Episode 69

Speak Up, Writers! How to Make Your Audience LOVE You

Public speaking can be SCARY! But as a modern day author, it’s also a near-necessity. In this podcast from Writing Momentum, Chris and Gena share some of their best tips and tricks about how to speak with confidence--and make your audience fall in love with you. Listen now!

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Transcript
Christopher:

Hey, hello and welcome to the Writing Momentum podcast.

Christopher:

My name's Chris, I'm here with Gena, and we are continuing our

Christopher:

talk on public speaking for authors.

Christopher:

And this week we're not just talking about how important speaking is.

Christopher:

That was last week.

Christopher:

If you missed that, go back, listen to that.

Christopher:

This week we're talking about how to make your audience love you, l-o-v-e, love you.

Christopher:

So we're gonna talk about.

Christopher:

Overcoming stage fright; we're gonna talk about how to have confidence; the

Christopher:

importance of entertainment, and then how about just some practical tips that we

Christopher:

might have used in the past in writing that we still use today in writing.

Christopher:

And I think you'll find if you take some notes on this you take that outline that

Christopher:

you created last week, and you think, oh, I'm gonna add some of this stuff.

Christopher:

You'll really become a better public speaker and just really

Christopher:

engage your audience, huh?

Gena:

Absolutely, and we talked last week, like Chris said, we talked last week

Gena:

about why public speaking, what, why are we writers who've been in this almost 30

Gena:

years, why are we talking to you about public speaking because we're writers.

Gena:

We sit at our computers, we're creative people.

Gena:

We don't necessarily wanna be public speakers.

Gena:

But the fact is that whether we are traditionally published, independently

Gena:

published, it doesn't matter.

Gena:

Yeah.

Gena:

We need to be.

Gena:

Marketing our books and marketing our writing.

Gena:

Even if we're doing blogs, if we're doing other things, public speaking.

Gena:

For some of you, it is a necessity.

Gena:

You need to be public speaking.

Gena:

You need to be able to do this in order to promote your brand.

Christopher:

Yeah, I have to say, this may be a little

Christopher:

controversial, but I believe that.

Christopher:

Pretty much, most authors today probably need to have some kind of

Christopher:

form of public speaking in their pocket because, we're all responsible for

Christopher:

our own marketing of our books today.

Christopher:

And one of the ways to market your book, whether it's directly or indirectly,

Christopher:

is through public speaking, being on podcasts just making yourself

Christopher:

accessible and seen to the world.

Christopher:

And it might even just be something as simple as, I'm gonna record some short

Christopher:

videos and put 'em out on social media.

Christopher:

That is still public speaking.

Christopher:

And so yeah, you, I think it's one of those tools that probably needs to be

Christopher:

in every author's arsenal and that's why we wanted to talk about it today.

Gena:

Like I was saying, for some people it's a necessity.

Gena:

Others it's strongly recommended.

Christopher:

There's hardly anyone that I would say don't public speak, correct?

Gena:

Or that you don't have to do it at all.

Christopher:

Or that you don't have to do it.

Gena:

I don't think that is the case.

Gena:

It's something that can only help you if you become stronger at it, and for

Gena:

some of you it really is a necessity.

Christopher:

But here's the thing.

Christopher:

For most people, this is one of the terrors of their life, right?

Christopher:

Is knowing that, oh my goodness, they say it's one of the highest

Christopher:

fears that most people have is speaking in front of a group.

Christopher:

Gena and I have been speaking now for I don't know, way longer than

Christopher:

we I want to admit, probably.

Christopher:

But that is something that's not always come easy.

Christopher:

That's, we talked in the last podcast about how over time we started to speak in

Christopher:

little less non-threatening ways, right?

Christopher:

We'd speak into children's church teaching, that sort of thing.

Christopher:

We might do some skits, anything that might break us out of our

Christopher:

shells and help us learn what it's like to be in front of people.

Christopher:

But I think we each had.

Christopher:

It kind of unique opportunities that just really helped us overcome

Christopher:

the largest part of stage fright.

Christopher:

And that doesn't mean it always completely goes away.

