Synopsis

Public speaking is a great way to grow your business. Here are a few things you can do to reduce your stress when faced with public speaking. It’s okay to be a little nervous, but you don’t want to freeze up.

* Always be prepared. Have notes and refer to them.

* Be specific. Don’t try to teach people everything about your business in one talk.

* Use visual aids. Leave the text out of slides and just show the image.

* Remember that you are the expert. Don’t let questions rattle you.

* Be creative. Give a test or start with the Q & A.

Share your own tips about public speaking in the comments below.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of Episode 460 –

Priscilla:

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast, brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you and where are you?

Ivan:

Hey. You know, I have been in Italy the last couple of weeks for BNI, and this week, I am in the United Kingdom for the UK Conference. I love coming to the UK. We have had chapters here for many years. We have hundreds of chapters. It’s a really successful region and it is always a blast to come visit the members and Directors here.

Priscilla:

That sounds great.

Ivan:

So today I am talking about how public speaking can help grow your business, particularly in BNI. If you have any questions at the end, Priscilla, I would totally love to hear them.

What I am going to talk about really applies not only to you speaking to your BNI chapter for your 8, 10, or 12 minute presentation, depending on your chapter’s weekly presentation, but also public speaking in general.

One of the ways that I built my consulting business was not only through BNI but by doing public speaking engagements. I did the rubber chicken circuit for many years. Rotary, Lions, Kawanas, the service clubs where I spoke and talked about business. That is how I built my management consulting company- that and BNI.

Public speaking can be a huge boon for businesses but it can also be a big snag for many businesses. Even experienced and successful business owners often freeze up in front of crowds. While public speaking may not seem incredibly important, when it comes to regular business, you may be surprised at how it plays into your networking efforts as well as building your business.

There are a lot of ways to help reduce your stress when it comes to public speaking. I do probably on average anywhere from 100 to 150 speaking engagements a year. Easily. So you multiply that by 300 years. 300 years! [I mean] 30. It seems like 300 years. Multiply it by 30-some years and you are talking about hundreds if not thousands of speaking engagements.

So I have done a lot of speaking engagements. If anyone ever hears me speak and says, “Wow, he is pretty good at it,” it is because I have done it so much. If you do it that much, that practice really helps. By the way, you don’t have to do it 1000 times to get good at it.

So here are a few things to help reduce your stress when it comes to public speaking from someone who has done a lot of talking and, by the way- people are always surprised to hear this- I am still a little nervous before I go up to speak. To this day. I think we talked about that on the podcast in the past. I am nervous before I go up and speak because it is very important to me that I do a good job for the region that I am in, so I always get a little bit nervous before I go on.