Featured post by Terry Kaufman from YourEnglishSuccess!

One day I went to HSBC to interview my customers and their non-native English speaking colleagues. I wanted to understand their communication case better and get greater insight into Anglophone and non-Anglophone interactions.

During one interview, I was amazed at how eloquently one individual, Mr. Boyer, clearly expressed the essence of Sustainable English:

“An environment is friendly when everyone understands the stakes, objectives, and viewpoints of others.”

As I was preparing my program and notes, I had originally defined it as:

An environment that is friendly towards non-native speakers – it consists of clear English, collaboration, and focus on mutual understanding.

Mr. Boyer expressed exactly what the communication-friendly environment has to offer, when it is implemented and fully operational.

Every native English speaker has the potential and ability to create his/her own personalized environment to accommodate non-native speakers.

Less frustration. More success.

A weekly roundup of the best blog postings related to business issues:

How To Start a Business Blog, Part 8: Choose Categories at Michael Martine.

Seven Business Blogging Mistakes at Krishna De.

“Green” hotels please customers, boost profits at The Honolulu Advertiser.

Are All Customers Worth the Effort? at Unique World CEO Blog.

What Employees Want from Their Job at Suite101.

Luck and the Entrepreneur at blog.pmarca.com.

Tom Peters on Leadership at The Practice of Leadership.

How to Combine Social Networking and E-commerce at Dennis Plucinik.

Public Speaking: Time of Day Matters at Great Public Speaking.

Need Help Making Management Decisions? at Slacker Management.

Copyright © 2006 Marketing Maven

A noteworthy way for you to get exposure and new customers is public speaking. As a small business owner, it is always a more powerful position to be in the front of the room than in the back. You further position yourself as an expert and reinforce the brand as YOU. People tend to perceive speakers as being more important than non-speakers.

Create a core talk that reinforces your specialty and practice it. Come up with a compelling title for your speech. Remember, your presentation isn’t a sales pitch; it’s a way to showcase your expertise. So, provide great, practical information that is helpful to your listeners.

Make the same speech in lengths of 30 minutes, 45 minutes and 90 minutes. This will be a talk you can use over and over again at many different types of events. Show confidence by using humor and letting your passion shine through!

During your speech, your audience gets an opportunity to meet you without obligation. They get a sense of your personality, style, and expertise. And, you get to showcase your expertise. The people who like your approach will either hire you or spread the word about your company.

Your audience is a goldmine of prospects, so don’t miss out on this opportunity to get their contact information. Be sure to pass around a sign-up sheet to collect the names of attendees. As an incentive for signing the sheet, offer them a free special report or a subscription to your ezine.

In every city, there are associations, service clubs, and support groups that are looking for speakers for their meetings. Check your telephone book and highlight some of these. You can start with smaller groups as practice.

After you feel comfortable with your speech, seek out larger groups who have members in your targeted audience. When you call, ask for the name of the person in charge of lining up speakers. Offer to speak for free and explain the ways in which your speech will benefit the group’s members. Be sure to mention the remarkable title you developed - it will help sell your presentation.

Once you begin to promote yourself as a speaker, groups will hear about you and you’ll find yourself getting requests, as well. After you begin to get more engagements and feel at ease with speaking, add more speaking topics. If a group liked your speech, you can contact them again and tell them you have new material and they may ask you to return to speak again.

Develop a speaker’s sheet that you can send to groups with your speech title and description. Create a page on your website that describes your expertise, background, and speaking style. Include testimonials if you have them. Hand out information to your audiences about you, your company, and your services. If you have information products, you can often offer these for sale for people to purchase at the event.

Public speaking is a powerful way to get new customers and leads, so be sure to incorporate it into your quiver of marketing techniques. You’ll find opportunities abound when you commit to getting yourself out there in the front of the room!

ACTION ITEM: What idea do you want to develop into your core talk? List three potential ideas right now. Then, come up with an attention-getting title. Show them to your existing customers and ask them which one is of the most value to them. Develop the winner into a speech of different lengths.

————————

Wendy Maynard, the Marketing Maven, publishes REMARKABLE MARKETING, a weekly ezine for small business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract customers, and become more profitable, get your FREE TIPS now at http://www.gomarketingmaven.com/ezine.html

Thanks all for your wonderful interest in our publicity tips.  The series is a set of tried and true publicity tips to use while working with the media.  You’ll learn 4 of the top pre-interview tips, on-camera or on-air tips, media etiquette tips & lots more PR pro tips to help position you as the media’s dream guest!

