Communication Steroids

Communication Steroids Podcast: Language Crutches

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:16:00 -0400

Every speaker has (or had) crutches. You know, those, uh, verbal tics that, er, like, you know, are really annoying to the listener? Tim and Roger pick them apart and give tips on tossing them out of your speaking landscape.

File Download (10:50 min / 4.4 MB)

Public Speaking as a Marketing Tool

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:12:00 -0400

We’ve been encouraging small business owners to get out in front of audiences and show off their expertise for years because it helps position them as ‘THE’ expert in their field.

In today’s marketing world where everyone is hit with thousands of subtle and not-so-subtle marketing and advertising messages on a daily basis, anything you can do that gives you an edge is worth considering.

So let’s look at how public speaking can be used as a marketing tool.

We mentioned it positions you as an expert, so let’s take a look at some ways Public Speaking can be used as a Marketing Tool:

1. Expert Status

In fact, when you get up in front and talk about a problem and a solution, or discuss various aspects of a particularly ticklish part of your industry, you’re sharing your experience. Hence, the term ‘expert.’

If you haven’t written a book, you should. But short of becoming a published author in your field, getting up in front of an audience helps solidify your credentials. And when it comes to marketing your business, having credibility is key.

2. Meeting Potential Clients

Speaking to a local group, such as a Rotary club or a Chamber of Commerce, gives you the chance to meet and greet potential clients in a one-on-one situation. Before the presentation, press the flesh, meet folks, pick up some business cards.

One technique we’ve used to good effect: at the very end of our presentations we mention that we have a website, podcast and weekly newsletter. “If anyone wants a free subscription plus a few freebies that will help you become a public speaker, make sure we get one of your business cards. Be sure to write ‘Inner Circle’ or put an ‘X’ or check mark on the back so we know it’s okay to include you on or email list.” This usually brings us a handful of new subscribers!

3. Builds a Video Archive

If you’re smart enough to videotape your presentations, you now have a growing body of work that you can use in your marketing materials and on your website. Depending on the presentation, you can package the whole presentation as either a free sample of the kind of work you do, or if it’s a longer information-packed session, you may be able to package it as a product. Or at least an enticement to a larger more expensive product.

4. Improves Your Communication Skills

The more you do something, the better you get at it. Face it, unless you grew up playing baseball from Little League through high school and college, chances are you would never get a chance to play in the minor leagues, which means you’d never get a chance to play in the ‘bigs.’ That’s because those players have been working on their skills for literally decades – and improving various aspects of those skills.

So if you’re not getting up in front of people and speaking on a regular basis, your skills will not grow quickly, nor will they progress much. You may know your business inside and out because you spend 10 or 12 hours a day there. But do you spend time on a regular basis meeting potential clients and turning them into paying customers? That kind of skill doesn’t happen overnight, either. But—the more you do it, the better you get at it.

It’s the same with talking about your business, your industry, your company and your opinions on the ins and outs of your industry. The more you do it, the more people will recognize you as the expert they want to hire. Your improved communication skills helps to position you as the ‘go-to’ person.

So GO TO it, and start using public speaking as a marketing tool today!

Join Our Inner Circle :: Join our Inner Circle now and pick up the following free gifts: Special Report: "How to Get Over the Fear of Public Speaking" audio no-holds barred discussion (plus transcript) that gets you over your FEAR of PUBLIC SPEAKING!

Communication Steroids Podcast: Denise Tucker Interview

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:51:00 -0400

Denise Tucker talks about promoting your speaking business using proposals in her new e-book “I’ve Got Leads! Now What?” Tim Gordon and Denise go over ways to use proposals as a contract and to show unique professionalism in the public speaking industry.

Speaker Match e-book "I've Got Leads! Now What?" :: Denise Tucker's e-book on promoting yourself as a public speaker

File Download (11:42 min / 4.7 MB)

Communication Steroids Podcast: Denise Tucker Interview

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:50:00 -0400

I've Got Lead! Now What? :: Denise Tucker's e-book on promoting yourself as a public speaker

File Download (11:42 min / 4.7 MB)

Communication Steroids Podcast: Common Communication Mistakes

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:00:00 -0400

In any kind of professional communication, such as public speaking or one-to-one sales, your skill in communication with articulation and clarity counts for a lot. But we ALL make mistakes!

