Internet marketing and public speaking Not quite ham and eggs, is it
Those two phrases are rarely found in the same sentence. After all, many people decide to do their marketing in cyberspace so theyll never be required to deliver a sales presentation or a speech.
If you are one of these people, you are making big mistake by not developing your speaking skills, because you are cutting yourself off from the vast off-line market.
Why should internet marketers seek to improve their public speaking For the simple reason that by so doing, they and their products can become known to people who are are uncomfortable buying on-line. They prefer to know their is a human being at the other end.
In this brief article, Ill give you a shortcut system that will enable you to package your substantive knowledge so it can be delivered in an interesting, engaging manner. It is a distilled version of what I provide business people in my workshops who are almost universally in the off-line world.
To whom can your presentations be delivered How about Rotary Clubs and other civic organizations who are always looking for speakers; What about fellow internet marketers at seminars; And remember high schools and colleges, where your audience is likely to be more computer literate than the general population, experienced in buying on-line but eager to go eyeball-to-eyeball with the internet marketer who has a great product.
Keep in mind that an effective speaker is one who concentrates on satisfying the needs of the audience members, so that these people conclude that what you are proposing (selling) is in their best interestfor your purposes, buying your product, Ebook or service.
The Ten Tips outlined below are not classroom theory, but instead evolve from the real world lessons I have learned in almost 3000 presentations, and in my workshops for off-line marketers. They have worked for me, they have worked for my clients, and theyll work for you.
1. Have a specific objective
If you dont know what you wish to accomplish with your presentation, your audience certainly wont know either. Your objective may be as limited as making sure your audience will remember your URL, or a full understanding of the benefits they will gain by buying your product.
Remember that giving a great speech or presentation should never be your goal; it is merely a means to an end, and that end is what you want your audience to do with the information presented.
Be specific, and in preparing your presentation, spell out your objective in no more than a sentence or two. Print it out and tape it to your computer monitor. This will keep your preparation focused and on target as you progress throughthe drafting of your presentation.
2. Know your audiences problems, needs and concerns
To be a successful marketer, your presentation must be audience-centered. You must know the problems of the people to whom you are speaking, because your objective is to offer them a solution. This requires in-depth-research about your audience.
Keep in mind that the prime motivation for people to listen to you is their perception that your presentation will benefit them. Whats in it for me is the classic question of all audiences, on-line or off-line
3. Structure backwards
We have learned to write and speak in a 1-2-3 structure: (1) Introduction- (2) Body - (3) Conclusion. For oral presentations, this is highly counterproductive: In contrast to reading a memo, people do not have the luxury of going back and reading again what was missed the first time.You want your audience to hear and understand the bottom line message- This product iwill solve your problem.
Initiate your draft with your conclusion, focusing on merging your objective with your audiences problems, interests and concerns.
Place your conclusion on a card marked (3), then develop an introduction that signals the audience that you know its problems and will be offering a solution. Place this on a card marked (1).
Finally, place your supporting arguments on a series of cards marked (2A), (2B), etc. This 3-1-2 System provides focus, structure, and thematic unity, and is the heart of my training workshops.
4. Practice solo with tape-recorder or video-camera
After completing the presentation draft, practice by yourself with a tape-recorder or video-camera. You will be at your weakest in this initial practice, hence the advice to have nobody present whose comments could seriously hurt your confidence.
Listen to your presentation, note the rhythm and cadence, the uhs, yknows, and check your mastery of the subject.
If videotaping, note your mannerisms and body language, and coordinate your gestures with your vocal inflection.
5. Practice with colleague, friend or spouse
After completing the solo practice session, you are ready to practice in front of another person. Choose this person carefully, as you do not want a hypercritic who will find excessive faults with your presenting style. Neither, however, do you want the type of person who finds no faults whatsoever, and praises you to the skies. You need honest and constructive criticism aimed at tweaking your presentation.
6. Convene a Murder Board practice session
The Murder Board, a term I bring to my training workshops from my military background, is a rigorous practice session. It is the speakers equivalent of the flight simulator used for training pilots how to deal with in-flight emergencies, or the moot court readying lawyers for courtroom combat.
Select no more than four people to be your simulated audience, and share with them all the intelligence you have gained on your prospective audience. These four people will then role play your audience.
Their comments, questions and criticism help you correct your style of delivery, find the gaps in your knowledge, and anticipate questions and objections.
7. Arrive early to meet and greet
Personal contact and interpersonal skills are important for the success of any presentation, but they are absolutely vital when you attempt to persuade people to buy the product you are selling. We tend to accept information from people we like, but reject it from people we dont like.
When you arrive early, you can get to know members of the audience and let them relate to you as a human being. If it appears appropriate, mention names during your presentation of people you have had the occasion to meet prior to the presentation. Nothing is so sweet to the human ear as the sound of ones name being mentioned positively by a speaker.
