I was able to start earning money as a trainer even though I had zero notable successes in my life due to 2 reasons.

1. I knew what valuable knowledge I could share that people wanted.
2. I knew how to use copywriting to make myself sound credible.

You are going to learn something that will help you cut through the noise and make you stand out immediately as a trainer and coach.

Read the rest of this entry

I bet you can’t tell me… the fastest, easiest and most
effective method to turn your audience into money for you.

Well, you have your audience, you’ve spoken about your topic
and now it is time to turn all that effort into money for
you.

For most people, they are going to stutter and splat. When
you have no clear process that works, you are going to be
nervous… and rightfully so.

Having an audience in front of you while you fumble in
selling your product or service is like doing a stand up
comedy with ZERO laughter – for 120mins straight.

Yes, time distorts when you are dying on stage. I know that
from personal experience…

In this article, I am going to share with you an elegant
method to transit from content to selling, without leaving a
sour taste in your audience’s mouth.

Guaranteed. Read the rest of this entry

I’ve got a confession to make…

I joined the Toastmasters Club for the dream of one day
earning money from speaking.

The problem is…

Most people can speak like a pro, have sharp witted humour,
but is absolutely clueless about how to turn all that skill
into money.

In this article, I will share with you the simplest method
for turning your speaking skills into money and earn money
from your passion. Read the rest of this entry

Public speaking is a general thing but there are some specific practices in each country to become effective. The culture and behavior of people need to be considered when you speak. Public speaking in Singapore is not really different compared to the general practices. However, there are some public speaking tips and public speaking techniques to be considered especially when you want to speak to a Singaporean audience. Compared to other countries in Asia, Singapore has a very intent and focused listeners.

To better deliver a speech, it is better to be equipped with the skills by attending a public speaking workshop. A common group that helps to hone this skill is the Toastmaster’s Club. If you fear public speaking, it is best to go through a series of trainings and workshops.

Public speaking in Singapore does not have many requirements. Your confidence in speaking and coherence in everything you say are very important.

Eye contact and gestures are very effective to make your listeners wait for every word that you have to say. Your speech should have substantial content that your audience will look forward to. At the end of your speech, they should feel that they learned something new or you have made them change some of their perspectives by demonstrating your persuasive skills.

You will better learn all of these skills if you engage in activities and workshops that develop them. Public speaking in Singapore is more effective if you join workshops that will focus on identifying your strengths and weaknesses.

This way, you will know the areas you need to improve on and the areas that can make you become a more effective speaker. Eventually, you will have the skills that will make people listen to you.

If you want to be able to speak in front of people, you should know how to overcome stage fright. This may not be easy especially for people who never had experience in public speaking

Those who fear public speaking need to exert more effort and attention in coping with stage fright. Some seminars and workshops will be helpful to expose you in similar activities. This way you can control stage fright and you will be able to gain confidence in facing and speaking to people.

The best way to know how to conquer stage fright is to be involved in active groups that focus on developing public speaking skills. There are organizations that can help you know how to overcome stage fright.

You can also equip yourself with the skills by getting resources that can give you some tips and techniques in speaking and understanding the behavior of different kinds of audiences. However, involving yourself in small events that will require you to share your thoughts will also help. You can express your feelings and ideas in small family gatherings or in some work related activities.

When speaking in public, it is important thought to know the basic rules of grammar. This is a basic requirement when you speak. How to overcome stage fright requires confidence and the only thing that will help you gain this is by equipping yourself with the tools of the language. As mentioned, grammar is one.

In addition, you should have a good vocabulary to be able to play with words. This way, you will use the appropriate words to express yourself.

In a nutshell, grammar, vocabulary, confidence and speaking resources will help you in developing your skills and eventually, your stage fright will be gone.

Any profession requires good communication skills. If you are in a field that requires speaking to clients or coordinating with people whether internally or externally, there is a need for you to be equipped with the right skills.

Effective presentation skills training would be an advantage to clearly communicate your thoughts and make people listen to you regardless of your role in the organization. With the right public speaking training that you can derive from quality presentation skills course, you can better express yourself to the right people with the right message.