Christopher:

I'm still almost always a little nervous when I get up in front of a group.

Christopher:

But it certainly has diminished a lot.

Christopher:

And what's your story with that, Gena?

Gena:

Here's the thing I mentioned last week that I was gonna share this

Gena:

week about the biggest tip that I have.

Gena:

Or really that eureka, aha moment that I have had when it comes to

Gena:

public speaking and as I shared last week, I was really terrified of it.

Gena:

I was to the point that I would not consider jobs, when I was working

Gena:

in a workplace environment in a company, I would not consider jobs if

Gena:

there was public speaking involved.

Gena:

So when I say I understand the fear of public speaking, I truly do understand it.

Gena:

And now I'm at a place where I enjoy it.

Gena:

But one of the biggest point, the point at which my fear of public

Gena:

speaking really began to change is when I changed my mindset.

Gena:

Here's the thing I, and hopefully this is not you, but this is where I was.

Gena:

I would think, oh my gosh, I have to talk about this.

Gena:

Oh my gosh, what if I mess up?

Gena:

What if I do this wrong?

Christopher:

All eyes are on me.

Gena:

What if all eyes are on me?

Gena:

What if?

Gena:

What if?

Gena:

What if?

Gena:

What if everything goes wrong?

Gena:

What if all of a sudden I'm standing there completely exposed and I

Gena:

completely lose everything in my mind and I can't say anything, but just

Gena:

stand up there and grunt or cry, right?

Gena:

That was where I was, and all of a sudden I had this moment where I realized, wait

Gena:

a minute, what I have to say is important to the people I'm speaking it to.

Gena:

So instead of me focusing on me, I'm gonna focus on them and I'm gonna

Gena:

focus on what I have to bring for them.

Gena:

And that shift, I know that sounds so simple, but that shift of me thinking

Gena:

it's not about me, it's about them.

Gena:

It's about what I can bring and it could be in a business situation, it could

Gena:

be, what can I bring to this project?

Gena:

I need to speak up because I need to bring something to this project.

Gena:

It may be I'm speaking in front of a group of new writers and it's not

Gena:

about whether I mess up, it's about how I can help them get further in their

Gena:

careers or be better in their craft.

Gena:

So that shift, that mindset shift.

Gena:

And I still, I still have moment.

Gena:

I for, I don't even remember, but not long ago I was getting

Gena:

ready to speak at something.

Gena:

Oh, I remember exactly what it's, I was getting ready to speak for

Gena:

something and I started getting really nervous and then I realized, wait a

Gena:

minute, I had to stop myself and make that shift and go, wait a minute.

Gena:

It's not about me.

Gena:

This is about what I am bringing to the people who are

Gena:

going to be listening to me.

Gena:

And when I did that and I put the focus on how I was gonna help them,

Gena:

all of a sudden it became like this.

Gena:

There was an energy to my thought process and and I believe an

Gena:

energy to what I was gonna say.

Christopher:

For me, it was also a mindset thing.

Christopher:

I used to get very nervous before speaking, and it didn't matter how much I

Christopher:

prepped, the more you practice, the less nervous you get because you, you know

Christopher:

where you're gonna go, so you know you're not going to lose your train of thought.

Christopher:

All those things that make you again, think that eyes are gonna be on you.

Christopher:

So it helps to practice.

Christopher:

And we're gonna give you some more practical tips.

Christopher:

But that mind shift of they're not coming to listen to me, they're

Christopher:

coming to listen about a topic.

Christopher:

That changed everything.

Christopher:

It made me realize let's say I'm speaking at a writer's conference and I'm talking

Christopher:

about how to write a plot, right?

Christopher:

How to plot a book.

Christopher:

If I'm thinking that everyone's coming to learn how I plot a book, because they want

Christopher:

to know what Christopher Maselli knows.

Christopher:

Yeah, and here's a hint, no one's coming to learn that.

Christopher:

Then, but then it becomes a very much of a nervous thing because

Christopher:

you start to think, oh my goodness, everyone's like judging me.

Christopher:

For the way that I'm coming across with this information and the way

Christopher:

I do this and that sort of thing.

