all good. But there’s one more area that will give your home page even more pulling power. I got this tip from Allen Says’ “The War Report.” Many unseasoned site owners create links that say things like, “Get your FREE ebook here!” or “Sign-up for our FREE ezine!”
When first exposed to this tip, all I could say was, “Ouch!” I know my sites were filled with links like that. Perhaps we thought the magic word was FREE and people would automatically click on it and download. The truth is ‘Free ezine” tells our audiences nothing. Impart life to all your links with benefits. Those left over benefits and titles you developed earlier in this article. Review each link and pretend you have to get every visitor to click on it.
Don’t wait. If you wait you could be starting the next year without the explosive sales and traffic your site deserves. You have invested time and perhaps money into making your site the best it can be. Now, create a magnetic home page by giving your bulleted lists, headlines and links the power of benefits. Magnetize your home page and prosper!
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Microphone Technique
Although it sounds strange to you, to hear your own voice over the P.A, in fact it doesn’t sound any different to the audience than if you were talking to them in normal conversation.
The trick here is to be Yourself, if you haven’t got the skill to project a warm friendly personality at the functions where ice breaking is required then being an entertainer isn’t for you. The trick is to find a balance, most people would simply hire the gear – saving around 50% of a D.J’s booking fee and throw a NOW Cd on – if human input and personality wasn’t important to them. At some functions, if they pay for an entertainer and get a human jukebox who doesn’t own a mic and just sits there playing music then they occasionally feel cheated!.
I can’t stress the ìBE YOURSELFî, advice enough, don’t put on a radio style zany DJ voice – that will sound false and doesn’t fool anybody. If you are lucky enough to have a D.J training you, or are a young person helping an older mentor D.J then DON’T be tempted to become a clone of him or her. Adopt your own mic style (not a false voice), use your own tag lines but don’t rely on the same cliche’s 20 or 30 times a night – this becomes boring and predictable.
Don’t rely on ìthat wasî, ìThis isî introductions all night. At some functions going out with a Radio Mic and creating banter with your audience is a great way to break the ice at the beginning of difficult, non formal functions – and a good way of enouraging them onto the dancefloor early on. You can relax the mic work and the frquency of them – once the dancefloor is filling.
Of course there are always going to be functions where you need more mic work than the last, and other functions where it is going to be little mic use, but the key is to develop a style and strength and confidence in your mic working ability and not to rely on non stop music alone to do the work for you.
Just be yourself, and talk normally into the microphone. The thing to work on is to speak confidentally and clearly and try to pace yourself. Speaking too fast will make what you are saying sound garbled, speaking too slow will make you sound like you are addressing a bunch of village idiots . Pretty soon, with a little time and practice you’ll develop your own individual skill and style and that is the most important aspect, don’t try to copy anybody else or put on a different voice, it will sound false and make learning and maintaining the technique a lot more difficult.
If being a comedian is not you, then avoid the jokes unless you are good at this sort of thing , forced comedy can sound false and you may find yourself laughing alone, after all the Client has booked a Mobile Disco and not a stand up comedian!. One of the best pieces of advice I was given my the D.J who trained me, was to ìStick at doing what you are good at and have been booked for, and if in any doubt then leave it outî.
Spontaneous one liners are another matter, if something amusing happens, then share it – use the mic to get requests, make a fuss over other people celebrating birthdays / anniversaries – people like to have their 30 seconds of glory and hearing their name mentioned, over the mic
My advice to those nervous about public speaking for the first time, is not to be frightened of the mic or avoid using one – its your closest and most useful ally, at all functions. Don’t talk all over the track, learn to pace yourself over the outro of the previous track and any intro of the next track – don’t gabble – talk clearly into the microphone as if you were talking to a friend. With time you should be able to familiarise yourself with how themore popular tracks end and finish, this way you can talk upto the vocal, similar to how they do on the radio – stopping your banter at the moment the vocal on the next track starts. Don’t rush to perfect this or gabble to do so, it all comes with time and practice. Keep it simple to start off with.
Start with the easy stuff first, just introducing tracks, and buffet announcements. Once you’ve built up a bit of confidence, you’ll move on from the ëThat wasÖ.. this isÖ.’ routine. Try and include your audience, invite requests, make them feel welcome. Even if you are having a difficult gig don’t take it out on the audience and try and look like you are enjoying yourself, even if it’s not going to plan. Don’t worry about making mistakes on the Mic, we all do from time to time, but don’t draw attention to it, or dwell on it it’ll just make it worse – besides making mistakes shows that you are human and not a pre-programmed jukebox
Keep key information on the gig, such as the Bride & Grooms’ names, Best Man Name etc on a piece of paper on the mixer, so that you can casually glance down if you have a sudden memory blank, but don’t write your links down as a speech, otherwise it will sound like you are reading from a script and less natural.
Remember that once the dancefloor is full, you can ease off the mic a little, but keep doing the requests and don’t forget that it exists. Learn to find the balance, too much talking can bore the pants of your audience, too little mic work can make people think that you aren’t earning your keep!. There are functions where you have a full Dancefloor and it would be obtrusive to chat all over the music when people want to dance, equally there are more formal functions where there isn’t the room or inclination to dance, and so a bit of light hearted banter to break the ice and the empathsis on the entertainment side of being a DJ is required rather than just continuous music
All of this will take some time, don’t expect to develop a mic technique overnight just take it one gig at a time.