The best thing to do to prepare yourself to be a good communicator is to go through a presentation training that will expose you to the many facets of communicating and at the same time making you learn from your mistakes and improve on this skill.

Effective presentation skills training will make you gain more confidence in sharing your ideas and thoughts and at the same time maintain composure as you express them to a small or a big group.

A good training does not only cover aspects of communication, there are good quality training programs that also address personality development and this goes hand in hand with effective communication.

With this kind of training, you will be able to carry yourself well as a speaker and at the same time, as a person who has the confidence to face anybody and be able to communicate effectively in different situations.

Having effective presentation skills is a must for professionals. Learning how to do it takes a lot of training and practice. You should consider this as a major professional development move. It will surely help in your career and you will no longer fear public speaking.

Let’s face it.

It is really scary to meet your audience for the first time and get them to listen to you. If you are going to be selling them something at the end of it, that is pure “wet the pants” experience.

How do I know that?

Well, for a couple of months, I had been doing just that as a job! I was asked to sell training programs from the stage that I had no right to sell in the first place. It was all because the guru who was teaching the course felt that it would leverage their time to let someone else do it!

But guess what… the newspaper clearly shows their face and even writes:

“Give us 3 hours and <insert name of guru> will teach you how to <insert money making technique>”

I cut my teeth in front of an audience who feels they had been taken for a ride, expecting to listen to the guru but instead sees this young punk teaching them how to earn money!

Fortunately I spent almost $15,000 and learnt this technique that not only got the audience to know like and trust me in 60 secs, they even bought the $1500 course that I was promoting at the end of the seminar!

Haha!!!

Wanna hear the irony?

I even out-sold the guru promoting his own course… How’s that?

Let me share with you the $15k template in very easy to use bullet points

1. Centering
2. Connect
3. Hook
4. Introduce self
5. Appreciate
6. Credibility
7. Buy in

Let me help you remember these points yeah?

Imagine that you are now in a basketball arena, it is dark, quiet, and every step you make echoes through the entire stadium.

You walk gingerly to the CENTRE of the court and lo and behold, you see a socket.

Hmmmm…

Miraculously, you notice that in the corner of your eye, there is a shiny gleaming silver plug that just calls out to you.

Well duh…. of course the plug was meant to CONNECT to this socket.

You pull the plug towards the socket, heaving and huffing, wondering why it is soooo tight and what in the world is at the other end of it. The wire simply leads of into darkness and nothingness.

Well here goes.

You push in the plug. Chuuup. It fits nicely, like pushing your foot into your favourite shoe.

Then suddenly…

There is strange clanging sound from the end of the wire that connects to the plug. This sound comes from within the darkness that the wire leads into.

Seems to sound louder and louder though…

Swish!

A massive HOOK appears out of nowhere and drags you by your foot.

You swing like a 30m golf club in Tiger Woods hands and for that split second… suspend in mid air… right at the top of the stadium…

At this moment, the stadium lights flood the place and stings your eyes.Your eyebrows tighten as the muscles strain to accomodate the intensity of stadium strength ceiling lights.

Now you are suspended in mid air… upside down… uh oh… and you see a stadium of people staring straight at you. Unblinking. Mouth half open.

You clear your throat… Time to INTRODUCE yourself…

“Ahem…. Hi guys… I’m…..”

Loud applause fills the stadium and everyone stands and thanks you for the immense entertainment you’ve just provided them. They show all the APPRECIATION with the cheers, applause and smiles.

Then this really weird thing happened.

Each and everyone of them… all at the same time… reached into their pocket, pulled out their wallet, and took out their CREDIBILITY card.

The crowd BELLOWED in unison….

“I want to BUY him! I want to BUY him! I want to BUY him!”

That’s when you snap out from your nap…. realising that you had been struggling to listen to this droid drone on at the stage for the past 30 mins….

Cool…

Now that you have learnt the link method…lets get into the speaking techique side of things yeah?

Centering

Guess which is the most nerve wrecking segment of the presentation?

The first 10 secs!

Guess which part of the presentation is your audience most sceptical of you?

The first 10 secs!

Not a good combination huh?

