How to Speak and Sell From the Heart
I just finished speaking at two major events.
The question I always get after events is:
“Monica, how do I become a better speaker? What do I need to do to so that people like me?”
It’s interesting because I’ve come to realize that there are really four main areas to becoming a better speaker.
Engagement: This is being able to keep your audience interested and excited about your content and you.
So much of this is about listening. Listening in your sales conversations and interactions to what your tribe really wants and then being able to deliver it in a way that makes sense.
Connection: This is being able to read your audience and know when to shift content, when to move on and what emotions are coming up in a room (and how to deal with them).
This is about honing our intuition and our empathetic abilities. So that you can listen to the voices in your head and trust them while you are speaking. It’s also about practice – practicing enough that you can override your own fear and actually let the audience in.
Interaction: This is being able to elicit responses in a room, coach at a mic, ask great questions and make a large room feel smaller for the participants.
Great interaction skills are learned best by watching really good speakers interact with their audiences and modeling their techniques. It also gets built through training and practice.
Conversion: This is your ability to convert an audience to set up a conversation with you, or buy your product or service, or simply become a raving fan. This part encompasses your sales offer.
Conversion is a learned skill – this one requires learning from a master speaker who knows how to sell. And then getting feedback over and over again on the sales offers you are giving.
Over and over again I see speakers who are great in one of these areas – but not all 4. Perhaps you can relate?
I see speakers who are intense connectors – you can feel their energy and intensity – but after a while it gets a bit boring without some engagement and interaction.
I’ve seen speakers who have amazing content and engage the room fully – but because they aren’t connected – they go too quickly or stay on content too long.
I’ve also seen speakers who interact with the audience quite a bit – but they fall short on giving great content and can leave a room feeling like they missed out on something.
And of course – I’ve seen speakers who have engagement, interaction and connection down – but they never really make an offer. And they get a ton of compliments but no real sales.
When you first start speaking, all you can do is just get out in front of a room and hope for the best. But as you get more advanced you can start to really hone in on certain areas. If you find that something felt off during your speaking, you can use these four areas and ask yourself, “where could I have been better?”
And know that there is always room for improvement. I’m always looking to improve, no matter how many events I do.
If you’d like specific training in all 4 of these areas – please check out my Speaking Masterclass on September 12-14th 2018 in Brooklyn, NY. This class is limited to 10 participants and everyone will get a chance to practice all the parts of their talks and get real feedback from me. We’ll also figure out your entire signature talk, your point of view, and 3 back up talks. There’s no better way to gain mastery than to practice in front of an expert.
Would love to know how this has helped you – leave me a comment below.