Tim and Roger discuss six common communication mistakes on our latest podcast.

Also! Catch Tim’s mini-rant on one of the speakers at an upcoming Social Media Expo. Seems the guy (who we’ve never heard of) is not only a keynote speaker, but is teaching a ‘how to podcast’ session. But can the guy really podcast? In quality? Hmmmm…

Check out the end of THIS podcast and find out…

File Download (15:53 min / 6.4 MB)

Communication Steroids Podcast: Book a Speaking Engagement NOW

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:07:00 -0400

One of the best ways to get past your fear of speaking in public is to book a speaking engagement NOW. It focuses you, and once you’re committed speak it will have a lot of other great side benefits. Tim and Roger discuss what happens once you book a gig.

File Download (8:30 min / 3.5 MB)

Speech Preparation with Tim Gordon

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:02:00 -0400

Three simple steps to putting your speech together, whether it’s a short 5 or 10 minute luncheon presentation or a longer keynote type speech. Break your topic down into three bullet points that you want to cover. Tim ‘Gonzo’ Gordon goes up the river to discuss Speech Preparation.

yPbmHKc8WeY

Making Your Speech Memorable

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:31:00 -0400

Okay, so you’re going to give (another) speech.

Great! What’s it about?

Doesn’t matter. Does it?

Not really. You’re giving a speech most likely because of your knowledge or expertise on the subject.

So you know your subject cold. You could talk about it for hours. All the details and minutia that most people would find boring. But hey, you’re the expert and you’ve been asked to make a SPEECH!

Get a grip. Let’s see what we can do to make your speech memorable.

Most people that see a speech couldn’t tell you what it was about a day or two later. Most won’t remember the main points of your speech.

It’s because the speech simply wasn’t memorable!

First, reduce your speech to a single one-line description:

“I’m going to convince people of the need to have adequate life insurance.”

Wow, boring.

Well, not really. It doesn’t matter what the subject matter is as we mentioned a moment ago.

No, what’s important is to find ways to make it interesting.

Now that you have the main theme, break that down into three sub-points. That’s right, three bullet points.

Doesn’t matter what they are, as long as they support the main theme.

Now, find a personal story or anecdote that either supports or illustrates your three points.

Finally, create an outline like this:

Open: intro to your subject
Sub-point 1
Sub-point 2
Sub-point 3
Close / Call to Action

When you patch your presentation together, create a short paragraph that describes each of your three points. Then add a story to illustrate that point.

How does the story make you feel? Do you think your audience will feel the same way? Practice the various pieces, both together and separately.

If you practice the speech a dozen times you’ll know it pretty good. Probably good enough to not have to worry about having notes or an outline to refer to. But if you need an outline, or a short series of 3×5 cards, by all means use them. Just be as discreet as you can.

During the speech, speak so your audience can hear you. Speak so they can understand you. If your stories are engaging enough the audience will stay away and if they’re really engaging they’ll REMEMBER the stories, and how they felt.

In other words, you’ve now delivered a MEMORABLE speech.

Close the speech with a Call to Action. What’s a good call to action?

Well, what do you want the audience to DO? To FEEL? To THINK?

Find a way to phrase that action and close your speech with it.

Hey, you’ve just delivered a MEMORABLE speech!

Communication Steroids Podcast: Handling Hecklers

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:32:00 -0400

A heckler can disrupt your speech – what do to? While it doesn’t happen that often, you should be prepared to handled a disturbance. Tim and Roger discuss various ways of handling hecklers and other people that can interrupt your speech or presentation.

File Download (9:42 min / 3.9 MB)

Communication Steroids Podcast: Competitive Speaking

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:02:00 -0400

The world of competitive speaking is much different than other types of presentations that you would give in corporate situations or at service clubs. Tim and Roger, who have done their share of competitive speaking, look at the differences and the similarities of the two.

File Download (11:22 min / 4.6 MB)

Communication Steroids Podcast: SpeakerMatch

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:08:00 -0400

Need help finding a speaking gig? What about finding the right speaker for your organization, whether it’s corporate, non-profit or school? Check out this interview with the founder of Speaker Match. Bryan Caplovitz discusses his job-search site for public speakers with Tim Gordon on this podcast.

