Tips Guides

My boss called me to her office Monday morning. It is always a bit nerve wracking when the boss calls you to their office. You start running scenarios through your mind of all the things you have done recently that they may not have liked. Why? No one knows. Very few people expect to get good news.

I was pleasantly surprised however. She informed me that I was being promoted. Not a lateral promotion but a full promotion including a raise in salary, access to the higher benefits level and a company vehicle. Then she dropped the other shoe. I would have to move. Part of becoming chief of operations for the new call center would require that I pick my family up and move them from Los Angeles to Toronto, Canada.

I conditionally accepted the offer with the explanation that I had to speak with my spouse first. Quickly my employer threw in that I would have a corporate relocation package to help with the expense of moving.

When I got home that evening I explained to my spouse what had transpired. We discussed the pros and cons of moving in general, then did quite a bit of internet research on Toronto and found that the move would be beneficial to all of us. I went into work the next morning and told my employer that I would accept the position. She handed me all the necessary paperwork to complete for the promotion along with the information on the corporate relocation package. In that list there were several companies to choose from that specialized in cross country moving.

I pointed out that we would not just be moving across the country; we would be moving to another country. My boss said that those companies were chosen because they were used to dealing with the small details between Canada and the United States. I was welcome to contact other companies specializing in corporate relocation if I wanted but only a portion of their costs would be covered.

I gave all the information to my spouse that evening. We had less than one month to pack and relocate. The stress of moving around the corner is high. The stress of moving to another country is much higher. My spouse contacted the corporate relocation companies from the list and chose one. They sent us a check list of things to do, arranged for a moving company, and invoiced my company comptroller for all costs. Talk about stress relief.

The only things we had to make sure were done ourselves were on the check list. We gathered all of our personal documentation (birth certificates, wedding certificate, medical records, etc). We packed for what seemed like forever. We had several moving sales and dispersed some other goods among friends and family. We went house shopping online with the help of the corporate relocation company.

The decision had been made to rent until our house in Los Angeles was sold. Finally moving day came and we were actually ready to go. Sad and happy tears and good byes were exchanged with friends and family and we went to the airport while our belongings were loaded into the moving van. We were staying in a hotel until our belongings arrived. It was the most organized move I have ever participated in.

Nir Dotan is a writer and promoter of International Moving services, and
International Shipping Local as well as International Moving.

Public speaking is a career that requires a special person with special skill. Not everyone is successful when it comes to speech presentations, but those that are know and understand that there are some effective strategies for reaching their audience. If you are a public speaker, and just do not seem to be captivating your audience, this guide may prove to be exceptional helpful to you. Here, we will instruct you on techniques that you can use to capture the attention of your audience and properly retain it. In order to captivate your audience, you must start by learning your audience - by really getting to know them. Every successful presentation is backed by this simple fact - you must know who it is that you are speaking to.

Now, as you look over the audience that you are addressing, you may find yourself questioning exactly how it is that you are going to get to know all of these people in enough time to captivate them with your speech. It DOES seem like an impossible task. That is for sure! However, it can be done, and I am about to tell you how. You can start examining your audience by asking yourself, “what is it that this audience needs and wants?” In all actuality, it is best to ask this question even before you get in front of your audience. You should ask yourself this question as you are preparing your speech. There are generally two types of individuals that will be listening to the information that you have to offer:

1. The first type of person that will be attending your speech will need the information that you are going to deliver for one reason or another.

2. The second type of individual is the one that wants the information that you will bring with you when conducting the speech.

When creating your speech, it is important to include content that will appeal to both those that are searching for specific information that they need, and those that are just interested in hearing what it is that you have to say. When presenting the information that you have to share, it is important to know and understand that the content of your message must be delivered in an upbeat manner so that your audience is really enthused. It is always important to remember that sometimes, how you say something, you will a larger impact than what you say.

The next thing that you must consider when it comes to public speaking is that which your audience already knows. If you elaborate on facts and figures that everyone is already familiar with, then it is quite possible that you will actually lose the attention of those that are listening to your presentation. Many successful speakers will offer a prep presentation that covers, or summarizes, the information that will be covered in the main part of the speech. This way, if someone already knows what it is that is going on when it comes to the information that you have, they have the opportunity to opt out of the presentation. This can prove to be a highly successful process when it comes to retaining your audience.

Now, the next thing that you will need to consider is the level of understanding that your audience has when it comes to the topic that you are discussing. True, they may have some knowledge on the subject, but do they really understand what it is that you are covering? If not, you should work to increase their level of understanding. If you do not capture their level of understanding, it is very likely that you will not captivate them as an audience. However, if you present the topic that you are covering in a manner that your audience can know and understand what it is that you are discussing, you will likely captivate the attention of your audience.

If you are a public speaker, it is absolutely essential, to know how to capture and maintain the interest of the audience that you are speaking too. Here, you have discovered some key items to keep in mind when it comes to developing a presentation that is bound to be a huge success. If you carefully implement the things listed throughout this guide while preparing your next speech, you will be quite popular among those that are part of your audience.

Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.