Here is what you need to do:

It starts when you hear your name called out or when you know you are next to speak. There must be some form of self talk that empowers you to speak confidently. In my HighTrustSpeaking course, I teach something called it the confidence trigger. Using NLP and self hypnosis, you can create a powerful “anchor” that you can fire off to access any emotional state you want!

But in this article, let me just keep it simple for you. You can still achieve a similar level of peak performance state just with self talk alone.

After you use the empowering self talk, next comes the walk up to the front.

Don’t run up, don’t trudge up. Just walk briskly and confidently up. Your nervous energy is just waiting to burst at this point.

Control!!!

Stand at the front. Feet slightly apart. Shoulders relaxed. Hands beside you. NOT in your pocket… Not in front of you… covering the precious parts… Beside you.

Centre yourself. There you go. The more centred you feel, the more confident you get. The more confident you get, the MORE centred you feel. And just that alone, would easily get you into the peak speaking state.

Connect

This is simple.

Just look at the audience at this point. Scan from left to right, with a smile on your face please… Unless of course you are about to deliver harsh bad news… then if you wore that grin, heh… that’ll be fun huh? Imagine what they will do to the messenger.

You want them to feel that you are connecting with them. And that you feel what they are feeling. For those who did not want to be here, you understand. For those who can’t wait to hear what you have to say, you reflect the enthusiasm.

Hook

Your first line should never, never, never be…

“Good morning/ afternoon/ evening”

They really don’t give a crap actually.

Now if you are an adored guru of your field, then even starting with a lame joke makes your audience like you. And you really don’t have to read this at all.

But if you are like the majority of presenters who have to really, and I mean really buy audience over first, then digest this.

The first thing that comes out from your mouth must engage them.

You can use one of these proven to work tools:

1)   Enrolling questions

These are questions that makes the audience respond with a yes or no. Usually, you need to let them know that you ask these questions to find out some information before proceeding.

Eg: “How many of you had read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell before?”

2)   CSI opening

If you ever watched an episode of CSI, then you may have a clue of what I mean here. You know how the show starts, 30 seconds into the show… and you still have no clue what is happening? Then BAM! Ahh… Now you know what you are in for for the next 60 mins of the show.

Hey, to keep it simple, just start with a story. Can’t go wrong with that.

3)   Dramemo

What does “Drama” plus “Demo” get you? “DRAMEMO”!

All you need is a dramatic demonstration to kick start the presentation.

Eg: Clap your hands intermittently, and at the 4^th clap onwards… say this: “Everytime I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies.”

Introduce yourself

Here is where you earn the right to get people to listen to you. You need to talk about your credentials, experience, especially your hero’s journey story.

I wished I could go in depth here. But this would become a 5000 word essay and no one would finish reading this.

In High Trust Speaking workshop, I really focus on this. When you get your “earn the right” segment right, your audience would practically be eating out of your hands for the rest of the talk. If you omit this part, DOOM! Was that subtle enough?

Appreciate Others

This is something that all presenters need to learn more of. We are really sick and tired of those trainers and presenters who think they are sages on the stage.

Your audience loves to be appreciated. In fact, you can even go on to appreciate whoever you feel deserves it. The organisers, your mentor, etc. The only limit is that the person you are showing appreciation for must be present at the presentation!

Credibility

Here you need to sell the heck out of yourself without sounding like a jerk. Here’s how.

First, you tell them all your achievements.

Next you tell them it was not always like this.

Finally, you tell them the story that was the turning point for you.

Buy In

Here is the final component to the introduction segment to your entire talk/ presentation.

Your audience will want to know what is in it for them to listen to the entire duration of your talk. Here you must forecast for them the parts to your talk in a way that would entice them to pay attention.

In this segment, your ability to use emotional trigger sentences and covert hypnosis skills would be VERY useful. You can learn more about convert persuasion and hypnosis with ethics from my other 100+ articles on the subject.

Well that is it! The overview of the “7 Keys to Make Your Audience Like, Know and Trust You in Less Than 60 Seconds” is laid out here for you to digest!

My participants and attendees spent hundreds over dollars to hone and perfect each and every key to make every presentation a High Trust one.

