No matter how hard we try, the reality is… it’s getting harder and harder to stand out online. It’s getting more challenging to have people pay attention and stop their scroll and engage in what we’re doing online.
Your ability to present and be confident on video, when you’re speaking to people in person and to groups is directly related to your income.
And if you’re not great at writing, then you really need to get great at speaking. Because we need to share our words for people to get to know us.
There are only two ways that we can communicate with our clients. Either through writing or by speaking. And obviously there’s body language and all the other things that come into it, but those are the two main ways we communicate.
A lot of people tell me, “I don’t want to write blogs, I don’t have time to write blogs.”
So if you don’t want to spend your time writing blogs, and if you’re not naturally a great writer, if you haven’t studied the art and the science of copywriting, which is writing to influence, then you need to get good at presenting.
I’m very passionate about helping people with their presenting skills, because we all know that the online space is getting more and more crowded.
Presenting to a group is the best way to leverage your time because if you’re still doing one-to-one, it takes a long time, my friend, I’m sure you’ve realised that.
You will not have the massive impact that you want to have in the world if you keep going one by one by one by one.
I realised this when I was a Personal Trainer in the U.K. I had been to so many different conventions and conferences and seminars, and I remember watching the speaker on stage time after time after time.
And I remember thinking, “I want to do that, but I’m scared. I don’t want to get up in front of all those people. I’m an introvert, I don’t have the skills, I’ve got massive anxiety around getting up in front of people.”
I remember having all these limiting beliefs around it, all these fears around speaking to groups, I was so nervous about it.
But I got to that point where I was just fed up, and I remember watching this speaker, and he was not a good speaker, but he got so many people engaged.
And I remember thinking, “I reckon I could do a better job than him, but all he’s doing is he’s confident and he’s owning it. And so I want to learn the craft, I want to learn how to speak like that so that I am not going one by one by one.”
I was only doing one-on-one personal training at that stage. I’d done a little bit of group, but not to the level that I wanted, and I kept falling back on one-on-one because it’s where I felt confident and comfortable.
Maybe you relate. Maybe you’re working one-on-one with clients, but you know that your time is limited, that you want to have more freedom.
Especially if you’re working closely with people, it can be quite draining doing long hours. So you kind of set yourself up for a job, instead of setting yourself up as a business where you can work less and make more money.
So I decided that day, “I’m going to learn this craft, no matter what it costs me, no matter how much time and money I’ve got to spend, how much fear I’ve got to overcome, I’m going to do it.”
If you think about it, 50 years ago we had to only work with people in person.
But now we have the ability to reach thousands, millions of people by doing Facebook Lives, by doing YouTube clips, by doing podcasts.
We’ve got the ability to reach a lot of people and take our message way further away, to way more people that actually need help, right?
When I moved to Sydney in 2012, I barely knew anyone here. I had a couple of acquaintances, but it didn’t have a network of people or friends, I didn’t have any clients.
One of the first things I did was go to an event that was run by Shaune Clark, and he was running an event called Six Figure Speaker Training.
And I went along, it was a half-day, it was $97, and something dropped. I thought, “Yeah, you are going to teach me how to present.”
So I signed up for his course, it was about $3,000, thank you Shaune, shout out to you.
And it helped me change my whole thinking around how to craft a message.
I went on to do 4 other presenter training courses and they have all totally changed my business and changed me.
So I want to share with you five ways that you can use presenting to grow your business as well, and how presenting skills will help you make more money.
It’s the skillset that you learn and the mindset that you learn will help you make a lot more money and help you impact a lot more people and reach a lot more people.
So here are five ways that presenting skills can help you grow your business:
#1: Presenting skills help you get attention
We are in the attention economy where we’re all fighting for attention. Not like, “Look at me, look at me,” but, “Stop and engage with my post,” because people are scrolling so fast, they’re like this.
You see it on public transport, people waiting in queues at shops, they’re scrolling. You literally get a few seconds to grab people’s attention. So online is very difficult.
I am a huge advocate for positioning yourself correctly online and doing online marketing, you need to.
But I also advocate, not just online, but offline strategies, combining presenting together with online marketing.
If you get those two together, boom, a powerful combination. It helps you get attention.
Because if you are willing to put yourself on a platform, which most of the population are not willing to do because they’re scared of it, public speaking is apparently the number one fear.
So because most of your competitors are not willing to do it, you will get the attention because you’re actually positioning yourself as someone who is willing to stand out and be outstanding, and not just blend in with the crowd and everyone else online, right?
So you get attention.
There’s a new study done that shows that we actually need seven hours, we need to produce seven hours, of content, people need to consume seven hours of us before they make a significant buy-in decision.
Seven hours.
That’s a lot of Facebook posts, it’s a lot of doing Facebook Live videos, it’s a lot of blogs, it’s a lot of emails.
Whereas if you run a workshop for one day, your seven hours are done. It’s done in one day, so you can get people to sign up for your offers and your programs in a very short period of time by running the workshop.
And that was how I kind of got started, by going out of the one-on-one model, was running small little seminars at my gym. I ran them in the empty studio at my gym and had people come along, and I taught them what I knew, I was teaching on nutrition at the time.
But then when I moved to Sydney, I would hire my local library, Gladesville library, and I paid $18 an hour and had people come in, and I taught them stuff.
So that’s where I started out. And now I’ve run over 100 workshops and I’ve tested and measured the things that work in business.
There are lots of things that do work, there are a lot of things that don’t work, so I’ve made a lot of mistakes.