Christopher:

Change that to just realizing, you know what, they're just

Christopher:

coming to learn about plotting.

Christopher:

They want to know how to plot a book and you know what, I've gotta take on that.

Christopher:

So I'm just gonna share it with them and they can do with it what they will.

Christopher:

And that changed a lot for me.

Christopher:

The other thing that really helped, and this is gonna, I probably shouldn't

Christopher:

admit this, but this is gonna sound bad, but I started to attend a lot

Christopher:

of other people's talks, right?

Christopher:

Go and watch a lot of people.

Christopher:

Here's what you're going to find, and you know exactly what I'm talking about,

Christopher:

and this is why I can admit this because you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Christopher:

You're gonna go to some people's talks and they're gonna be the

Christopher:

driest, the worst, the most convoluted talks you've ever heard, and you

Christopher:

know what you're gonna think.

Christopher:

I could do better than that.

Christopher:

And all you have to do is say, you know what?

Christopher:

I'm gonna do 5% better than the worst talk I've ever heard, and

Christopher:

you're gonna be successful at it.

Christopher:

And yeah I think that's, I think that's a good thing to do.

Gena:

So we've just turned, we've just said, don't feel that people are

Gena:

judging you well, but go and judge.

Christopher:

You're right but really it's a way to realize that.

Gena:

You're setting the bar too high.

Christopher:

Yeah.

Christopher:

If you think that people are judging you, it's because you've set that bar too

Christopher:

high and so set the bar lower and you're gonna realize no one's gonna judge you.

Christopher:

If anything, if they did judge you, let's say they did judge you, they're

Christopher:

gonna what you're doing because it's better than what others have done.

Christopher:

And and that doesn't mean you have to be, super dynamic.

Christopher:

I'm not a super dynamic speaker, but I am decent.

Christopher:

I can communicate what I want to talk about.

Christopher:

And let's talk about some of the strategies.

Christopher:

The first one I wanna talk about has to do with distraction, because

Christopher:

this is something else that took some nervousness away from me

Christopher:

when I first started speaking.

Christopher:

Is I realized if I can get a cup, like a glass, it usually

Christopher:

works with a glass as best.

Christopher:

Fill it with ice cold water, I like to put it in a lot of ice cubes and then fill

Christopher:

it with water and don't drink it y'all.

Christopher:

Set it on the desk beside you, wherever you're speaking, or desk or table,

Christopher:

whatever you're speaking the podium.

Christopher:

Put it up there.

Christopher:

And when you start to feel nervous, just wrap your fingers around that glass.

Christopher:

Something about that takes those synopses in your brain that are firing off

Christopher:

thinking in 20 different directions, and it focuses them on that discomfort and

Christopher:

the coldness of the ice on your hands, and it allows you to have a little

Christopher:

bit more clarity of thought and just keep going with what you're speaking.

Gena:

I love that!

Christopher:

Because you have to, then, you're not focused on the way you are

Christopher:

feeling, you're focused on having to keep track of your talk, that you've

Christopher:

prepared and that you've practiced, and all those feelings that you have

Christopher:

are going to that ice cold glass.

Gena:

I love that.

Gena:

I love that.

Gena:

I will try that myself.

Christopher:

It works.

Gena:

That's really good.

Christopher:

What's another good tip?

Gena:

The one thing that will set you apart as an author is just, or

Gena:

as a speaker, is simply confidence.

Gena:

This is one of those.

Gena:

Fake it till you make it kind of things.

Gena:

If you go into a talk and you're not really standing up straight,

Gena:

you're hunched over because you're just don't want anybody to look

Gena:

at you and or you're apologizing.

Gena:

I'm sorry, this isn't put together, or, I'm sorry, what?

Gena:

All of that, what you are communicating to your audience is that what

Gena:

you have to say is not important.

Gena:

That you don't believe that it's important.

Gena:

Instead, go in, stand up straight, head up, make eye contact, smile

Gena:

and just be confident and you may inside, you may be shaking.

Gena:

But force yourself to grab that ice cold glass of water, sit it on the

Gena:

podium, look up, smile, and say.

Gena:

Hey y'all.

