There is an old truism in sales, “sales is nothing more than the transfer of the enthusiasm of the seller for the product or service to the buyer”. What are we doing when we are speaking? We are selling! “Hang on a minute there Greg. I am a professional, I am not a car or vacuum cleaner salesman”, you might be saying to yourself. That sort of self-talk is dated and dangerous. Make no mistake, we are all in sales, regardless of whether our business card has salesperson written on it or not.
So if we are up at the podium, out there on stage, standing up in the room to speak, we are selling. Firstly, we are selling our personal brand. Depending on how good a job we do, this will sell the company brand. The next thing we are selling is our message, the conclusion we have reached, the insight we have gained.
Of course, we have to a strong base in the subject matter. In fact we should be subject matter experts if we are going to get up in front of people and talk.
Given we have the expertise to speak on the subject and given that we realise we are selling ourselves, our company and our message to the audience, then we need to add the magic ingredient of enthusiasm. The way to be enthusiastic is to speak on a subject or an aspect of a subject, which lights your inner fire. Inside your profession there are bound to aspects which you feel very strongly about, so talk about those and your enthusiasm will naturally emerge.
Relive things that happened in your experience that has become a foundation of your belief in what you are telling the audience. Tell the story of what happened to you and how it impacted your views. Talk about the lessons, the trials, tribulations, the highs and the lows. Your feeling for these stages of the tale will shine through and the audience will be right there beside you. When you relive the whole journey, the good, the bad, the mediocre, the inner passion you have for what happened, will burn forth and captivate your audience.
By combining our belief in our message, with an enthusiastic delivery, we will carry the audience with us, along the journey of belief that we have trod already based on our real world, hard won experiences. That combination is unbeatable.
