This is How to Get Your Audience to Do What You Want

One of the most difficult and intimidating parts of public speaking is not knowing where to start from. Most people move towards websites, books, Wikis, and they start talking to more and more people in the office who have already presented on the topic that they are supposed to talk on, all in the conquest of collecting more and more data. It all seems so overwhelming. Well, let me simplify it for you.

Before you do any of that, I need you to sit back, relax, and ask yourself: what is it that I want this audience to do? Do I want them to invest in a budget? Do I want them to like me enough to not fire me? Do I want them to invest on me? Do I want them to vote for me? Do I want them to approve some plans for an engineering project? This is the starting point and the first thing that you should do.

I want you to type in the discussion or comment section what it is that you want your audience to do in one simple line or statement. Even if you do not speak right now, think of a scenario where you may have to speak in the near future and use it to write your statement. Because what you want your audience to do is going to be the very beginning of every speech or presentation you have to give.

Mastering the Easiest Public Speaking Technique of All

As I have mentioned before, everybody is nervous and ill at ease when it comes to public speaking. For my day job, I work with people all over the world having different levels of expertise on public speaking and often at times I have noticed beginners, intermediates, and experts alike getting incredibly nervous and uncomfortable. I have had people have sweaty, moist hands because they were uncomfortable and some have even cried!

One day I was giving one on one training to a client in my studio and we were watching her recording when I noticed that she had started to cry. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that she hates the way her voice sounds and she looks when she speaks. Normally, I tell people to relax because they are not 21 anymore but the problem here was that she actually was 21. In fact, she was Miss Universe. And yet she was not confident in herself because she had never seen herself speak on video. We practiced and practiced and she gradually got better and better. Now she has no problem speaking on stage or doing commercials.

What did I just do there? I told you a story. Why did I do that? Because by telling a story, I make my speech more memorable. Regardless of whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or expert level of speaker, the biggest difference between good and awful speakers is that bad speakers do not tell stories. Great speakers always give stories.

Human beings are hardwired to pay more attention and listen more closely if they are being told a story. A story is just a recalling of a conversation you had with someone in a particular setting and the results and lessons you got out of the situation. It does not necessarily have to be funny, dramatic, or tear jerking. A good story or the best source of a story is just you recounting a conversation you had about a problem with the worker, a colleague, a friend, your boss, or even a client.

After you have isolated your five main points, now you need to have a story for each one of these points that constitutes a conversation you had with a real person. If you do not have a story for a particular message point, that means that you have never talked about that message with anyone in your life. If that is the case, then you need to ask yourself if that really is an important message.

So take a moment to think of a story that is relevant and makes your message point come alive.

Master the Quickest, Easiest Way to Eliminate Verbal Tics

I want to tell you about a technique using which you can easily solve the problem of verbal tics. This is a problem that many people across the world have including billionaires, business owners, Nobel Peace Prize winners, and many other famous personalities including Presidents of countries whom I have trained.

I want you to go over to your laptop or computer and type of any of the words that you use as verbal tics. It can be um, ah, er, you see, you know, like, or any other word or phrase that you frequently use to fill in the gaps between your thoughts as you speak.

You need to type it in small and medium font and then print it out. Then, as silly as it may sound, you need to take a magic marker, draw a red circle around the word and then put a slash through it. Then you must cut it out and tape it to anything that you look at daily, such as your laptop screen, your cell phone, your iPad screen, or even your watch. Since you are looking at the screen dozens and hundreds of times a day, every time you say a verbal tic, the image of the international no sign appears in your mind.

After two or three days of doing this activity, whenever you will be about to say a verbal tic, the image will come into your mind but the word will still slip out of your mouth. After about a week of doing this, you will be successfully able to control yourself as the image pops up in your mind and pause instead of filling that space with an unnecessary phrase. This way, you will sound more comfortable, confident, and relaxed.