Check our SpeakerMatch here.

SpeakerMatch :: Matching Speakers and Speaking Opportunities

File Download (15:23 min / 6.2 MB)

Communication Steroids Podcast: Knowing Your Audience

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:56:00 -0400

Who are you speaking to? Are they young, old, middle age? A mixture? What’s the general background of the group? Average income? Knowing your audience helps you shape your message and how you deliever it. Tim and Roger give you a journalist’s method of learning about the audience you’re planning to speak to.

File Download (9:09 min / 3.7 MB)

Communication Steroids Podcast: First Impressions

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:07:00 -0400

It seems like you have a chance almost every day to give someone a first impression. It may be trite, but it’s true: ‘you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.’

So how can you always leave people with a good impression? Tim and Roger look at various ways in different situations where you can leave upbeat, positive first impressions.

File Download (12:56 min / 5.2 MB)

Judging Hillary's Speech

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:30:00 -0400

Hillary Clinton’s campaign suspension speech this past Saturday, June 7th, was given to a few thousand supporters in the historic National Building Museum building in Washington, DC and millions of TV watchers.

As campaign speeches go, it was one of the better ones of her campaign. What made it so good?

First, she had a specific purpose for the speech. It was not a typical campaign ‘stump speech’ in which a few campaign issues are cherry-picked for the specific audience. She had an opportunity to wrap up her campaign and shift her focus to the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama.

From what I’ve read Senator Clinton worked on the speech with her main speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, got some input from a few close advisers, including her husband Bill, daughter Chelsea and other staffers – but it was mainly Hillary’s product.

With her eye on the historic finish to the most successful campaign by a woman in American Presidential Politics history, Senator Clinton had to choose her ‘take’ carefully. If was too much about her, there was a danger of appearing to selfish. However, if she didn’t acknowledge the historic nature of the campaign and the millions of voters who supported her all the way, the speech wouldn’t bear fruit for them, either.

So yeah, she had a lot riding on it!

How did she do, from a speech evaluator’s viewpoint?

*Delivery and Vocal Variety: Easy to judge. Hillary is a accomplished public speaker and it showed. She displayed power, humility and enthusiasm – and a flair for the dramatic and theatrical – when it was called for. A

*Knowing her Audience: Again, this is an audience she’s spoken to hundreds of times in the past year and a half. Naturally, she knew her audience. A

*Pacing: Tough to judge. As a spectator, there were times when the audience overwhelmed her and she had to stop. But during the 25-minute speech she kept it moving well enough. B

*Using Notes: A typical campaign stump speech doesn’t require notes, because the speaker knows the subject so well. However, in this case she certainly could have used – and did use – notes. It wasn’t until she was several minute into the speech that I even noticed her checking the notes, which told me she have probably memorized the first few minutes – as any good speaker should. B-

*Content: With nods to her supporters, her opponent, the timing, references to women supporters and the ‘glass ceiling’ which those women are trying to crack, this speech brought it all together in a powerful ‘wrap’ on the campaign. The speech included a powerful endorsement for Barack Obama, and a succinct call to action for her voters to get behind her and support Obama and the Democratic Party. Senator Clinton certainly recognized her moment and made the most of it. A+

Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent or even non-political, it’s interesting to watch powerful public speakers for a number of reasons. First, given the fact that they’re extremely proficient at what they do, you can always pick up a few tips for your next speech. It’s also interesting to try and find a few areas where they could improve. I think the only area I would criticize Ms. Clinton on for this speech is the fact that she had to use notes. But given the context, it’s an easily forgivable critique – and a minor one at that.

Everything else for the speech was running on all cylinders, so for the speech presentation alone, she definitely earned an A. Judging by the reviews in the major media outlets, she managed to hit the important points and leave the race on her own terms, and make a powerful call to action to support her former rival for the upcoming general election battle.

What do you think? Let us know with your comments:

Communication Steroids Podcast: Phil Stella Interview

Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:51:00 -0400

Tim Gordon discusses the aspects of training and seminars with long-time seminar teacher Phil Stella, to uncover the differences (and similarities) between a keynote or luncheon speech and a seminar.

File Download (17:07 min / 6.9 MB)