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How to be a Great Speaker Without Using PowerPoint
This article gives 10 tips on how presenters can be highly effective without using PowerPoint.
RESEARCH YOUR AUDIENCE It amazes me how some speakers will show up for a speaking engagement and really not know anything about the audience they are speaking to. Many speakers just get lazy and feel that their message is so important that anyone would want to hear it. They couldn’t be more wrong. Your core message may be about the same for everyone, but knowing your audience will allow you to slant the information so that the audience feels it was prepared just for them. They will relate much better to the information and think much more highly of you for creating something specifically for them. Of course, in many cases you were only slanting your information, but I won’t tell if you won’t.
PRACTICE The only way to look polished while speaking is to practice. This is one skill you cannot delegate to anyone else. It is you that is on stage with the microphone and it is you who will look either great or terrible. You are sadly mistaken and egotistical if you think the PowerPoint slides that either you or someone else created will make you a dynamic speaker. There are specific techniques used to practice that don’t take much time and make you look extremely polished. One of these techniques is called bits. You practice a short piece of material over and over again. You don’t practice it word for word, but just talk your way through it. This way you won’t blank out when a distraction happens while you are on stage.
TAKE CARE OF HECKLERS The following is my famous asterisk technique; I use it to make sure hecklers don’t interrupt my presentation. I get people in the group to identify potential troublemakers BEFORE I get to the event. I phone these people and interview them to give them the attention they are craving. I then mention their names during the speech. This virtually eliminates the chance they will give me a hard time because I am praising one of their opinions. This works really well but don’t mention their names exclusively or the rest of the audience that knows these people are trouble may think that you are just as bad. Mention a wide variety of people in the audience. Just make sure the bad ones are included which normally keeps them at bay.
USE EMOTIONAL LANGUAGE Boring old facts rarely move people to action. Learning to use words that evoke emotions in people will make a much greater impact when you speak. There are many emotions you can trigger in the audience just by your choice of words. Happiness, anger, sadness, nostalgia are just a few. Knowing your purpose for being in front of the group helps you to pick which emotions you want to tap. When your purpose is known, choosing words to get the desired emotional response is much easier. For instance, if you wanted to take someone back to a childhood experience you might say, “Do you remember when someone did something bad at school and the teacher smacked the yardstick on her desk?” The word Phrase “smacked the yardstick” would evoke an emotional response that many adults can relate to. A younger group may not relate to this phrase since corporal punishment has all but disappeared from schools. You must pick the words that would mean something to your audience.
REVEAL YOURSELF Often people have trouble implementing this idea because they like to remain aloof and private. This will hurt their chances of making a good connection with people in the audience. You certainly don’t have to reveal your deepest darkest secrets when on stage, but you certainly could tell someone how much you like horses, or how you love to cook . . .anything that will give them a glimpse into the real you will give you a better chance of connecting with them and getting them to listen to you.
USE PROPS A prop is worth a thousand words. People can really anchor a thought in their minds when it is connected to an object that relates to the point you are trying to make. You could use large, small, funny or serious props. Always relate the prop to the point you are trying to make and make sure the audience can see it. Sometimes you’ll want to hide the prop so people don’t wonder what it is until you are ready to present it.
USE HUMOR Even Shakespeare used humor in the middle of the tragedies he wrote. Humor is a powerful and effective tool that gives the audience’s mind a chance to breath in the face of heavy material. It also makes you more likable and fun to listen to. Humor is also much more likely to make your information more memorable. You don’t have to be a stand up comedian to use humor in speeches and presentations, and you don’t have to tell jokes either. There are many ways to add humor that don’t require any skill at all. You can show funny visuals, tell stories, or read from books or periodicals. Just like with props, make sue your humor relates to the point you are trying to make and you will be much more successful. Each issue of “Great Speaking” has about 20 pieces of humor you can use during speeches.
MOVE ‘EM TO ACTION If you are going to bother taking up people’s time to speak to them, don’t you think it would be a good idea to get them to do something positive because of your presentation? Even if they do something negative, it’s still better than doing nothing because they will at least get a chance to learn something from their mistake. Regardless of the size of your ego, the reality is that you are there for them, not the other way around. I’m all for you building up your reputation, but if you go into your speech thinking it’s all for you, it will show and you probably won’t do as well as you would have had you concentrated on the needs of the audience more.
BRING SOLUTIONS One of the best ways to make sure the audience loves you is to bring solutions to their problems. If you have done a thorough job of researching your audience, you already know what their problems are. It’s your job to bring ideas for them to try. In modern day thinking this is what motivational speaking is all about. No longer is it good enough to get people all fired up where they are bouncing off the walls without a clue as to what they will do with this new found excitement and motivation. Modern professional motivational speakers bring solutions and a plan of action to achieve them. Now those are motivating.
PAY ATTENTION TO LOGISTICS The best preparation, practice, and audience research could be ruined if you forget to pay attention to all the details surrounding a presentation. You want to know what is happening before you speak, and what is happening after you speak: How are the people seated? Are they at round tables where half of them are facing away from you, or are there no tables at all? What kind of microphone is appropriate? How big is the screen in the room? Will the people be drinking alcohol? What is the lighting like? All these items and many more affect the overall effectiveness of a presentation. The same exact words delivered with significantly different logistics could be received in entirely different ways. You could even go from a fantastic evaluation to a bomb just because of the way people are seated. It’s up to you to know the differences and how they affect a presentation.
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