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Begin Talking Your Walk to Grow Your Business

Guest post by: Loren Fogelman

Article Overview: Entrepreneurs are a unique breed. We think, see and perceive our world differently than those around us. Instead of staying with the traditional status quo security of a job, we have made a step to do things differently by creating our own business.

Begin Talking Your Walk to Grow Your Business

Entrepreneurs are a unique breed. We think, see and perceive our world differently than those around us. Instead of staying with the traditional status quo security of a job, we have made a step to do things differently by creating our own business. If you have taken this step you are most likely excellent at what you do, driven by a passion and are service oriented. Now that you have opened your doors, you are ready for business. Excellent.

What are the steps you are taking to drive clients to you?

How can they find you?

When you talk, do they listen?

The one thing many entrepreneurs avoid is possibly the one thing most effective for growing your practice. I know it is, by far, the biggest fear most of us have. In fact, people will go to great lengths to avoid it.

Public speaking. That is the best way to reach the most people in the shortest amount of time. It is very cost effective. You are maximizing your time by speaking in front of many instead of one. Being a speaker automatically places you as an expert.

I have heard all the excuses to avoid being in front of a group of people. The thought of standing before a group of peers can create an aerobic heartbeat without ever having to leave your seat. It can feel awful.

Once, however, you make the decision to create your own practice everything can change. You know the benefits of speaking. As you make a commitment to grow your business, you embrace a "no-excuses" approach. What you had previously spent many years avoiding, is the first thing you will need to tackle.

Because public speaking can be fearful, I want to share my strategy to overcome your fear of speaking.



1. Embrace your message. Having a business which honors your talents creates opportunities. Determine what service you are delivering. Identify how your service, or product, improves the lives of your ideal client. Create the key points or steps for your service. Become extremely familiar with them. Base your business on your steps or key points. Everything you speak and write about will highlight these key points. You will become very familiar with them.

2. Join Toastmasters. It works. This group is dedicated to helping you get over those jitters and become comfortable with delivering your message. Their program is designed for success. It is like dipping your toes in the water to test the temperature. The best part is you get to set the pace as to how fast, or slow, you want to go through the process. By practicing in front of others, whether a formal speech or a quick response, you will learn so much. Practice. Practice. Practice.

3. Be aware of your mindset. When you focus on how scary it is being in front of an audience and how nervous you feel, you will continue to resist getting up and in front of others. You become so tuned into the fear, you will actually make yourself even more anxious. Beginning speakers perceive the audience as "them" against me. Well that does not help. As you realize what you are doing, choose to change your perception from viewing the audience as judgmental to people you can develop rapport with. Find one or two friendly faces in the audience. This change from hostile to friendly was significant.

4. Clear the energy. We all have work to do. As an Emotional Freedom Techniques practitioner, I have a very effective tool I use to help easily clear blocks with public speaking. While sitting at a Toastmasters meeting, or preparing for a presentation, you can discreetly be tapping on your wrist to stay focused, keeping yourself centered and calm. As you practice your speech at home, continue tapping for any nervousness, doubt or fear which arises. Combining Toastmasters with EFT helps clear the blocks at a faster rate than Toastmasters alone.

5. Start small. When you find yourself ready to speak there are many ways to take the plunge, you have options. Have your first talk be small, intimate and comfortable. Talk about something you are very familiar with. Decide to do your first presentation in front of a small group in a familiar setting. If your first speaking engagement is to a larger audience, do a dry-run. Practice it with a small supportive group of colleagues.

6. Breath. When you become nervous you might forget to breath. Taking long, deep breaths will help you remain calmer and more focused than shallow breaths. How you breathe also affects how far your voice will be projected. Your breathe has the ability to relax you.

The fear of public speaking can be transformed. Although it might have been overwhelming just thinking about it, or waiting for your turn, it does not have to remain that way.

The fear is not about speaking in public. People speak all the time. It is about the thoughts you have attached to public speaking. Once you clear those thoughts, replacing them with new ones, it will begin to change. By doing nothing you will continue to be hostage to those thoughts, spending energy avoiding doing the one thing which can have a significant impact on your business.

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Article Tags: Business Goals, comfort zone, eft, Emotional Freedom Techniques, fear of speaking, Gear Up for Success, loren fogelman, Marketing and Mindset Strategies, marketing strategy, Mindset, Mindset for Marketing Success, public speaking, start small, tikkun olam, Toastmasters



Related Forum Posts
Book: Talking From 9 to 5 - Book: Talking From 9 to 5: How women's and men's conersational styles affect who gets heard, who gets credit, and what gets done at work Deborah Tannen, PhD 1994 You say something at a meeeting, it is ignored, then someone else says the same thing and everyone embraces it as a marvelous idea. You devote yourself to a project but don't get credit for the results. You work around the clock to avoid a crisis, but your efforts are not recognized because no one notices a crisis that never occurs. YOu give what you think are clear instructions, but the job is not done, or is done wrong. ... Work is a special world because as we talk to get our jobs done, we are also being evaluated. How we get others to do what we want, and how we accept or avoid responsibility for mistakes, display or challenge authority, reveal or conceal what we don't know -- all affect how we are regarded and rewarded. TOC 1. Women and Men Talking on the Job 2. "I'm sorry, I'm not apologizing": Conversational rituals 3. "Why don't you say what you mean?" Indirectness at work 4. Marked: Women in the workplace 5. The glass ceiling 6. "She's the boss": Women and authority 7. Talking up close: Status and connection 8. What's sex got to do with it 9. Who gets heard? Talking at meetings References Index
Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: My 3 best business books - 1. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill 2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey 3. Permission Marketing - Seth Godin Think and Grow Rich seems more powerful each time I read it or dip into it. The 7 Habits not only offers some very effective ways to organize your life (which I have yet to master!), but also some great quotations and thought provoking statements including this by Nazi concentration camp survivor, Viktor Frankl: [i:2naxzsom]Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.[/i:2naxzsom] Seth Godin's Permission Marketing is a good read for anybody seeking to understand how to approach doing business on the Internet in the right way with regard to winning people's trust.
Re: My 3 best business books - It seems that Napoleon Hill works help a lot of business men. He had done a really good job. I bought Think and Grow Rich many times.


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