----------------------------- No Sweat Speaking(sm) Ezine ----------------------------- Speaking Tips for Greater Confidence, Skill, Influence & Profit ----------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 3, Number 10 November, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Allan Kaufman & Allan Misch, Editors, Allan and Allan, Inc. mailto:cust-serv@nosweatspeaking.com http://www.nosweatspeaking.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- This monthly newsletter is distributed by request only. If you want to stop it, you can find instructions at the end of the newsletter. (c) 2004 Allan And Allan, Inc. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Please send this Ezine to those you know who (1) need to give technical, sales, marketing, or management presentations; (2) are interested in developing or improving their presentation skills; (3) want to make money speaking and training; (4) need to improve their performance; or (5) have a fear of speaking or are nervous when they speak. This newsletter also is good for building relationships with your clients, customers, associates, and friends. Send this to them with a note that you're thinking about them. ----------------------------------------------------------------- *** Attention *** If you're receiving this issue from someone and would like to get your own complimentary newsletter plus TWO valuable BONUS reports, please visit... http://www.nosweatspeaking.com and enter your email address in the box in the upper right hand corner. ----------------------------------------------------------------- PRIVACY STATEMENT: We absolutely will not share your address with anyone. Period! ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Learning to communicate is like taking out an insurance policy. You never know when you'll need it, but it's too late to take it out after you need it." Allan Kaufman as quoted in Baltimore Magazine ----------------------------------------------------------------- *********************** Check This Out! *********************** "Last year, I made a career change from engineering management to marketing at a new company. Public speaking and even presentations to small groups were my greatest fears and I had gone to great lengths to avoid them throughout my career. In my new company, public speaking was not something I could avoid and my speaking ability would be quickly tested. After a lot of research, I turned to Allan & Allan. Most other companies only offer skill training. What I needed was to overcome my life long fear of speaking in front of groups. The No Sweat Speaking system seemed illogical to me at first and I was skeptical. The great part about the system is that you don't have to understand it or believe that it will work. It just happens. Today I speak in front of groups, give media interviews and conduct training sessions on a routine basis. Not only is my speaking anxiety gone, but my skills continue to improve and I look forward to my next opportunity to speak. I give my highest recommendation for Allan and Allan's system. If it works for me, it can work for anyone." Thanks, Jim M. Connecticut --------------------------------- Is Speaking Fear Holding You Back, Costing You a Lot of Money? --------------------------------- Are you not getting the job you want or the promotion you deserve because you suffer from speaking anxiety? How much money, loss of opportunities, or damage to your reputation is this fear costing you? A whole lot. Let's be honest. If you have performance anxieties, you know you need to kill those butterflies in your stomach, but you're afraid to take the next step and/or you're not willing to invest in yourself to make it happen. One man just said to us that he knows he really needs us to coach him, but he thinks he can't afford to. What he can't afford to do is do nothing and continue NOT getting promoted and continue NOT seeking better job or business opportunities because he may have to speak in front of people. This is so sad. It's especially sad when that same person will take out a $20,000 car loan on a depreciating asset. Getting rid of your speaking anxieties and developing your speaking skills are appreciating assets. They increase your value. This means once you do it, you continue to reap the rewards. One promotion leads to another one and another one, but if you don't do what you need to do to get that first promotion, you can forget about it. You could be promoting your businesses and increasing your income by speaking to groups who need your products and services, but your speaking anxiety and other performance blocks are holding you back. Probably, you're reading our ezine because you have some speaking anxieties. If they're bad enough, don't you think it's time to do something about it and improve your self-confidence? How much is having a sense of confidence worth to you? Not just in your work and business life but also in your social life? Have you ever thought about being the life of the party? About being less shy? --------------- We Can Help You --------------- Using our No Sweat Speaking(sm) techniques, we provide personal coaching to help you get rid of your speaking anxieties in a relatively short period of time. Send us an email and tell us you want assistance. In the SUBJECT line of your email, put "I need speaking coaching." We will email you some questions to assess your situation and then send you a proposal as to how we can help you. It doesn't matter where you live as this can be done via email and phone consultations. mailto:allank@nosweatspeaking.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- In This Issue ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Featured Article 2. Presentation Skills Tip 3. Humor Tip 4. Dear Allan and Allan (Answers to Your Questions) ----------------------------------------------------------------- *** Attention Small Business Owners *** Here's one of the best websites on the Internet for small business marketing. We use this site and its great information as a resource. Get a free 24-page Marketing Plan Workbook. Visit... http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/aftrack.asp?AFID=50478 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Featured Article ----------------------------------------------------------------- **Be Entertaining** by Allan Kaufman Let's say it right up front. No one wants to hear a boring presentation. Yes, you need to give your audience what they need--a solution to their problem, or a benefit. But you also need to do this in a way that will hold your audience's attention and put them in the right mental state to accept your message. You do this by being entertaining. In the final analysis... Everyone enjoys being entertained. So if you agree with the above two statements--audiences don't want to be bored, they want to have a good time--what are some effective strategies for entertaining your audience? *First, engage your audience.* How? Ask questions and raise your hand when you do. For example, "How many of you work for a living?" Raise your hand as encouragement to get your audience to raise their hands. Most people will. There will always be a few who won't play the game. You can ignore them or say, "Everyone except Bob and Fred. They must be independently wealthy." Do something different such as a magic trick or hold up a physical model--something most people have not seen before or may not recognize. *Tell anecdotes and stories throughout your presentation.