Posts Tagged ‘Writing & Speaking’

How to Deliver an Effective Speech Introduction

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
by James Malinchak

As a public speaker, you know how vital it is to get your audience interested from the get go. You have to speak in such a way that it forces the audience to look at you, especially in the very beginning. Public speaking is not something that just anyone can do. It takes skills such as a positive attitude, perseverance, patience, and the ability to motivate a crowd.

If you want to be a great public speaker, from the very beginning you have to impress your audience. This means you need to produce a great speech introduction. To be able to do that, you have to know your material extremely well, and then be able to deliver it in a way that does not bore you audience. A great way to start off your speech is to grab your audience right in the introduction There are a number of ways this can be achieved. You could maybe look at your audience as you are heading up to the front and yell some kind of message or instruction requiring a response. Or as you made your way from the back of the room you could walk across a chair or two, or maybe even a desk. That would surely grab your audience’s attention.

Another way to start out a speech introduction could be having the audience take out a piece of paper and write down a list of the most important topics you give in the speech. The expectation of knowing something valuable is going to be told to them will raise their anticipation level. You could also start off your speech with the telling of a spellbinding story that would captivate your audience, and hold their attention. If you are an enthusiastic speaker this is especially true.

If you are new to public speaking, you can learn how to start a speech, by listening to those who are experts at it. By paying attention to those who have done it for years, you’ll be able to pick up a trick or two, and improve your delivery.

The key to presenting your speech is by having a great speech introduction, and then go forward with your audience in mind and give them a reason to react to you and listen to what you have to say. If you do this, you will find your ability at public speaking will increase and you’ll gain more speaking opportunities.

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Delivering a Powerful Speech Introduction in 4 Steps

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
by James Malinchak

It’s natural when involved in public speaking for you to be nervous when you’re first giving that introduction speech. When you can overcome that initial nervousness, and produce a speech that your audience will remember for a lifetime - that is the mark of a trained public speaker.

Your goal as a public speaker is to provide a great speech introduction. Without one, you are lost before you even begin. As such, there are 4 steps or examples of speech introduction that may just help you get over the hump, produce the kind of speech your audience will learn from, and be glad they came.

Acting like a coach is your first step. You won’t present your material like normal speakers do if you present yourself as a coach to your audience. By acting like a coach, you present yourself as a person with something vital to say that will benefit your audience. You need to gear your introduction so you present your material in this way.

The second step is to state that you have something important to say that you will need your audience to take home. Provide samples of your work so your audience can pick up one or more when you leave the room. A great introduction into your speech could be making a point about something you’ve written or done and emphasizing that if your audience does it they can be successful like you too.

Just remembering people are decisive by nature is the third step. They will decide quickly, whether it be buying something or listening to something. It is your choice whether or not what you deliver in your speech is what they came to hear. It is vitally important that your audience understand that nothing else matters but what you have to say.

If you wonder how to start a speech, talk to experts in the field. Many successful speakers use a signature opening to help them overcome nervousness, and get the audience involved immediately. As a speaker in training, you need to develop a signature opening. This will help make your speech introduction powerful and on target every time you give it.

Public speaking is a skill that takes time to develop. You can’t become a successful professional speaker overnight, but you can develop the ability. You have to learn the trade and practice your delivery often. The experts practiced, and by following in their footsteps you can become successful like them as well. Before you know it you’ll become an expert professional speaker too.

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Four Keys to Building Audience Rapport While Public Speaking

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
by James Malinchak

Public speaking is not one of the skills you are born with, it takes time to develop the skills. There have been many people who had fears of public speaking, but were able to learn the art and science of how to do it and were able to become effective professional speakers.

If the idea of speaking in public excites you, you need to learn the proper method of delivery, and all it requires. You can start by studying from the best speakers in the world. By doing so you should be able to pick up some public speaking tips. But it’s going to take more that to become a great public speaker, you need commitment, determination, and a personality.

You shouldn’t just get public speaking tips, you should also obtain public speaking training. The more training you get the better speaker you will become. By training to be better at public speaking you can learn what works and what doesn’t work for you. The more you know the better you will be so you must take time to invest in yourself and your future.

The following tips on public speaking are the four key areas of building up a rapport with your audience so you don’t lose them:

The first key area you must be aware of is having total control over your audience - you are the speaker. Just by watching the audience and their reactions you can see whether or not they are bored. A telltale sign of bored could be either yawning or restlessness. You just need to either adjust your tone, or your style of delivery.

The second key to building a rapport with your audience is your tone. You can do this just by simply raising your voice or getting more excited. Hearing more excitement from you will cause the audience to look up and see what all the excitement is about, they can’t help it.