Then, your listener/ audience/ trainees would be motivated into action, transform their beliefs or take you as their chosen leader.

Imagine what your life would be like if you knew exactly how to harness this power for good. Imagine what it would be like if people began to really listen to what you have to say. And imagine what it would feel like to have your reputation spread like an opened bottle of perfume, simply because you chose to be a High Trust Speaker. If you could, wouldn’t you?

There is a good reason that public speaking is a superior method of presenting material to a group than just faxing your text over and letting them read it.  Yes, part of that reason is that by stepping through the talk, you can make sure they “get it”.  But the most important reason has to do not with the subject, not with the presentation style and not even with how good the donuts were before talk.  The reason public speaking is so effective is that the audience gets the material presented in a very personal way by the one person who can do that – you.

When people walk away from your talk, they will remember one thing as their primary memory and another level as secondary.  The secondary memory will be your subject matter.  But the most potent memory they will carry with them will be that of you as a speaker.  Public speaking is actually a very personal thing to your audience.  That is because while to you, you are speaking one to many, to each audience member, you are talking to him or her directly.  That bond is unspoken but strong.  And it is even stronger when you address the same crowd regularly.

This may seem like an awesome responsibility but buried in this little fact about public speaking is a secret to make your presentations more effective.  Instead of shying away from the fact that people will feel like they know you after you address them in a public, embrace that fact of life about speaking in public and use it to your advantage.  The way to grab  a hold on this powerful psychological principle is simply to give them more of you in every aspect of your talk.

You can start with your introduction.  Its easy to tell some joke you heard on the late night talk shows and then go right into your talk.  But if you take a moment and speak to them person to person, you will create a stronger bond with them which will result in better results from your presentation.  Take some time and reveal a little bit about yourself to this group.  Public speaking can be a very cathartic event because when you open up to a group of people about your feelings and your past, they embrace you emotionally and that presentation becomes personal to them.

But don’t stop adding the personal touch with the introduction.  Continue to look for ways to make the presentation personal throughout the talk.  You no doubt know the power of illustrations, stories and humor in any presentation.  Well instead of using abstract or canned stories or jokes, personalize this aspect of your talk.  Don’t just “tell a joke”.  Instead think of a personal story that has a humorous component to it and use that to illustrate the point.  By using humor that makes fun of you, not only will the laughter be more genuine, it will ingratiate you to the crowd and create that connection between the personal speaker/audience bond to your subject matter.

The same is true of illustrations.  Now there have been cases where speakers made up a personal story to fit the talk so that is done.  And because it has the same effect, you could put that under the category of “acting” and not feel to badly about it.  But if you use a real story from your own life, your childhood or your love life, that will ring true during your talk and be more believable to your audience.

Don’t be intimidated by putting some of your own heart and life into your public speaking.  The investment of giving people a little more of you will result in a higher level of concentration and responses to your call to action.  And the audience will emotionally bond to you in such a way that you will almost certainly be asked back to speak again and again.

The software application PowerPoint has been a revolution in public speaking particularly in the business world.  PowerPoint is easy to use, available with almost every implementation of the Microsoft Office suite and it’s reliable. If you can use Microsoft Word, you probably have the skills to put together an effective presentation using PowerPoint.

But just like anything else, there is a right way and wrong way to give a talk using PowerPoint as a speaking tool.  If you have ever sat in on a presentation where the speaker used PowerPoint unwisely, you know that the tool can become as much of a curse as a blessing to a public speaker.  So it’s good to have some guidelines on how to use PowerPoint to help your presentation and not hurt it.

Knowing in advance some of the problems that can disturb your talk if you use PowerPoint unwisely can help you in the design of your slides.  For one thing, it’s a good idea not to put too much text on a PowerPoint slide.  If you put a long paragraph of information up on the screen, you will see people squinting to try to read it all.  And even if the section of your talk refers to that text, you put your audience in the position of trying to read that text or listen to you.  And either way they go, part of your message will be lost on them as they try to keep up.