Don’t miss this series.  When the media calls, you’ll be ready!

TIP #1 - Don’t Try To Change The Segment Or Story Idea

During the pre-interview with the producer or journalist, please do not attempt to influence the producer or journalist to slant or change the original segment idea.  This is because the article, story or segment idea is most likely already set in stone by Managing Editors or Executive Producers and your contact has very little flexibility.  They are assigned to develop a story or segment idea according to a specific set of directives and appreciate your support in moving the story or segment forward.

(more…)

Copyright © 2006 Deborah Torres Patel

Many people get jitters in public. However, as Lilly Walters author of Secrets of Successful Speakers says, 75% of fear can be reduced by practice and preparation, 15% by deep breathing, and 10% by mental preparation and focus.

Preparing thoroughly using these virtually painless tips as a guide will help you to alleviate unnecessary stress and ultimately provide a consistent structure for achieving extraordinary results each and every time.

1. Plan ahead - If you use power point, create templates in advance. The latest possible time to begin a presentation is when notified. (Leaving things until the last minute can stress anybody out!)

2. Organize your presentation with a strong opening and closing because first and last impressions are remembered most.

(more…)

Copyright © 2006 Attractioneering

As a service provider and someone who sells their expertise and know-how, one of the best ways to get your message out to numerous people at the same time is through public speaking. When you speak at networking events, industry associations or conferences, you’re able to position yourself as an expert, gain credibility by “association” (i.e. if the organisation putting on the event has credibility with the audience, then so will you) and get many more people exposed to your message than might be possible by other means.

Public speaking is not for everybody (we’re not all natural performers!), but if you regularly attend networking events, then you may as well gain the much greater exposure you’ll get as the speaker, than if you simply attend and only get to connect with a few people.

Here are 10 tips for maximising this marketing opportunity:

1. Make sure you speak at events that your target market attends

OK, this may seem obvious - but most people get this wrong at some stage. If your target market is large corporations, and you find yourself speaking at an event attended by small business owners, then you’re probably not going to get a lot of good business out of it.

2. Choose a topic that your audience wants to learn more about, and create an intriguing topic title

Design your talks around some aspect of the service that you provide that your audience doesn’t currently understand, but wants to know more about. Create interesting and curiosity provoking titles so that event organisers and attendees alike will be intrigued and want to know more.

(more…)

So, what happens when all of your PR activity actually prompts a reporter to call for an interview? Getting the interview is only one-half of the deal. Follow the steps below, and you are more likely to turn your interview into a powerful marketing tool.

Set Goals for the Interview

When a reporter calls to schedule an interview, either by phone or in person, ask a couple of innocent questions. Find out the nature of the story, who is the audience, when it is expected to run. The answers to these questions will help you better prepare your responses.

Never Wing It

The primary point of almost any interview you will be asked to give is to get your company’s core message communicated in a compelling manner.

(more…)

Copyright © 2006 Donna Gunter

There’s an often-quoted statistic that the fear of public speaking is right up there with the fear of death as the two events people most fear in their lives.  However, as a business owner, I can guarantee you that public speaking is a phenomenal way to grow your business, so if it’s an activity that scares you, you need to take the bull by the horns and start working past that fear.  As an introvert, public speaking isn’t something that comes naturally to me, although I’m told I’m good at it.  It’s been quite a learning process, and I’ve had as many failures as successes.  My best learning experiences have come through the process of finding the courage to just do it and learn along the way.

(more…)

…even if you’re scared to death
Copyright 2006 Deborah Torres Patel

Many people get jitters in public. However, as Lilly
Walters author of Secrets of Successful Speakers says, 75%
of fear can be reduced by practice and preparation, 15% by
deep breathing, and 10% by mental preparation and focus.

Preparing thoroughly using these virtually painless tips as
a guide will help you to alleviate unnecessary stress and
ultimately provide a consistent structure for achieving
extraordinary results each and every time.

1. Plan ahead - If you use power point, create templates in
advance. The latest possible time to begin a presentation
is when notified. (Leaving things until the last minute can
stress anybody out!)

(more…)