The third key is to try and engage your audience - have them perform an exercise or some other type of routine. Asking questions, allowing the audience to relate their own stories, sharing comments, and allowing for other forms of interaction are some other ideas. Your main goal is to not let your speech become monotonous or boring. Should you see your audience becoming bored or restless you need to make adjustments quickly.

Relating a bad situation you had in your life and how you turned it around is the fourth key to building rapport. You show how you overcame your obstacles to become successful. Your audience will love it because it gives them an opportunity to ask you questions.

You can become very successful in public speaking as long as you get the proper training, learn from the experts, and develop proper delivery.

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How to Write a Book

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
by Gary Pearson

Many people have the dream of becoming a published author. While some people specialize in a certain type of writing, many dream of what they consider the ultimate prize, the time to write a book. Many, many people you know may have started to write a book, but the unfinished story is sitting in a desk drawer, forgotten. This is a shame, but it is a common story. It takes a lot of dedication to write a book, and some people simply don’t find the time to fit it into their life.

When our masterpiece is completed, we dutifully read through it time and time again to make sure it is perfect. This is mind-numbing, tedious work that seems to take forever. Rewriting the book to get rid of errors is not as fun as writing the book itself. It would sure be nice to have and editor to do this for us, but alas we are still an undiscovered talent.

If you think you want to write a book, take a good look at your motivation. If you have never enjoyed writing, but think you want to do this, ask yourself why. Even those who have loved writing their whole lives cannot muster what it takes to write a book and finish it. If your heart isn’t in it, it’s never going to get done.

After the best book you ever wrote is completed and edited, you still have to get it published. This task in itself can take many years. Basically you need to print a thousand copies of your book and mail it to every publisher you have ever heard of. They will send you back a lot of rejection slips, but on occasion one intelligent publisher may agree to print it.

In the event that there are no intelligent publishers out there to print your book, you can consider self-publishing. This involves taking care of, and paying for printing, marketing and distributing the book. Again this is going to take more work on your part as well as a lot of your money. The bonus is that no one else gets a cut when your book starts flying off the shelves.

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Powerful Article Marketing Tips

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
by Bob Hamilton

Are you looking for more traffic from your article marketing efforts? By far, the more effective way to achieve that goal is by increasing the number of article you write and submit every day. That’s right, it is that simple. You can magnify the results of your article marketing by magnifying the number of articles you produce, which will increase the number of inbound links..

A higher number of articles written and submitted daily will mean more inbound links. A higher number of articles written and submitted daily will mean more opportunities for readers to see that you are an expert in your chosen market niche. The following tips provide a powerful way to help you grow your article marketing efforts.

Creating 10 articles or more per day can be tiring, grueling and draining if you do it all yourself. Often other important tasks will sit untouched because of the time requirements. Consider hiring a ghostwriter to offload your article writing duties.

That’s where a ghostwriter comes in. A highly qualified ghostwriter can provide relief while still meeting your article writing standards of excellence. Invest the time to thoroughly investigate the qualifications of every professional you consider. Examine their experience, their expertise in your niche, and their credentials. Provide expectations regarding article length, delivery deadlines, and other special requirements. Make sure your ghostwriter will make you proud of the articles that are created in your behalf.

Make use of an experienced article poster. Manually submitting articles to hundreds of article directories and article submission sites takes many hours. You could be spending those hours performing other critical tasks for your article marketing business. That’s where a qualified article poster with the right credentials comes into play. As with your ghostwriter be sure you thoroughly investigate their credentials and examine their references before making a final decision.

Create all the needed information for article submission as well. This includes all of the keywords for the article, an article summary, a completed resource box, and all of the categories appropriate for submissions of that article. You’ll find the pricing varies for a qualified article poster.

Do you want to maximize the impact of your article writing? Then make it your practice to complete daily writing and submission of articles without exception. The rewards for holding yourself to this criteria start with the strengthening of your position as a skilled authority on your chosen topics in your niche. The number of inbound links to your website also builds with the consistent creation and submission of high-quality articles. More website visitors and more inbound links result in ever higher ranking by the search engines.

Don?t fail to overlook the value of your resource box. A powerful resource box will serve you by persuading online readers to visit your website. Visitations will grow if you decide to provide valuable gift or list the benefits they will receive from making that visit. The result will be more page visits, more opt-in subscribers, and more sales from your article marketing efforts.

To your article marketing success!

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Developing Skilled Work Thanks To Knowing How To Write

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
by Hugh Roberts

Writing is a occupation where the goal is to produce a bespoke item that promotes a particular idea, point of view or operation. Brilliant business writing will aim to show the audience the quality of the merchandise or idea and why it is perfect for them. Examples of where business writing is used are for radio advertisements, newsletters, net blogs, billboards and any written material used in promotional media.

