How I Overcame My Fear of Public Speaking & Networking All in One Night

Why would any sane individual choose to overcome their fear of public speaking in front of an audience of their peers?

I can’t think of a single good reason why anyone would do that but it’s how I decided once and for all to shake my fear of public speaking and “get over myself and get on with it”.

You can listen here to how I overcame my fears and did my first public speaking event. This audio will show there is no better way than putting yourself outside your comfort zone and "just doing it!"


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Listening time: 15 minutes 40 secs

Summary

1. Speak on topics you are passionate about and know a lot about

2. Know your target market and never speak outside it

3. Write your talk at least one week out from the event

4. Practice and tweak, practice and tweak

5. Make your start and finish impactful & learn them off by heart

6. Have notes with bullet points on the podium to remind you what goes in the middle (in case you forget)

7. Keep it succinct and don’t try to tell them everything you know all at once

8. Embrace the fear and use it to your advantage – the adrenalin is helping to pump you up for the talk

9. Get over yourself and make it about the audience

10. Be yourself; be real and be authentic – it works a treat!

I have realised my message is now more important than me so I just continue to get over myself and get on with it. I trust this nutty little (true) story will help you overcome your fears too.

Getting the Most from Your Participation in Membership Sites

Membership sites and forums such as Weekend Workshops and my own free membership site The Health and Wellbeing Practitioners Network are fabulous ways to build your profile out in cyberspace, connect with people you couldn’t normally get to and to help you to get known.

We had a wonderful time with John when he was my MOSH Pit Guest GURU for September 08. John shared a lot of technical knowledge on the call, so please take a listen as he was very generous in his sharing.

Click the slider below to hear John Hardgrave of Weekend Workshops speaking about the value of Membership Forums and all the things we need to know to get the most from our participation in sites like Weekend Workshops.



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When you have a small business it is important to join these sites and let people see your expertise. Membership sites are no different to going to a networking event. You need to make an impact quickly.

The things I see as important to remember when joining a membership site

1. Don’t hide – add your full name and a photo – make yourself memorable. Would you just put your first name on your business card (I hope not!) – these membership sites are like virtual business cards – except you can now add so much more information to help people know why they would want to work with you.

2. Be of service – give helpful advise to people when they have questions, make your comments memorable for people.

3. Communicate clearly – tell people your WHO and WHAT very clearly – WHO you work with and WHAT problems you solve for them – it makes it easy then for people to want to work with you.

4. Go deep not shallow – make meaningful connection with people, don’t just click on every single member and ask them to become “your friend”. Site owners also hate this behavior as it makes us uncomfortable due to security reasons and lets us know you are “shallow” – same of the person who runs around a room handing business cards out willy nilly without even stopping to find out who they are giving them to.

5. Join a special interest group – if there isn’t one on your special interest, create one and drive it – you will gain BIG brownie points with the site owner if you do this by adding value for their people.

6. Give value – perhaps load an audio others can benefit from, make a short informational video you can load via YouTube, write an article, post a blog.

7. No one likes a smart arse! Be genuinely interested in helping people not putting them down or making yourself out to be smarter than them. If you know more, simply give that information generously and with love – you will be loved for it!

8. Share a deal. - if you have been offered something on special or have something you can’t use – then offer it to others on the membership site.

9. Share a bit about yourself – load photos of you doing interesting things (we don’t want to see ALL your holiday pics) but if it would be of interest – load it on up.

10. GIVE VALUE, GIVE VALUE, GIVE VALUE!!

You can join my The Health and Wellbeing Practitioners Network - click here

The Power of an Ezine or Newsletter

This morning a promotional email came into my inbox from Global Training and they were advertising Dr. John Demartini’s Australian events in October, along with an article that interested me about the things he was doing wrong in the early days of his chiropractic practice.

That one article interested me enough to read some of the promotional stuff at the bottom of the email and I realised John is doing a free seminar in Melbourne next week. I’m a sucker for a free seminar so guess what? I’m booked for the free event.