Gena:

Let's go.

Christopher:

Yeah.

Christopher:

Let your voice project.

Christopher:

I spoke somewhere just a couple weeks ago, and what I did is when I started speaking,

Christopher:

I put my material down and I had a couple questions in mind about a previous talk,

Christopher:

and I just started asking questions around the room just real boldly.

Christopher:

Hey, who knows this, who can tell me what we talked about

Christopher:

last time with this or that?

Christopher:

And it puts you in that position of authority and it allows the

Christopher:

audience to actually be the ones who are responding to you.

Christopher:

So it takes some of the pressure off to you right there at the beginning,

Christopher:

and that, that worked really well.

Christopher:

I really enjoyed that.

Gena:

You know, you're right.

Gena:

And I do that too.

Gena:

It's a bit of an icebreaker for the speaker and the audience to do that, to

Gena:

go in and ask some of these questions.

Gena:

So if you're at a conference, for us, A lot of times it's writer's

Gena:

conferences, so what is everybody's genre?

Gena:

What genre do you write for?

Gena:

How long have you been writing?

Gena:

Is anybody, is this your first writer's conference?

Gena:

We ask those questions because it also does something.

Gena:

One, it establishes you as an authority, but also it engages your audience

Gena:

so that they feel like you care.

Gena:

They're, they know that you see them because they're, there's

Gena:

a lot of people that they're just nervous to be in the room.

Gena:

They're not up there speaking.

Gena:

They're just nervous to be in the room because maybe it's their first conference,

Gena:

maybe they don't know what's gonna happen.

Gena:

And they don't even feel like they're worthy to be there.

Gena:

And we're talking about writer's conferences, but I don't care

Gena:

if you're selling insurance.

Gena:

There's probably somebody in that room that, that's their first insurance

Gena:

conference that they've ever been to and they're sitting next to, they

Gena:

think everybody in there has 25 years of experience and is killing it and

Gena:

they're barely making their mortgage.

Gena:

So a lot of people, they come to these situations, they come

Gena:

to these events and they carry their own insecurities with them.

Gena:

And so by engaging with them, you break that ice, you make

Gena:

them feel seen and heard.

Gena:

And it is a beautiful thing.

Gena:

And then you are helping them.

Gena:

As I mentioned earlier, you then, it's not about you, it's

Gena:

about how you can help them.

Christopher:

I have found that for the most part, people are extremely

Christopher:

gracious when you're up there speaking.

Christopher:

They are not looking to judge you to make you look silly or anything.

Christopher:

They're just there to learn to hear, and they're there to learn.

Christopher:

So one of the other things you can do, is make sure that you have

Christopher:

good material prepared, right?

Christopher:

Outline, make a really strong outline.

Christopher:

Start off telling them what you're gonna talk about.

Christopher:

Then have multiple points about what you're gonna talk about, and then tell

Christopher:

them what you just talked about, right?

Christopher:

That's your basic outline right there.

Christopher:

And if you will do that and then practice it.

Christopher:

Every time you practice it, almost every time you practice

Christopher:

it, you're gonna change something.

Christopher:

And when I say change something, I mean make it a little better.

Christopher:

You're gonna tweak it.

Christopher:

You're gonna think, oh, I should say this or this, to bridge the gap.

Christopher:

And that'll just make it so much stronger.

Christopher:

Always remember, I recommend practicing before you go to speak because, and again,

Christopher:

it takes away some of those butterflies.

Gena:

And sprinkle in that bit of entertainment too.

Gena:

We're talking about breaking the ice, we were just talking about breaking the

Gena:

ice and you're coming to this event and you're gonna be talking with these people.

Gena:

You've already broken the ice, so you've got a little bit of a rapport

Gena:

going with people, but it's not, yes, people want your knowledge.

Gena:

But as we have said before, in writing, and it's the same in speaking, some

Gena:

people are going to, what's going to resonate with them is going to be

Gena:

the stats, the statistics, the case studies, the just the nuts and bolts.

Gena:

This is what you've gotta do, this is how you do this.

Gena:

But for other people, it's going to be stories.

