Public Speaking Courses Brisbane

How to Use Public Speaking to Generate Leads for Your Business

Here’s some of the compelling talk titles that recent participants in my public speaking courses Brisbane have created. Read these titles aloud loud to get the best effect…

“Discover why you Click with Some People and Clang with Others”

• that’s the title of a 30-minute lead generating talk by Sharon Hudson from Talent Tools.

“How to make Make a Million Dollars Commission with 1 Just Listed Ad”

• that’s a 30-minute lead generating talk by Mike Hillsdon from the Cahtbot Agency.

“How to Install a Silent Salesperson in Your Business”

• that’s a lead generating talk by Lara Arden, Copywriter.

“How to Get the Loan You Need for the House You want”

• that’s a lead generating talk by Deb Murphy from Aussie Dream Home Loans.

Developing a 30-minute business talk can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Don’t underestimate the amount of opportunity that exists for ordinary business people to become guest speakers at local events.

15 Points Drawn From My Public Speaking Courses Brisbane

There is a solid opportunity out there for you to do public speaking in Brisbane.

1. Number of events. Just think for a moment about the number of business networking groups there are in Brisbane. A guest speaker is central to the business model for most networking groups. Then think about the Industry group meetings, the Franchise group meetings, the special interest group meetings, the conferences and the trade shows. Many of them use a guest speaker as a drawcard to get bums on seats. You can be that drawcard!

2. Guest speaker is central. Many of these events are built around a guest presenter. Networking events use a guest speaker for a 20-30 minute spot. Franchise meetings often bring guest speakers in to talk. Industry groups have monthly meetings and often utilise a guest speaker. There are opportunities for conference’ filler spots’ too. This list goes on and on.

3. Topic. Did you notice how these people carefully crafted topics that set them apart as unique, different and with considerable expertise? They will rise head and shoulders above their competition. In fact, most of their competition will not speak in front of an audience delivering a compelling talk. Most businesses do a “we do this, and we do that” style talk, a bit like a talking brochure. That style of talk rarely yields a result.

4. Referrals. You’ll get referrals to other speaking opportunities. Here’s an example of my own. I spoke at a typical business networking breakfast in Mt Gravatt. I generated leads from that presentation and some of those turned into paying customers. At the end of the meeting, I was approached by the coordinator of a Wynnum business expo. They asked if I could do a guest speaker spot there too. Of course, I said yes .
At the business expo, I generated leads that turned into clients, and again I was approached and asked to speak at yet another function. This time it was a Thermomix monthly meeting. I spoke there, and a couple more people became paying clients.

5. Get paid in leads. There are lots and lots of events that are designed around a guest speaker. Most of these don’t have the budget to pay for a speaker. In return for complementary services, they will let you tastefully include a lead generation strategy.

There is a big opportunity for business people to add public speaking to their marketing tool kit.

A few things about nerves that I teach in my public speaking workshops in Brisbane;

6. It’s OK. Everybody has nerves when they are in front of an audience. Welcome to the human race; it’s natural! Nerves and anxiety are natural responses. Just focus on controlling them, not eliminating them.

7. Performance. A little bit of nerves and anxiety actually puts you into a peak performance state. You’ll be more alert, your senses are heightened, and you are performance-ready.

8. The Unknown. Most of us fear the unknown. Speaking in front of an audience represents the unknown – how will it go, how will the audience respond, will I remember my lines, etc., etc. So many times, people spend time worrying about things that never come to pass. Instead, use mental rehearsal to see, in your mind’s eye, that things go well. There’s no need to over exaggerate in your thinking instead, choose to see things going well. It’s a whole lot better than worrying about adverse outcomes that may never eventuate!

9. Cucumber. Back in the 1920s the great Dale Carnegie said something like this “anyone who is as cool as a cucumber when giving a speech is likely to be about as interesting as a cucumber too!” Don’t aim to have zero nerves or stress. Allow yourself to accept that a degree of positive anxiety is needed for you to do well. Once you stop feeling ‘bad’ for being nervous, things can quickly get a lot better for you.

10. Preparation. If you want to be confident in front of an audience, you need to earn that confidence. Confidence is gained initially through preparation and practice. Over the long term, your confidence builds from your accumulated experience. Don’t think that you can ‘wing it’ and generate leads from your talk.

** The idea is to use a smaller number of key points in your presentation but bring them to life with facts, examples, application and success stories. You need to structure your talk so that your audience can ‘see themselves in the picture’.

Here are five more tips from my public speaking courses that will help you to bring your topic to life;

11. Humanise your topic. Tell stories of human interest. A great way to do this is to tell stories about your customers. You can change the identity if you’d like, but share the real story about the customer’s problems, how this was affecting them, the solution you helped them with, and the positive outcome that resulted for the customer.

12. Personalise your topic. Readability and writing expert Rudolf Flesch said, “Nothing adds more realism to a story than names; Nothing is as unrealistic as anonymity. Imagine a story whose hero has no name.” Use names in the stories you tell – people’s names, company names, place names, product names. You can use a pseudonym for people and company names if you need to, but do us a name regardless.

13. Meaningful specifics over meaningless generalities. Be careful here because it is easy to add a lot of ‘useless filler’, be purposeful with what you include. For example, if a person has a huge problem that you helped them fix with your services, you could add specifics about that person’s emotions, i.e. how they felt, what was worrying them, the anxiety they were going through. You could also go into enough specifics so that your audience can relate, i.e. age, gender, family, type of business, etc. The idea is to allow your audience to connect to the person in your story. Ideally, you want them thinking, “gee, in some ways, that sounds just like me!”

14. Dramatise. Bring the emotion to life, expressive words, include dialogue. For example, “When we sat down with Mary, it was clear that she was very stressed. As we talked, she acknowledged that she hadn’t been sleeping well for weeks. Mary broke down and sobbed during our conversation. She had just had such an awful time. As we gently talked through the challenges, I was able to help her see a path forward. When we left, it was clear that Mary once again had a sense of hope, and she looked so relieved.”

15. Visualise. The first thing that comes to mind here is PowerPoint. Yes, but there are many other things you can do. And sometimes, you are better off presenting without PowerPoint. You can do a demonstration, use a prop, paint a picture with your words, draw a diagram or keywords on a flip chart, and more. Just think about how you can include a striking visual for each of the key points in your presentation.

Public speaking can be a reliable lead generation tool for your business. You’d don’t have to be a professional speaker to speak well or be booked to speak at local networking/industry events.

If you’d like help to design your presentation, calm your nerves, sharpen your skills, then click here to find out about our public speaking courses Brisbane.