PowerPoint comes with some really fun special effects like fonts and special effects like fade in or other ways text can be revealed on each slide.  Avoid the temptation to get too cute with these effects.  It’s always nice to have a little humor in your presentation but if your slides are overly “cutesy”, it reduces the credibility of your talk.  Also if every slide uses a different special effect, color scheme or font, not only is that distracting to the audience, it makes you look like you just discovered PowerPoint and had to play with all of the toys it has.  So establish some consistency in how each slide will look or behave and stick with it through every slide.

Another great device that PowerPoint offers is to allow the software to change slides for you on a timed progression.  In that way, PowerPoint can change the slide every two minutes allowing you just the amount of time you want between slides.  While this is also very slick, it is a dangerous toy to use because it can cause you to stumble while doing your talk.  You have to have you talk planned to a high level of precision to carry off that kind of talk and if you pause too much, have a question pop up or any other disturbance in your script, PowerPoint will move on when you do not.  So use this feature with caution.

Above all, do not turn your back on the audience to read a PowerPoint slide to them.  This is the number one most common mistake people do when speaking using PowerPoint.  Turning your back on your audience is always a bad idea.  So if you must discuss what is on the slide, do so facing the audience.  But to turn your back and then read a slide to them is insulting and boring to your audience.

It is far better not to have the text information on the slide but just a series of bullet items that are ticklers for the presentation you are giving.  This approach assures that PowerPoint remains a tool that you are using not a tool that is using you.  And that makes you the boss of PowerPoint which is the way it should be.

People who make their living researching what frightens people the most have made a pretty amazing discovery.  Consistently when people list the top five things they are afraid of in life, they have are some pretty intimidating terrors.  But you would think that death would rank number one on that list.  But death doesn’t take number one, it has to settle for number two.  Amazingly, the number one thing that terrifies most people is not death, it is public speaking.  A popular comedian once said that this means that people would rather be the guy in the casket at a funeral than the guy giving the eulogy.

If you have ever been in a meeting listening to a speaker, you can usually tell if they are terrified.  They will get up there and you will see that “deer in the headlights” look.  You know that look.  It is one of extreme fear, panic, and terror so profound that the person is frozen in place unable to speak of move.  And if you have ever been that guy or gal in front of a group giving the “deer in the headlights” look, you know the feeling of terror that happens in front of a group of people can be pretty awful.

So if you know that public speaking is going to be part of your job or something you have to regularly, you have to find a way to neutralize that fear and be able to relax in front of a crowd when you speak.  How often have you sat and listened to a speaker who was relaxed, funny, bright and even able to field questions with no difficulty at all?  It’s easy to admire that kind of public speaker and think that he or she has some magical powers that you will never get.  But they don’t have magic.  That speaker has just learned some techniques for neutralizing those fears so he or she can appear relaxed and as though he or she is having fun up there.  It’s not an inborn talent.  It’s a skill which can be learned.

Of course a lot of the ability to look out at a sea of faces who want to hear what you want to say and not feel sick comes from experience.  But experience teaches you things that you can at least understand before you become an old pro at public speaking.  One of those things is that the crowd out there doesn’t know what to expect.  If you broke down why you feel terrified in front of people, it’s that you think that they think they know what they want and that you are being judged.

But to understand what people really expect when they are looking at you at the podium on stage, just remember the last time you heard someone speak.  You had no predefined idea what was about to be said and you probably had no outline or any frame of reference what that speaker was going to say.  That means that even if you don’t deliver your speech perfectly, they will never know that!  As long as you don’t let on that you are nervous or not sure about your material, they won’t know if you got it wrong.  If you forget an entire segment of your speech, as long as what you do say flows nicely and they never know you forgot it, the people listening will think your speech was just fine and will probably applaud.

Also remember that you are not really speaking to a group.  The group has no ears.  You are speaking to several individuals.  When you are listening to a speaker, you are one person listening to one person.   That is how each person in that audience is receiving you, as individuals.  So if you speak to them as though they are one person, not a crowd, your presentation will be warm and personal and very successful.  And the crowd will like you to which helps a lot.

Just remember that their expectations of you are fairly low and for the most part, people hearing you speak want you to succeed.  So smile at them, use a bit of humor and use that little insider tip to relax up there.  And when you can relax, you can actually have fun at public speaking rather than wishing you were the guy in the casket instead.