Gena:

It's going to be, if I'm talking about I'm doing a talk on how

Gena:

to raise the confidence of children in elementary school.

Gena:

I just made that up guys.

Gena:

But if I'm doing that, but if I all of a sudden tell you about one of my

Gena:

students, and how their life was changed through one of the exercises that

Gena:

I'm going to give, or one of the tips I'm gonna give you are probably gonna

Gena:

remember that as a listener to my talk.

Christopher:

It brings it home.

Gena:

It does.

Christopher:

This is something that I have found really has changed

Christopher:

the way that I create talks.

Christopher:

I used to make my talks very informational, right?

Christopher:

Because I share a lot of power packed information.

Christopher:

If you've taken any of the courses that I've done, I always put

Christopher:

a lot of information in there.

Christopher:

I want you to go away with so much that you wanna listen again because

Christopher:

you've got a lot of takeaways.

Christopher:

But I started to discover years ago that if I could include stories,

Christopher:

it makes a huge difference.

Christopher:

Sometimes they're personal stories and I've learned that those help a lot.

Christopher:

But also sometimes just a story that illustrates what

Christopher:

you're talking about helps.

Christopher:

For instance, I was doing a talk the other day on productivity, right?

Christopher:

How to do, how to make self more productive, and I realized

Christopher:

I was just talking about all these apps and techniques and

Christopher:

so I wanted to find a story.

Christopher:

And I found the story about Henry Ford and how he used the

Christopher:

assembly line to create Model Ts.

Christopher:

It used to take 12 hours, over 12 hours, I think it was 12 hours and

Christopher:

13 minutes to create a Model T.

Christopher:

Then he created the assembly line and he got that down to 93 minutes.

Christopher:

That is a story when I tell that and I explain how they used rope to pull

Christopher:

the cars down the line, and I'll put a picture of Henry Ford up on the screen

Christopher:

with an assembly line and that word picture means so much more than just

Christopher:

about anything else I could have said.

Christopher:

Because then as I continue to give the talk and we start talking

Christopher:

about these different apps, in that I can bring it back to the fact

Christopher:

that you are just like Henry Ford.

Christopher:

You are increasing your productivity by 900%.

Christopher:

And people remember that.

Christopher:

They just remember because they got that word picture of that

Christopher:

assembly line in their head.

Christopher:

And so the story makes all the difference.

Gena:

I agree, and I've watched Chris recently as he's been giving some of

Gena:

these talks, and I see how you've really done the same thing in your speaking

Gena:

that you have done in your writing.

Gena:

You talk a lot in writing, you talk about callbacks.

Gena:

And that's what really you're doing, is you're creating that word picture

Gena:

at the beginning of your talk.

Gena:

And then you're calling back to it throughout and even at your

Gena:

conclusion, I've seen you do that.

Gena:

Where you then pull it all together with that, pulling it back from that first

Gena:

story that you shared, that first personal story, historical story, whatever.

Gena:

And you bring it all together to make it, it just wraps it up like it's

Gena:

really beautiful bow on top of a gift.

Christopher:

It bookends it and makes the audience just have that feeling of.

Christopher:

Oh, I see how it all comes together.

Christopher:

It's this little bit of magic, right?

Christopher:

You see how things come together that you hadn't expected,

Christopher:

and that's a powerful thing.

Christopher:

So yeah, definitely try that.

Christopher:

Again, it can be your own personal story.

Christopher:

It can be another story.

Christopher:

Whatever you do include a story.

Gena:

Definitely.

Gena:

We already talked about eye contact.

Gena:

We talked about sharing stories, and here's another one.

Gena:

Have you ever gone into a talk, sat down, and the person gets up

Gena:

there and starts clicking through their PowerPoint or their slides.

Christopher:

Which we do recommend you have.

Gena:

Definitely use the PowerPoint or presentation in Apple, whatever.

Gena:

Definitely do that.

Gena:

But have you seen their slides be so full of information and

Gena:

all they're doing is reading it?

Gena:

We really - don't do that to your audience.

Gena:

I really think it's a disservice to people if they are expected to

Gena:

attend a talk that they then have to spend the entire time reading.