Maybe now are you are thinking – big deal – you still haven’t given him any money yet.

Correct! BUT he has managed to get me out of my house, it’s a three hour round trip on a train and in return I get to spend a couple of hours observing a master in action. There is a high chance once I’ve seen him in person that he will sell me one of his courses in the future or at least one of his books to read on the train ride back to the Cute House.

This is how ezines work. In my Practice Building Success System I talk about creating a Marketing Train. Ezines are a guards van or caboose activity - what we call “keep in touch strategies”. If you are persistent and work your ezine strategy with your other marketing train activities, eventually the money tap will turn on.

I’ve been getting Dr John Martini’s ezine for about a year now and it took this article to spike my interest enough to react.

Never underestimate the power of a free newsletter or ezine. You might think no one is reading it because no one is reacting but all of a sudden, something you do will change the way your readers react.

I think there were ten things that made me react:

1. John had built trust in previous communications

2. He was on The Secret and I liked his message

3. His article told the truth about a time when he wasn’t doing so well

4. The article was aimed to help others who are coming up the ladder - not to sell

5. It was timely – only a week out from the event so I knew time was running out and it is his last 2008 tour

6. He created scarcity – only 200 tickets for free

7. There was a strong call to action

8. It is in a nice venue that is close to a train line (important for me)

9. He used several different ways to speak with me – words, audio, visual etc

10. He made me feel special “as a member of his community”

PLUS - the name of the event is catchy - HOW TO MAKE ONE HELL OF A PROFIT AND STILL GET TO HEAVEN – he made me smile and even with his level of success it shows me he isn’t taking himself too seriously and gives me an idea that it will be an entertaining evening.

Lee Carroll Interview with Margaret Gill of Abundant Private Practices (Sept 08)

In our journey we sometimes forget to look back and see how far we have come.

I have attached an audio to this post that sees me leap a significant (for me) milestone. I had the great honour to interview Lee Carroll who is the original channel of Kryon and author of the 12 Kryon books and is co-author of the book the Indigo Children.

You would be most impressed by that if you were a member of the Kryon community but everyone cannot fail to admire what an awesome job Lee has done in getting the Kryon message to the world. For anyone who knows me, it is no secret that I'm a BIG Kryon fan. It's certainly not for everyone, and I'm not saying you have to share my enthusiasm for channelled work but I guess what I'm saying is - have a listen to Lee the human first, then see if you want to move up to Kryon.

But for me it was a chance to look back to April 2000 when I was first introduced to the Kryon books by Trish Ellis, one of my most loved mentors. I read all the books voraciously; I was insatiable, reading all the books written to date then hanging out waiting for the next one to be released. Then, glory be, he started loading channels on his website for free that I could listen to at all hours of the day and night. I did all the exercises, I took on board the messages and gaily skipped over all the scientific stuff figuring there would be others who were taking care of that aspect!

As I read and listened, I dreamed of a time when I could go to a Kryon event live, but back then I would never have had the confidence to register and pay, let alone actually turn up (seriously I was that shy and full of “everyone else would be welcome but why would they want me there” - sad but the truth of who I was back then).

Then I read more and implemented more changes in my life and I listened deeply to what was being said and I went to courses that would help me overcome my fears, until one day in Loveland Colorado in 2006 for the very first Kryon Discovery Series – I had finally found myself at a live Kryon event - the one where Kryon told us that we could go out and bring peace to the planet, should we choose (but that's another blog post or fifty to explan what that has done to my life!)

What’s more I found myself speaking to Lee Carroll personally more than once during the event. Imagine that! Lee would laugh to hear me thinking this was a big deal because he is so down to earth and accessible during these events but I was such a scaredy cat in the early days that I would have run a mile rather than confront my fear of talking with strangers, let alone famous strangers!

Then this month I got to interview Lee Carroll for an hour on the phone. I can tell you I LOVED IT, in fact you will hear me in the unedited audio get so interested in what he was saying that I forgot I was asking the questions :-) Gosh I even made a technical mistake and still loved every moment.