8. Use visuals to support, not to impress
Visual aids, including the ubiquitous PowerPoint, can make or break a presentation. The advantage of using them is that most people are visual and can more readily absorb information that is graphically presented.The danger is that visuals can bore an audience, setting them off into daydreaming, not listening.
Be careful in word choice in your visualsand, of course, in your deliveryto avoid Geekspeak, unless you are speaking to an audience as familiar with this unique form of jargon as you are.
Bottom line ion visuals: Dont have the wonders of PowerPoint remembered, but the substance of your presentation forgotten.
9. Employ rhetorical devices
Repetition of key concepts, the careful use of the strategic pause, and parallel construction are just a few of the devices you can use to add spice and cadence to your presentation.
Two examples of such techniques will illustrate this important tactic. Winston Churchill, instead of saying We in Britain owe a great debt to the pilots of the Royal Air Force, expressed this thought with the memorable words Never in the field of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few.
President John F. Kennedy used a classic device of parallelism when he said, We must never negotiate out of fear, but we must never fear to negotiate.
Use your imagination to see how you can arrange words to create such cadence and rhythm.
10. Conduct immediate post-presentation analysis
Your instinct after completing a challenging presentation is to breath a sigh of relief and relax. Big mistake.
Within minutes, sit down with a note pad or tape recorder and record the questions asked, the reaction of the audience to your presentation, your impression of your own performance, etc.
Dont wait until the next day. Short term memory is precisely that, and you will remember only generalities. The immediate analysis will provide specifics.
Transfer this specific information to your data base, and you have an excellent head start to use in the Murder Board leading to your next presentation..
Use these tips, and the next time you leave your keyboard, youll find you are now as eloquent in front of a group of potential customers as you are behind your computer.
Copyright 2005 Larry Tracy
This article is excerpted from Larry Tracys book, The Shortcut to Persuasive Presentations. Larry, a retired Army colonel, was hailed by President Ronald Reagan as an extraordinarily effective speaker. He is one of the top presentation skills trainers in the US. His website is at the top of Google for persuasive presentations.
I know what your thinking, what the heck does starting a garden and planting seeds have to do with building an online business
Well... it all depends on how you perceive what Im about to share with you.
Im merely using that headline as an analogy to a Powerful marketing strategy that I use to send HIGHLY targeted traffic to my online business... Effortlessly, that almost every website on the Internet is hungry for.
Now, we all know that in order to be in business you need to either provide a Product and/or Service that caters to an particular Niche.
Thats the easy part to figure out.
The part that is usually the hardest with most online businesses is growing that business, and we both know that in order to grow your business online you need TRAFFIC.
Weve all experienced these growing pains, myself included.
And, finding a cost effective marketing strategy these days like the one Im about to share with you takes a little time to learn, but, in the long run will benefit You and your business for years.
Here are just a few benefits youll receive when you incorporate this marketing strategy into your existing online business...
1) Itll BOOST your websites Link Popularity...
2) Itll give YOU and your business INSTANT credibility...
3) Itll build TRUST with your potential customers...
4) Itll send your website Residual traffic for years...
... and best of all, itll put You infront of thousands of HIGHLY targeted customers... for FREE!
Do any of those Benefits get you excited
They sure get me excited simply because I know it works and well at that.
So, with that said, Im sure your getting a little anxious to find out what these SEEDS are that Im so fond of that will put your online business infront of thousands of HIGHLY targeted customers Absolutely FREE!
Are You Ready
!!WRITING ARTICLES!!
Thats right... Writing Articles, in my mind, is one of the BEST and most cost effective forms of online promotion, no matter what business your in.
WHY
Read the BENEFITS I listed above one more time to refresh your memory.
Where else or what other marketing strategy online will give you a list of benefits like that.
And, the best part is... it doesnt cost You anything, and yet, almost every website owner online is starving for it.
Heres another quick reminder for you, why do you think they call the Internet... The Information Super-Highway.
The Internet received that name for a reason because that is exactly what it IS.
All you need to do is supply the Information in the form of an well written Article and send it to related websites and/or newsletters around the web related to your particular Niche.
Just imagine for a minute, what one article or half a dozen articles, for that matter, would do for your online business
Youll never know until You get started, so my suggestion to You is, start brain storming some article ideas about your Product or Service and write them down on a piece of paper.
Once you have a clear idea, Start Writing.
So, there you have it, and thats why I stated... Building An Online Business Is Like Starting A Garden, You First MUST Plant Your Seeds in order for your online business to grow.
I truly hope you understand the importance of writing Articles and why they are considered one of the BEST forms of online promotion for your business.
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