business strategy
moments you have to bring them
in to you. Open with complete and
utter certainty – with a no apology
attitude – and take us from there.
tip #3
Stop Responding to the Energy of
the Room
In 2017 when acting as the support
speaker to an international keynote
speaker out of New York came an
important example. After each event
the keynote would chat through his
feedback, but the most powerful
came after the final event – a flat
room with low energy; and it was
easy to respond in kind. His words
were ‘you are the speaker. It is not
your responsibility to respond to
the energy of the room. It is your
responsibility to set the energy of
the room’. Don’t wait for permission
from the floor – and don’t be
distracted by it.
tip #4
Don’t Sweat It In Front Of Me
Don’t open with “I’m not good at
this’, ‘I’m so nervous’, ‘this is my
first time so please be kind’. We want
your success; if we can see you are
nervous we’ll work with you so long
as we can hear your passion and
your desire to share your knowledge.
People are not going to work against
you at any stage – unless you ask for
their sympathy first, and then that
is probably all they are going to give
you. Take a deep breath and ditch
the apology.
tip #5
Fans Won’t Write You Cheques
There is an unhealthy mix of
frustration and amusement when we
see emerging speakers get carried
away with a little bit of ‘fandom’.
Suddenly there is more engagement
on line and with a lot of ‘you’re so
good’, so emerging speakers can
get side-tracked. It becomes more
about social engagement than social
proof – and social proof can only
happen when you ‘do it in real life’.
It is not in the online following, the
likes, and the comments that you
will turn speaking into a successful
business or career strategy; nor in
sharing stages with celebrities. It is
turning up, in real life – getting real
time, real world feedback so that you
can push beyond ‘you’re so good’ to
being booked – over and over again.
Focus on fans and the only way
back to ‘in real life’ will be a road
littered with apology and diminished
certainty.
None of us are perfect; we all default
– one client crafting her second
keynote sent through her draft
script for review. The response came
within seconds with the question
– Where do you think your first
mistake may be? She responded with
a string of laughing emojis and the
sentence the first d^^n line! She
had made the mistake of taking the
audience to an introduction of her
self and to list her background.
You will eventually eliminate
the unconscious apology. In the
meantime, just get quicker at
catching it and ditching it!
AUTHOR
JACQUELINE NAGLE
Creator & Driving Force
http://www.https://speakableyou.com