So I’d love you to have a listen and maybe don’t get too wound up in the channelling aspect of things, but just think who you would like to interview and think about what it might take to make it a reality….because the cool thing is, if I could do it – so could you!

Who knows we might even see you at the Australian Kryon event in Melbourne 7-8 February 2009 – you can get more details here at Chris Hooper's website

You can find out more about Kryon here: www.kryon.com

But for now, just kick back and have a listen to the interview below - Lee is a highly knowable man and it was a fun and enlightening call.

Lee Carroll is the orginal channel of Kryon and Lee spoke with Margaret Gill about the upcoming Australian Kryon tour in February 2009, plus a few other things that are going on for the planet and humanity at this time.


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How To Get On A Teleclass

I do a lot of my work on the phone and a lot of this work includes having a lot of people on the phone at once. This is called a "teleclass" or "teleseminar" or "teleconference" and we talk about "getting up onto a bridgeline" to get onto a call.

I'm always a bit amazed how people get bent out of shape when they think about using teleclass technology and bridgelines.

It is really dead easy.

So to help people I've created this 16 minute audio to talk you through the process using really basic language.

Mz Margz Talking about How To Get On A Teleclass

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Please have a listen so it makes me feel ok about the 16 minutes I spent sitting in my office all alone talking to myself :-)

So turn on your speakers, click on the heart to start the recording and by the end I hope I will have convinced you to at least have a go.

Thinking Outside the Square

There are two really interesting concepts on Springwise today.

Free Dance lessons at Paris Airport and Last Minute Spa Bookings in New York.

The dancing lessons tweaked my interest because I though what could therapists teach or offer at places where you would least expect to see a therapist.

How about neck and shoulder massage at hardware stores – must be a heap of tradies that have bad backs and you could hustle up some business.

Garden centres took to the café concept very quickly – what if a reflexologist set up a chair in the corner and offered sessions to weary gardeners.

It is really about thinking right outside the square and approaching the owners with the concept. When you are first to offer something in the marketplace then of course you will struggle initially and get some funny looks. But it is the weird "out there" ideas that set the trends for the future.

Then there is the wotif concept for therapists. So many therapists have downtime, particualry in the early days. Wotif have cornered the last minute accommodation market – how about someone setting up a system where you could place your treatments at a discounted price – at least get something for a spot where no one was going to be and at the same time probably attract a new client who could end up one of the faithful clients who come back many times over.

I have a hotel I stay at in Sydney that I found on Wotif and I wouldn’t have stayed there for full rate but now I always stay there because they treat me like a long lost friend.

There are many ways to get known out in the business world – what crazy places can you think of to start offering treatments at? Oh –the massage at the airport is already being done – but there are still a lot of untapped possibilities.

Ummm - please just pretend you don't know me if you see me doing free dance lessons at Paris Airport :-)

Using Experiential Testimonials to Sell Your Services for You

A new site was bought to my attention this morning and is a new twist on mobile treatments services.

Nothing new in the mobile treatment concept but I was interested to read how this site had used the expedia.com model of having past clients give feedback on their experiences.

Experiential testimonials are a very powerful tool.

Testimonials have long been a great way to let others tell your potential clients how much your service has helped them. Sadly humans will take notice of a third party far quicker than they will believe the person at source. So when a past client gets to have their say on the quality of the treatment, it becomes a very strong selling point. It is why trashy magazines can write so many untruths about celebrities and have people queuing to buy. We will believe the reporter who has probably never even met the celeb over the celeb telling us the truth.

The power of experiential testimonials is huge. When travelling I always read the comments of past guests in the accommodation I’m thinking about staying in because it can often highlight good points you hadn’t thought of plus it can give some honest feedback on some of the bad things you don’t want included in your stays such as noise or dodgy location.

As the health and wellbeing industry starts to introduce technology that will allow people to share their experiences, it makes it even more important to have strong personal posture, quality packages and services and strong customer focus.

You can read the article by clicking here