Gena:

Because what do you think when you're in that situation?

Gena:

You could have emailed this to me.

Gena:

You could have saved me so much time.

Gena:

I could have just read this.

Gena:

It feels like a waste of time.

Gena:

It is irritating as somebody who is sitting there listening to it.

Christopher:

And it takes the audience attention off of the topic because

Christopher:

they're just focused on the slides then.

Christopher:

So here's what we recommend doing.

Christopher:

What I like to do, is for every point that I'm giving, I'll have a

Christopher:

slide with a striking picture and maybe two or three words on the

Christopher:

slide that support that particular topic, that bullet point, right?

Christopher:

That subtopic.

Christopher:

That's it.

Christopher:

Picture subtopic.

Christopher:

That's it.

Christopher:

Now, every once in a while I might have some really interesting

Christopher:

statistic or really interesting quote, and I'll also put that on there.

Christopher:

I'll make that come in a little later.

Christopher:

But that's it.

Christopher:

The slides are supposed to be there to support it.

Christopher:

So if you ever want to learn some really good techniques, especially with slides

Christopher:

in that, watch some TED Talks and there's also some books on how to give a TED Talk.

Christopher:

Those really show how you can use a visual presentation like that in a

Christopher:

very subtle way that will help support what you do, but not overtake it.

Gena:

I would add too, that when you put everything on the slide and the person is

Gena:

reading it, it undercuts your authority.

Christopher:

Totally undercuts it.

Gena:

Instead by just putting a couple of words up there or maybe just a

Gena:

bullet point or something like that, and then as you talk about it, then you.

Christopher:

You become the authority.

Gena:

You become the authority.

Gena:

You bring the magic to that moment.

Gena:

And yeah, definitely don't make people read it, but be the one that

Gena:

has the, that gives the reveal, that gives the information or the technique

Gena:

that can change someone's life.

Christopher:

As a little bonus one thing we recommend doing when you speak

Christopher:

somewhere is to collect people's names.

Christopher:

At the end of your talk or at the beginning of your talk, whatever, put

Christopher:

up a slide maybe with a QR code on it or have a piece of paper with lines

Christopher:

on it where people can put on their email addresses and their names or a

Christopher:

QR code that they can snap at their phone and fill out so that they can

Christopher:

get a free download from your website.

Christopher:

A free tool to take away.

Christopher:

Whatever you do, collect some names because it is not unusual to go speak

Christopher:

somewhere and you could walk away with 10 names, 30 names, a hundred names, right?

Christopher:

It can be a powerful lead magnet.

Christopher:

We've talked about lead magnets.

Christopher:

It can be very powerful to do that because remember, you are, when you talk in front

Christopher:

of someone, you might have their attention for 20 minutes, 40 minutes at most, right?

Christopher:

But when you get someone's name and you can start sending them

Christopher:

your email series, and you can speak to them on a regular basis.

Christopher:

You could be in their lives for a very long time, and it could be the

Christopher:

start of a beautiful relationship.

Gena:

Beautiful friendship.

Christopher:

Hey, if you've enjoyed this podcast would you please rate and

Christopher:

review the podcast so that others can find it, and then subscribe so you don't

Christopher:

miss the next one, and share it with someone who might be interested in the

Christopher:

topic of writing, because we are just here to help others and we hope that

Christopher:

you can help us do that too, because remember, we're not all in this alone.

Christopher:

Really the truth is together what Gena?

Gena:

We have writing momentum.

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About the Podcast

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Writing Momentum
Write, Publish, Build Your Author Brand, Sell Your Book

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About your host

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Christopher Maselli

Christopher P.N. Maselli is a Certified Digital Marketing Professional, an award-winning children’s author of more than 50 books, a direct mail writer, and a ghostwriter for many prominent, international speakers.

“I love sharing what I’ve learned over the past 25 years,” says Chris. “We’re all in this together and hopefully what I’ve learned can benefit beginners and veterans alike.”

Chris regularly speaks at writer’s conferences nationwide and on the training portion of WritingMomentum.com, he helps put other writers on the fast track to success. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing.