As a heart-centered entrepreneur, whether you are launching a new business, or trying to make the quantum leap you know you are capable of, you have an incredibly powerful tool at your disposal that costs you nothing and is uniquely yours: your voice.
By using your experience, your expertise, and your voice to speak to groups, either large or small, you can build a solid foundation and kick-start your growth.
What Is Speaking?
Let’s get rid of a few misconceptions first.
- First, we aren’t talking about The State of the Union or a Commencement Address here.
Speaking does not have to be done in a formal or lavish setting for it to be effective. In fact, as an entrepreneur, expert, or business owner, you use your speaking skills in multiple contexts every day.The same speaking skills you use to convey your message to a small group gathered in your living room are the same ones you use in a conference room, creating a webinar, participating in a conference call, or up on stage in front of hundreds of attendees who have paid to hear your message.
- Second, contrary to what your fears are telling you, you don’t have to be an extrovert or love getting up in front of a crowd to speak.
There are a lot of tools you can use to make you feel more comfortable. You can effectively deliver your message in a video, a webinar, or over the phone. (Ladies, you don’t even have to do your hair for these ones!)
Remember, whenever you are talking about your business or your passion to a group that wants to hear what you have to say, you are SPEAKING.
Why Speak?
You have something to say that no one else can.
The combination of your experience, knowledge, and perspective is unique to you and the world is clamoring for people who can speak authentically to those experiences.
Here are 6 things that simply speaking can help you accomplish:
1 – Boost your visibility
By speaking you make yourself more visible to the world in a way that is more personal, accessible, and impactful than any writing or social media following you can create.
2 – Boost your credibility
When you are just starting out, you have the expertise to help your clients, but you lack the track record of successes and overjoyed customer testimonials that help convince people that you are the solution to their problems. When they see you speak they see you for who you are, an expert.
3 – Boost your profitability
Speaking is one of the cost effective ways you can add new business. You already have your ideas, experience, and voice. And for those of us who sometimes struggle with the technology side of thing (guilty!), speaking is perfect. You just need you, them, and a room.
4 – Propel growth
One of the quickest and best ways to grow your business quickly is to speak to as many potential customers as possible. By speaking you can turn audience members into customers and into referrals for other speaking engagements where you can turn more audience members into more customers and more referrals. Oh, Imagine the growth!
5 – Leverage time
The one thing you never have enough of as an entrepreneur is time. Speaking allows you to tell your story once and have it heard by as many people as can fit in the room. And if you’ve recorded your message, that same message can be seen and heard by the whole world.
But the best part of speaking is that you don’t have to go out looking for prospective customers, because they are already there.
In that 30 minutes or 1 hour, you have spoken directly to a group of people who wanted to hear what you have to say and are now ready to act. What’s a better use of your time than that?
6 – Make Your Irresistible Offer
What separates a conversation about your passion into an opportunity to sell your services to your engaged and interested audience is your offer. Your presentation should be a gateway to your offer.
When people hear your message and the passion you have for what you are offering right from your mouth, you can make your offer irresistible.
But the best part of speaking is that you don’t have to go out looking for prospective customers, because they are already there.
In that 30 minutes or 1 hour, you have spoken directly to a group of people who wanted to hear what you have to say and are now ready to act.
What’s a better use of your time than that?
Make A Great Speech
How can you ensure that you’ve put together a great speech that is going to not only get people in the door, but have them leaving excited by your message?
1. Create a Great Talk Title
Your ability to deliver a great speech that turns into a sale starts with a Great Talk Title. Let your audience know not only what the talk is about, but how it will benefit them. The magic doesn’t happen at the end, but at the beginning and your Talk title begins to plant the seeds for your eventual success.
2. Create a Speaker Summary Sheet
Your summary sheet is a short biography of you, a summary of your talk (250 words, max! Keep it short), and your picture. This can be sent to organizations you want to speak to. You should also include a speaker introduction that the host can read when they are introducing you to the room.
3. Sizzle Reel
Your sizzle reel is a short video introducing yourself to your audience. It’s your trailer, press kit, speaker one-sheet, and bio … all wrapped into one powerful video. This is not something you need right away but keep your eye out for opportunities to catch this footage when you can.
Speaking from your heart always feels amazing. Speaking from your heart and actually turning that into sales feels even more amazing.
4. And finally, follow my Five-Step Formula: S.P.E.A.K.
S – stands for Speak.
You must learn to speak in a clear and concise way to convey the unique value that only you provide. For example, I help entrepreneurs sell without being salesy. Pretty clear, right?
P – stands for Position yourself as the expert.
You know more about your subject matter than anyone in the room. Own that! You are the expert in your category.
E – stands for Expect Resistance from the outside as well as the inside.
When you’re moving forward, you are going to experience resistance. And that’s a good thing! Resist the urge to stop or slow down. Lean into the resistance!
A – stands for Authority.
No one grants you the authority to be who you are! No one knocked on my door and said, “Hey, Lisa, here’s the crown. You’re the Queen of Sales Conversion.” That is who I am. I crowned myself!
K – stands for Knowing.
Your intuition is strong and accurate. You already know. Stop second guessing yourself. You know what to do at any given moment.
Don’t sell yourself short! YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.
Now all you need to do is develop the skill to say it.
Guest Author: Lisa Sasevich
Lisa has created a multi-million dollar home-based business with two toddlers in tow and has now been honored with the Distinguished Mentor Award from the Business Expert Forum at the Harvard Faculty Club, ranked on the prestigious Inc. 500/5000 list of America’s Faster Growing Private Companies 2 years in a row and much more.
Lisa really is the undisputed expert on how to make BIG money doing what you love and she has released a complementary online training series chocked full of resources designed to support you on your business building journey!
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