A business writer works in conjunction with an visual team to create a multimedia work that uses words, colours and visuals to enhance the merchandise and appeal to the readers. The writer has the responsibility for the written content of the product and the visual director has the responsibility for the art content of the piece, as well as guiding the complete job itself. The most impressive material is produced when the business writing and visual parties work together and collaborate in accord.

Writing is an integral component of the promotional business as it is responsible for the sayings that stay with us, showing us why an thought is vital to listen to, why a piece of merchandise would be important to us. Copywriting is accountable for the content and, in this regard, is close to a technical writer although a copywriter works to promote goods or opinions and not simply to educate the readers of it.

With the coming of the net, new chances have happened for people who know how to write as they work to endorse websites, new goods, new services and new opinions through the net. The net has also made it easier for writers to find and get in contact with companies that want their skills and to earn a wage from freelance business writing. There are many pages that are now concerned with keeping in touch copywriters with potential employers.

The net has also meant that business writers have needed to learn new know-how, such as search engine optimization. Search engine optimization allows for a business writer to know that their work can be publicized effectively through the net. Using strategies such as strategic word placement and the repetition of certain keywords helps the work to be ranked highly by a search engine, an necessary business writing know-how in today’s web-savvy world.

To be a superb copywriter, it is important to have superb communication skills. All copywriters should have a have a varied vocabulary and superb word, spelling and grammar skills. It is also important to have some formal qualifications in business writing and there are many academies and companies that specialize in training you to be a business writing professional. Many of these academies and companies offer online courses and there are many written materials that also offer help.

As a copywriter, you will find your work in demand across the world and across thousands of industries. Not only with publicizing agencies, copywriters are in demand for all businesses that have a product, service or idea to advertise. Television networks, radio shows, start-up businesses, e-companies, small businesses, multinational corporations and everything in between have a desire for the promotion of their business and their work. Many in the business writing business now work freelance for themselves and are employed on a contractual basis, allowing them to choose the projects they work on and the businesses they work for, all at hours suitable to them.

Copywriters are behind some of the most famous promotional campaigns in the world. It was famous business writer David Ogilvy that created the famous Dove soap slogan “only Dove is one-quarter moisturizing cream” and William Bernbach was a business writer who came up with the “think small” ad campaign for Volkswagen Beetle, a campaign known as one of the top publicity campaigns of the 20th century. Therefore business writing has the power to not only touch the reader but to create a lasting impression on the world through the import of their abilities.

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You Can Use Mail to Sell a Book

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
by Susan Atkinson

Now that you have written that interesting report, how are you going to sell it? Perhaps you have already tried by placing a carefully written classified or maybe a large display ad, then waited for the postman to pile the flood of orders in your mailbox.

What happened? The odds are 100 to 1 that you came up with a couple of sales for all the time and effort. Why? You see continuous ads, small ones and full page $4,000 advertisments in newspapers and magazines offering books and information. Many of them are repeated over and over again by the same advertiser. You know that they are successful or they could not continue to promote month after month. How are they making it when you don’t seem to have any luck?

By examining the methods of these successful people we find that they use several simple and easy techniques to produce excessive profits in the Mail Order Book Selling Business. When you know these methods and put them to work for yourself you will find that you too have the opportunity to make big money in this business.

To start yourself on the road to success in writing your own books and reports then selling them…Anytime and every time you think of an suggestion or book title, write it down immediately.

Regardless of how silly it may appear to you at first, it could be the ingredient you need to start you on the way to a fortune. File your notes and look them over from time to time. You put yourself in a position whereby you have a good chance to come up with an suggestion or a title that will be a real money-making Blockbuster.

If you are writings are about your own experiences on an inspirational or how-to subject, consider writing the book as well as the ads that sell it, in the first person. This gives the reader the feeling he is getting personal communication and is not just a number in a computer.

Many in Mail Order business, including ourselves, have indicated that it is not a good policy and often a waste of time and money to advertise in a general daily or weekly newspaper. This is true under ordinary circumstances, but we find that when you have a real strong title it pays to place conservative test advertisments in the paper in order to learn the results quickly. However one must keep extensive records in order to compare results and determine if they may have a winner.

When tests indicate you have a winner, all that is left too do is expand the advertising in the proper media and fill sales. It is advisable to structure the price of your book so an offer will stand an advertising expense of at least one-half of the selling price. You need to spend this much for advertising in order to be successful.

A 100% guarantee is a must in the book selling business. Not everyone who purchases your book, regardless oh how great it is, is going to benefit from it. There are always a few who will want their money back. You must have a unique guarantee which reassures them they have not spent their money until they are satisfied. This can be done in many different ways, such as holding their checks for 30 days or longer before depositing them.

For the author/self-publisher, selling by mail is really the only way to go. The production costs are low because the value is in the information, not necessary in the number of pages written.