* Think about it, people like to hear stories. If your friend says to you, "Wait until you hear what happened to...." You probably will stop what you are doing to listen to the story. So make your point, then tell an anecdote to illustrate your point, and associate the two. *Ask for volunteers.* Call one or two people up to help you demonstrate something. Doing this accomplishes two objectives. It gets your audience involved in your presentation and helps to illustrate your point. Give them a reward for coming up. I recently gave out different denominations of "big money" I picked up at the dollar store. *Use expressive gestures and body language as you present.* People are influenced more by what they see, than by what they hear. They are influenced even more by what they see and hear. So use gestures and body language that are in sync with your words. *Make powerful use of pausing and effective eye contact.* Sometimes it is very effective to just stop, pause, and look at your audience. A pause after a point, helps your audience to absorb what you just said. You also can use a pause to transition from one idea to another. When you make eye contact with one person in your audience, that person feels that you are talking to him or her as in a conversation. This is powerful. Multiply this effect when you make eye contact with many people in your audience, one at a time. In summary, to be a dynamic, effective speaker, it is important to be entertaining. Do this by engaging your audience, getting them involved, telling anecdotes and stories, using expressive gestures, making eye contact, and pausing. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Keynote was a huge success! You were right about everything-- from bringing my introduction to adding humor. I ended up adding about 9 humorous things to my presentation--I actually brought the house down with the expandable ball visual. Thanks for everything. You made all the difference." Best, Trish "In minutes you were able to do for the audience what some people have been trying to do for themselves for a lifetime. You two helped audience members get rid of the fear of public speaking right before my very eyes.... Any organization can benefit greatly by witnessing your seminar.... You two are a great team!" Craig Valentine Toastmasters International 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Presentation Skills Tip ----------------------------------------------------------------- **How to Relax Just Before You're Introduced** by Allan Misch Do you get a case of the "jitters" just before you have to speak? If so, your adrenalin is flowing throughout your body to get it ready for what lies ahead. Your breathing probably becomes shallow, occurs high in the chest, and is not providing enough oxygenated blood to your vocal cords and muscles in your body. You can counter this reaction by changing how you breath just before you are introduced or called upon to present. First, exhale completely. Second, inhale deeply through your nose, filling your lungs with oxygen-rich air. Third, exhale completely. Repeat steps two and three two to four times. This new breathing pattern will force your breathing to occur lower in your chest. You'll provide more oxygenated blood to your vocal cords and other organs. You'll feel more relaxed than before. ----------------------------------------------------------------- *** Great Speaking Resource *** Turn your speaking, training, or sales skills into cash. Check out a great professional speaking resource. We recommend it highly. Lots of great tips and tricks. Just click on or paste the URL into your browser. http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/aftrack.asp?AFID=50475&u=www.antion.com/public-speaking.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Humor Tip ----------------------------------------------------------------- **Use Props to Get a Laugh** by Allan Misch Using props is a relatively easy way to get your audience smiling and laughing. It requires a little practice, and in an instant it can put your audience in a "fun" frame of mind. What props should you use? That's up to you. For example, a speaker friend of mine uses a prop microphone that contains confetti and a CO2 charge. At an appropriate time, soon after he begins his program, he releases the charge with a bang and sprays his audience with confetti. This gets a big laugh and puts his audience in the emotional state that he wants them to be in. I use several props. Two of which are a hand clapper and a laugh bag. I tell my audience that I don't care if they don't applaud at the appropriate times, because I brought my own applause with me. Then I clap the clapper and create my own applause. This gets a laugh. I follow up by saying that I don't care if they don't laugh at my stories, because I brought my own laugher with me. Then I squeeze the laugh bag and a recorded laugh plays for about 10 seconds. This gets another laugh. So use props to get your audience into a "light" frame of mind. It doesn't require a lot of skill, you'll have fun playing with them, and your audience will appreciate the laughs. ----------------------------------------------------------------- **If You're Looking for a Home for Your Website, iPowerWeb Makes Website Hosting Simple!** We did a lot of research on Web hosting companies and compared many of them. We decided on iPowerWeb to host our website, and we made a good decision. iPowerWeb is rated #1 for affordable, high quality web hosting. 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Dear Winston, We commend you for recognizing a weak area that needs improvement. That's the first step towards success. The answer to your question is "It depends." Taking a six or eight week public speaking class is a good approach, but it's an "off-the- shelf" approach. In other words, what you'll learn depends on the course curriculum. You may need to improve in areas not covered by the course. When you engage a presentation skills coach, he or she works with you to solve your problems and help you improve in those skill areas that are important to you. The financial investment for both is about the same, but you'll probably get faster results using a coach. Allan and Allan Submit questions to mailto:questions@nosweatspeaking.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------- *** Hot Internet Business Secrets *** Over 1,000+ PAGES of the Hottest, Proven Profitable Internet Business Secrets Broken down Into An EASY-TO-DUPLICATE System! 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I've even taken an extended course at UCLA Extension in California. The course was about $500.00 and lasted 8 weeks. I've learned more from 2 of your newsletters than I learned in an 8 week course... your newsletter is incredible, enlightening, informative... the best I've read to date... and I've read some good ones!" Janice Smallwood-McKenzie, The Networking Coach/Author "101 Commandments of Networking: Common Sense But Not Common Practice" http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/2513 (The link is for your information. We make nothing on it.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- No Sweat Speaking(sm) Ezine ----------------------------- Publisher: Allan and Allan, Inc. Editors: Allan Kaufman and Allan Misch P.O. Box 2721 Columbia, Maryland 21045-1721 USA Tel: 410-363-0080 Fax: 410-356-8374 mailto:cust-serv@nosweatspeaking.com http://www.nosweatspeaking.com "Your next presentation doesn't have to make you sweat!" 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