And it’s why I love teaching people this now because there are a lot of things you can do wrong.
A lot of people have fear about people not showing up, so there are strategies that you need to do to make sure that people come, that you get people in the room.
But it’s one of the fastest ways to get people’s attention. It’s very hard to get people’s attention unless you have a massive brand or you have a big budget behind you for Facebook Ads, right?
So if you’re starting out, it’s a very cheap way to get started fast and get clients fast.
#2: It gives you the ability to connect deeply with people
Before I was running events, I was stuck behind my laptop so much of the time, and I wasn’t spending enough time getting to know what people wanted.
I was just dealing with people one by one by one, and I also had this comfortable group of clients that I’d had for years.
I used to have my clients for years, so I wasn’t really improving my ability to connect with people and be able to influence large groups of people, all different types of people because I was kind of stuck in this comfortable one-by-one model.
I was very good at my very safe little world with my clients that were one-on-one.
Whereas now I can talk to so many different types of people. I know how to read an audience, I know how to keep people engaged, and it’s improved my people skills so much.
I never used to be a people person. I remember at my granddad’s funeral years ago, I got up and said, “I don’t like people very much. They are not many people that I like, but I like my granddad.”
I can’t believe I said that!
I love people now. I absolutely love people, and presenting has helped that so much. And to be successful in business, you have to like people. You have to, it’s essential because business is about relationships. Every time you make money, there’s a person who’s put that money into your account, right?
Business is about relationships. So it’s a great skill, to be able to connect deeply with people.
#3: It helps you to be able to influence authentically
Authentic influence is helping people create positive change in their life. And you do it ethically, and genuinely.
It’s not manipulating people to do what they don’t want to do.
That’s not what true influence is about, it’s about helping people get what they want, solving their problems for them.
It’s about finding out what they want to avoid, become, what they create, reduce, and get away from. That is influence; helping them overcome their fears and their false beliefs. That’s part of the skillset of presenters.
A big part of presenting is actually helping people overcome the things that are holding them back from getting what they want.
And that’s a very important skill that you can develop as a business owner, and one of the fastest ways to do it is to do it to a group.
You don’t have to be on a big platform, but to be able to get in front of group people.
The more I do videos, the more I do workshops, the more my ability to influence improves, by mastering the craft, by doing it and doing it and doing it.
Also, because I’m doing it, I’m always going to seminars and learning about the craft of influence to get better at it. So that’s something that presenting gives you a massive advantage in your business.
#4: It helps you to be able to speak with confidence
I don’t know about you, but I never used to want to get up and speak in front of people. I never wanted to do Facebook Lives, that was the freakiest thing ever, I refused to do it for ages until I realised it was here to stay and it wasn’t going away.
But I’m so grateful now, because now I can confidently speak.
The other day I was at an event and they said, “Right, we’re going to divide the room into four,” it was a massive conference room, they divided us into four groups and they said, “One of you from each of the four groups,” there were probably about 150 people in the room, “One of you is going to get up on stage.”
And I thought, “That’s me. I want to get up on stage.” Any opportunity to get up on stage, to help get closer and closer to that confident person that I want to be in every situation.
So I put my hand straight up, and went on stage and spoke, and it was incredible. A few years back, before I had been presenting and running workshops, I wouldn’t have done that. So it’s increased my confidence a lot. I used to be super shy, introverted, and not have any confidence at all. I would go red, I would shake, I’d be so nervous.
But it’s not a talent, presenting is not a talent. It’s training.
I’ve been trained, I’ve practiced and practiced and practiced, and that’s how I can now speak in front of lots of people and not get nervous at all. I love it.
#5: It helps you attract your ideal clients
This is something that I talk about all the time with my clients.
If you want to attract your ideal clients, one of the fastest ways to do it is to position yourself as someone who’s not afraid, someone who’s taking bold actions, someone who’s willing to do the hard things.
And one of the hardest things that you will ever overcome is your ability to stand in front of a group and risk being rejected and put on your own event. It’s not easy, it’s not for everyone.
But if you know that you’re not like everyone, that you don’t want to be mediocre, if you know you want to be one of those ambitious people that is a one-percenter…
…someone willing to stand up and have something to say, to have an opinion, to risk having haters, then the world is your oyster.
Every entrepreneur who’s successful has some haters, doubters, people who do the ‘thumbs down’ thing on YouTube.
If you’re willing to risk that, presenting is your golden ticket, it really is.
So those are the five things. Get attention, connect deeply with people, influence authentically, speak with confidence, and attract your ideal clients.
You have a message that the world can benefit from, that the world is actually waiting for.
No one can express it like you, and if you don’t present it, then the world loses it.
Because your unique combination of skills, abilities, stories, experiences, they are unique, and that’s what makes you outstanding, that’s what differentiates you from the rest of the market.
I am working to influence you to learn this skill because I know it can be a game-changer for you. It has totally changed my life. It has changed who I am as a person, and it has completely changed my business. About 90-95% of my clients all came because I learned how to present.
If you would like to learn how to use presenting to attract more clients, I’m running a free online workshop on Saturday 24th October called ‘How to Get Clients With Online Events’.
I’ve invested over $20,000 in learning the craft and run over 200 events. So if you want to learn this presenting skill, I would love to show you the best of what I’ve learned and help you fast track your ability to attract your clients and grow a profitable business.
Here’s the link for more details and to claim your free ticket:
Leave a Reply