By Charlotte Cheek
So, you have a speaking engagement! Good for you, but now, what do you say?
Your first instinct may be to get up in front of the room and talk about your spectacular business. It may seem easy to talk about the work you are passionate about and know inside and out. You may try and entice your audience to hire you or buy your products. But think before you act!
CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, is a well sought after speaker in the United States. Recently, she delivered the keynote address at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In today’s world, we are overwhelmed with advertisements. According to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the average American encounters approximately 560 ads per day.* So, the people voluntarily coming to your speaking engagement are not going to want to add your 25-minute-to-hour-long advertisement to their daily list of ads. Your voice may be lost in the noise of endless ads.
Fifty percent of a sale is being in front of the room. So, get up there and be passionate, but don’t sell. The sale will come on its own without a glorified in-person commercial.
Your New Goals while speaking, besides selling:
- Be Passionate – Talk about a hobby you are passionate about or something you have learned in your career that can help the audience. If you are passionate and interested in the topic, you will be much more likely to be interesting. You can keep an audience engaged and they may even learn a few things, which leads us to our next goal...
- Be an Expert – Gain credibility with your audience by knowing your stuff. The audience will trust you more when they can tell that you are knowledgeable, which can lead to them trusting you in your field of expertise (aka your job).
So what are you passionate about? Wine, animals, social media, or art? The possibilities are endless and people will want to listen!
*https://ams.aaaa.org/eweb/upload/faqs/adexposures.pdf