There are a number of persuasion techniques that you will want to utilize when it comes to delivering a persuasive speech. There are many tools that you will want to use to help you to deliver the speech. You will need to enhance your communication skills and, of course, your influencing skills, in order to make your listening public believe in you and that point of view you are trying to convey.

To help you with a persuasive speech, you will find that there are many tricks that you will want to use as your opening statement. It is practically essential that you catch the attention of your listeners as early as at your opening words. You have to learn how to grab the audience’s attention and then use the body of the speech to keep them interested. The first tool that you will want to utilize is an rhetorical question.

A rhetorical question is a question that does not deserve an answer but something that is to get the audience to think about. But, you could always use a starting statement to get their attention. For instance, if you throw out some horrible static or number that states how many people were hurt or the damage, you will be able to get their attention quickly.

When it comes to dealing with educated crowd you will want to point quotation of some sort. The quotation can be a classic or the quotation can have a little bit of shock value–enough to get their attention..

You can always give the crowd a reference sheet about the subject. You will want to make sure that the references that you utilized in your speech are among the reference sheet, but also some sites and other references that the audience will want to read or check out for further understanding. Remember, not all of the points can be absorbed easily verbally, so it is essential that you have visuals also.

Some of the obvious speck tools are things like visual resources. You will want to bring in a CD, a DVD, pictures, and anything else that you can show to prove and improve your point. Anything like statistics should be blown up and magnified in the speech. You will want to take your time when it comes to the visual aids because they have to support you as your evidence.

You need to look at the tools of a speech so that you can deliver a good performance. You will need the tools of a speech to help you through the speech and also for you to make you comfortable. You will want to make sure that the speech you give is worthy to your audience’s time and with the tools, you will be able to give them just that.

Those are just some of the speaking tools that you will want to use. You will find that there are many other tools that you can utilize in your speech, but you may want to state your creditability even. You have to use some communication skills–even voice modulation, the eye to eye contact, and getting to your audience’s feelings. Indeed, persuasion techniques come in various work of art.

To read more,visit http://www.influencingskills101.com/

Successful seminars are generally based upon the concept of giving you the power to believe you can. The speakers usually speak from insights and expertise gained from their own life experiences. Self-improvement seminars give the attendees the tools - and the motivation - to succeed. Thus, a well-organized and well-presented seminar that helps people up the ladder of success can’t help but succeed because we are a success-oriented society - it’s an easy sell with an income potential limited only by your ability to express yourself.

You won’t need an office to make it big with self-improvement seminars. The public doesn’t visit you - you take your programs to them. Self-improvement seminars appeal to almost everybody - from blue-collar workers to top executives.

The average cost per person to attend a seminar is very close to $300 - so your basic audience will be from the upper-income brackets - but if you handle the promotional aspects properly, you’ll pull them in from lesser income brackets as well.

Many seminar promoters employ sales teams to call upon top company executives and either gets them to partially pay the cost of several employees to attend as educational or business improvement investments - or to foot the bill for the sponsorship of a “group seminar” for all of that company’s middle management personnel. Many specialty speakers make in excess of $100,000 per year with regular motivational and/or self-improvement seminars in this fashion.

In the beginning though, you’ll get your start by staging seminars for the general public in restaurant banquet rooms, hotel ballrooms, and convention centers. These will entail advertising costs, plus the charges for the rented space, and an “on-hand” inventory of the materials you want to sell to the people who attend your seminars.

Generally, you’ll do best with an intensive radio advertising campaign during the week preceding your seminar date. In a metropolitan area of half a million population, you should probably spend a couple of thousand dollars on radio advertising, plus about half as much for flamboyant newspaper advertising. Some seminar promoters invest a quarter of their budget in newspapers, then another quarter in direct mail and/or telephone advertising, with half going into radio. Of course, the allocation of your advertising budget should be related to the previous proven pulling power of each media within that particular market. Not too much concern is given to television advertising, excepting for guest appearances of the community service talk shows.

Most promoters spend all of this effort and money to promote a series of free seminars. These free seminars usually draw huge crowds, during which special “front men” turn everybody on with super-motivational stories designed to whet the appetite of those in attendance for more. These free seminars generally last only 45-minutes to an hour, and are strictly motivational in purpose.

Each person in attendance is handed a brochure describing the up-coming “main event” as they leave these free seminars. An attempt is made to get a commitment - at least a deposit for the cost of the “real thing,” which is usually set for the week following. Those who do not commit themselves to attending the big one are then contacted by professional telephone sales people and given the complete sales presentation between the time of the free seminar and the date of the real thing, which and experienced telephone sales people - you can count on closing about 30 to 35% of those who attend your free seminars.

If you don’t have the confidence or inclination to participate - be the principal speaker - at your seminars, you can hire local sales training people, professional people from the medical specialties, local “experts” known through your area newspapers or broad cast media, and/or nationally known speakers willing to travel and operating through speakers’ bureaus. You might want to contact Burt Dubin of Personal Achievement Institute - 225 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 305 -Santa Monica, CA 90401… or Dottie Walters of the ‘National Speakers’ Bureau’ - 400 W. Foothill Blvd. - Glendora, CA 91740.

