Are you avoiding public speaking? If so, you could be hindering your ability to earn more.
Harvey Coleman, business consultant and author of Empowering Yourself: The Organizational Game Revealed, identifies three key factors of career success as performance, image and exposure.
However, they aren’t equally split, with exposure accounting for 60%, followed by image (30%) and performance (10%).
Most people focus on performance (10%), and severely underestimate the combined power of image and exposure (90%).
The good news is it’s never been easier to build your image and gain exposure. The bad news is it has become harder to stand out.
The solution? Public speaking. But it has to be done right.
Here are four public speaking tips that will help you work less and earn more.
Tip 1: Leverage your phone
If you were to speak to 30 people one-on-one, how many hours would you have to spend in coffee meetings with each person? Let’s say each meeting took an hour. With just a one-hour talk, you could be saving yourself 29 hours.
You may be thinking, “I don’t know where to do talks,” or “I rarely do talks.”
Fortunately, you have an incredible exposure tool right in your pocket. All you need is your phone.
You can record and upload videos to YouTube. You can do live videos on Facebook or Instagram. You can reach potentially hundreds to thousands of prospects – all with the power of your phone.
Tip 2: Speak at events for instant expert positioning
Ever watched a TED talk? As soon as you start watching, you likely assume the person is a very qualified expert on his or her topic. You believe that the speaker has been vetted by the TED organizers and so deserves your attention and trust.
This is a superpower you can tap into for your business.
It doesn’t have to be TED. Conference organizers have communities of people behind them who attend their events because they trust them. The second you step on their stage, that trust is transferred to you.
It’s the same with video. Even if you’re not well known, when someone sees you on video, there’s a level of credibility that comes with just the fact that other people are watching you.
Tip 3: Stand out
One of the biggest obstacles that holds people back from getting the income they deserve is they’re being vanilla. They want to blend in instead of standing out. And the reason why they do that is fear and insecurity.
They think, “If I stand out, then I’m going to be judged. I’m going to be different. And people are going to talk about me.”
This is a classic mistake. Yes, when you stand out, people are going to talk about you.
But that’s a good thing, as long as you follow Tip 4.
Tip 4: Focus on your ideal clients
If you cast your net too wide, you risk wasting time and money by being ignored.
So when public speaking, keep in mind that you are there only to work with your ideal clients – the people you love working with, and for whom you provide the best results.
By doing so, you guarantee yourself more business as you increase your exposure.
It’s all a numbers game.
Ignore these four tips, and you could find yourself swimming upstream when it comes to expanding your business and earning what you deserve.
Follow these four tips, however, and you’ll find you’ll have increased exposure, better clients and a higher earning ability.
It’s never been easier to stand out from the crowd and raise your earning potential with the power of public speaking. All you have to do is make sure you put yourself out there in situations that allow you to put these tips to good use.
Remember, knowledge is not power. Implementing knowledge is. •
Lucas Mattiello is the founder of Level Up Living (levelupliving.com) and provides workshops, keynotes and consulting on how to effectively speak with confidence.
