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Author:
Sandra Schrift

Public Speaking is the number one way to advance your business career.
Do you get nervous when speaking to a group? Do you feel butterflies in your stomach? The following tips will help you get your butterflies to fly in formation.
1. Everyone feels some nerves before a presentation. Try to do a quiet meditation, visualization, or exercise before you speak. Breathe deeply. Memorize those opening linesand then quickly engage your audience with a question or humorous story. 2. Three keys to being a top presenter: practice, practice, practice. In front of your mirror, in front of your stuffed animals. Use a tape recorder and a cam recorder for playback and feedback. Try your material out with service clubs.
3. Embrace your audience. Remember, it is about them, not you. Are you going to challenge them to think differently, behave differently or perhaps, confirm them.
4. Use the rule of 3. The most successful speakers limit their remarks to 3 major points. Here is where you use your signature stories to support your points and help people visualize what you are saying.
5. Prepare for white space. Always allow for audience participation, questions, role play, interaction. These may be the moments that just occur and may not be part of your prepared text. Lots of practice will let you get comfortable enough to do this.
6. Use your props. Visual aids help to reinforce your points. Power Point provides professionalism. Toys create humor and playfulness. Adults delineate their thoughts visually...so be creative.
7. Leave a trail. Provide a handout or a flyer about other programs you offer and how people may contact you. Collect their business cards and raffle a prize. Ask for written feedback and for referrals.
Copyright © 2004 by Sandra Schrift. All rights reserved
Publishing Guidelines: You are welcome to publish this article in its entirety, electronically, or in print fre*e of charge, as long as you include my full signature file for ezines, and my Web site address (http://www.schrift.com) in hyperlink for other sites. Please send a courtesy link or email where you publish to sandra@schrift.com. Thank you.

Sandra Schrift 13 year speaker bureau owner and now career coach to emerging and veteran public speakers who want to "grow" a profitable speaking business. I also work with business professionals and organizations who want to master their presentations. To find out How to Become a Highly Paid Professional Speaker, go to http://www.schrift.com/ProfessionalSpeaker/. Join my free bi-weekly Monday Morning Mindfulness ezine http://www.schrift.com/monday.htm.

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A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Professional Speaker... #1 Rule of Becoming a Successful Speaker - Be (very) LAZY! Let me repeat. If you want to be a successful speaker on stage, be extremely lazy! And I am not the only wacko that says so. Fred Gratzon, a successful entrepreneur who founded the Great Midwestern Ice Cream Company and a telecommunications company Telegroup that went public in 1997 proved that theory. He even wrote an ebook that convincingly argued how we can do nothing and accomplish everything! Central to Fred’s book is his personal axiom: “Success is inversely proportional to hard work. That means, as effort and hard work become less, success becomes more. As you move towards effortlessness, success moves towards infinity.” In my opinion, Fred’s wacky axiom makes a lot of sense. If you want to become a very successful speaker, you may want to think twice about trudging along the “hard work” path. Not that hard work is wrong, but perhaps there is a much easier path that requires less sweat and pain. Who won’t want that? Not unless you are a masochistic weirdo that takes pride in torturing yourself. If that’s the case, I say join the army. Looking back at how I triumphed over my fear of public speaking and evolved into a gung-ho speaker in a short span of one and a half year, I believe I may have stumbled upon The Alternate Path, a path that Fred described to be of greater ease and effortlessness. Here’s how you can walk that path. Just five words. SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS! That’s right. Very simple. Very DUH! Yet how many of us are doing it? Fearing public speaking is normal. Most people have it. And there is absolutely no doubt that this fear of ours is huuuuggggggeeeee, even astronomical and VERY real. But how do we handle it? We work really hard to fight it. We read tons of books, e-books and blogs...