Finally, I reiterate the fact that there are literally millions of people in all parts of the country willing and able to pay you for helping them to improve themselves. You can start with meetings in your living room, or your local restaurant. All it takes is action on your part to get set up and a push from yourself to start making it happen. Best of luck and now get going with it.

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor.

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One of the questions I most ask people who come to me for personal coaching to increase their public speaking skills is this. “Did you warm up before speaking”. And most of them just stare at me as if I am completely mad and don’t have a clue what I am talking about. I then explain that even professional singers and professional actors and athletes all warm up before going on stage or performing in some way.

Why should it be any different for public speaking?

The one fundamental difference between people who are capable of decent public speaking and people who are not is the difference in the state of mind. Good speakers have mastered their nerves (well mostly) and appear polished on stage. I will repeat. The only difference is the state of their mind.

It is therefore of enormous importance to warm up in order to become calm and this be in the optimum state for speaking. One of the best ways to warm up and change your state is slow deep breathing.

The preferred way is known as 7/11 breathing because you breathe in slowly to the count of seven and then breathe out slowly to a longer count of eleven. The main reason you breathe out longer is because the parasympathetic nervous system receives a signal that all is becoming calmer when your breathing slows but this only occurs on the exhalation rather than the inhalation so you need to give this system every chance you can to pick up this signal correctly.

The next thing to do is to make sure that you breathe all the way out so that you hardly have any residual air left in your lungs because it is carbon dioxide build up in the body sends you into fight or flight and signals for adrenaline to start flowing and we all know how that feels, not very nice.

Remember that this technique is also breathing from the diaphragm or belly area rather than just expanding the chest. If you are not sure you are doing it right simply place a hand on your diaphragm and you should feel it rising and falling as you breathe in and out slowly.

Belly breathing fills the lower lobes of the lungs correctly which in turn fill all the little alveoli that transport oxygen around the body. Once your body is well oxygenated the stress response will correct itself because the amount of carbon dioxide to oxygen will be rebalanced.

The last thing to mention which is probably the most important is to do the breathing for a minimum of ten minutes with fifteen minutes being better. i know many people who say to me that they tried this and it didn’t work. so I asked then how long they had done it for and they replied that they had done it for a few minutes only.

If you feel quite stressed it will take at least fifteen minutes to correct the imbalance caused by too much carbon dioxide in the blood so the trick is to take a look at the place you will be speaking in beforehand and find a quiet place there on early arrival and start your breathing.

Please believe me, this will work if you do it for fifteen minutes or more. Athletes don’t take two minutes to warm up.they spend at least fifteen to twenty minutes and singers often take longer. Pavarotti, the famous opera singer, once stated that he would never sing without warming up his voice first of all.

So 7/11 breathing for at least fifteen minutes is the trick to changing your mental state before public speaking.

Lee James Heather is a therapist and personal coach who inspires people through his free personal development website -
http://www.growthjunction.com
Its subjects range from change techniques to consciousness research and work/career makeovers

We all know that public speaking is one of the most feared endeavors for many, many people especially when we are not called on to do it very often. There are many ways to combat public speaking nerves but for some reason the very people who are the most scared do the least to get over this fear. There is one main thing we have to remember when we have this type of fear. It does not allow us to think straight because all or most of our brain activity moves to the rear of the brain where out ‘fight or flight’ reactions belong. There is minimal activity left in the frontal parts of the brain where our fine thinking skills are located. And what do you think will happen if we do not have access to fine cognitive processes, yes, our speaking will deteriorate even more.

The answer is first to realize that this happens physiologically for a reason and the next step is to discover how to put this activity back where it belongs, in the frontal or neocortex as it is known, so a clearer thinking mind is available to you when you need it.

Lets look at a few ways to do this then. Doing it in stages or smaller chunks will make this much easier. Firstly I really recommend that you do some slow deep breathing for a while, at least ten minutes, getting control of your breathing is a crucial first step to taking back an empowered mental state. Make a conscious effort to go somewhere quiet and breathe in to a count of seven using your diaphragm or belly (not chest breathing) and breathe out to a count of eleven seconds, After ten minutes you will find yourself calming down tremendously. It is the slow exhalation that lets your autonomic nervous system know it can calm down now and will begin to take your body away from a fight or flight response.

Well done, the next step is to start rubbing your hands together for a few minutes and then suck your cheeks in hard whilst continuing to breathe. this may sound strange but the reason for this is that it moves activity back to your frontal brain area. Then you can look straight ahead and let your eyes move gently outwards so you become aware of the peripherals of the room you are in. this feels a little different at first but try it again, just move each eye outwards to observe the periphery of the place you are in. When you are in peripheral vision there is no ‘internal voice’ in your head saying things like ‘i’m nervous’. You will be aware that there are no pictures in your mind either (of the large audience for example) that could further unnerve you.

The peripheral vision technique actually quietens your mind right down to a still point. Practice all the above before you actually do the speaking, at least a few weeks before and they will really help enormously.

Lee James Heather is a counselor and the webmaster of http://www.growthjunction.com - a large and ever expanding depository of personal development information ranging from public speaking skills to meditation and work/career information.