Mail Order is one of the finest businesses ever for the little guy who wants the opportunity to try for the big bucks! All you have to do is test with just small expenditure, correct your mistakes and let the business expand itself!

Action pictures used in your ads get fabulous results if handled right. Especially productive are ideas showing your product in action. Search out the drawings and pictures used in better advertisments that run month after month to learn what effective copywriting is all about, then use the same ideas for your comparative publication.

If you are able to write a self improvement book or handbook with very valuable information and at the same time make it lively, witty and interesting, you could have the makings of a million dollar winner. After your first tests prove reasonable, determine if a more reasonable price structure will produce better net profit through appealing to a large audience. When you find it hitting real good, push it in every way possible.

Send out several hundred copies to book reviewers to get write-ups in as many magazines as possible. Learn to deal with the many small booksellers and bookstores, or cooperate with some large distributors to get the books out through their normal channels.

As you grow and progress, build up and maintain your name lists.

Make them available to other firms who wish to make offers to proven buyers.

When you find the right combination (title, body and ad), a lot of money can be made in a short time and it is a great thrill to write and ad, test it, and see the money pouring in from your own creative ability.

The large publishers use a shotgun approach, publishing many titles when profiting from the few successful ones. They cannot begin to market effectively all the many books on their list and try to sell your book through them is generally futile.

Do it yourself and control the entire operation. If it does not go you can cut if off before heavy promotional expenditures bury you. You remain flexible and diversified when you are your own publisher.

Run some small classified advertisements in the Wall Street Journal and other good publications, to get inquires. When enough books are sold to more than cover the cost of the advertisments and mailings, slowly, as the income build up, run more and larger ad. As sells prove your publications to be winners, you can run full pages ads in national magazines, inviting direct orders with a coupon included in the advertisments.

Remember, when you are ready to write, the information should be about something in which you are knowledgeable and interested, or something you have throughly reasearched. It must have some value for the readers and they should benefit by having read it. If it is not helpful to the reader and the benefits are not there, sells cannot be sustained.

In summary, your book must fill a genuine need; the price formula must be correct, there has to be a large or mass market for the information in your book, your advertising must be believeable, you must offer a strong guarantee, you must test throughly before investing substantial amounts to promote and sell the book.

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How to Save Money With Your Paper Stock

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
by Joshua Prizer

Which paper stock you choose when printing your book can have a huge impact on your print pricing. Coated or uncoated? Glossy finish, matte finish, or standard offset? What’s the opacity? What’s the weight? The answer to these questions will determine your paper pricing.

First-time publishers need to understand the difference between the paper they purchase at an office supply store versus what is used by a professional printing plant. While paper weights at an office supply store are measured as “bond,” printing plants use a different measurement called “offset.” I won’t get into the details of why bond and offset weights are different for the same type of paper, but just know that if you multiply a bond weight by 2.5, you get the offset weight. For example, the 24# bond paper you purchase at Office Max is the same thickness as a 60# offset sheet used by your printer.

That 50# offset paper proves to be fine for many books. If your book has no or few images and no color inside, there is little reason to print on a much thicker paper. Save your money. You may want to check the pricing for 60# offset, but I usually don’t recommend printing on paper much thicker than that for most novels, etc.

No matter what, be sure to ask your printer to send you paper samples. There is no substitute for feeling the paper in your hand to make sure your book has the feel you want it to have.

Children’s books or coffee table books that are printed in full color need a different paper stock than black & white books. You’ll want to think about whether to bump up to a glossy stock to make your pictures really shine on the paper. If you don’t like the glare of a glossy sheet, ask your printer if they have any matte coated stocks that would bring out the color of your images without the extra sheen.

Also, if your book is full color, a thicker paper may be necessary to make your book have a nicer feel to it and justify your sale price. If printing in the U.S., I usually recommend no lighter than a 70# or 80# gloss. If printing overseas, don’t go lighter than 120 gsm.

Again — always get samples before making your decision!

Always ask for your book covers to include gloss lamination. Standard paperback cover stock is 10 pt. C1S. A C1S cover means that it is coated on one side for durability and to help the colors “pop” a little more. If your book is on the large side, consider bumping up to a 12 pt. cover for extra durability.

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Want to Increase Your Subscribers, You Should Try Building a List

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
by Markku Saastamoinen

Unless you provide a good reason for them to do so, a person will likely not come back to your website after visiting it. When visiting ten pages or more a day, it is not hard to forget the names or addresses of one specific site that we might have visited.

For example, if you have 1,000 visitors visit your website in a day, you will likely never see them - or their potential spending money - again. A good website owner would be able to make some of those visitors into customers. Still, if you want your customer to comeback, you need to convince them to join your mailing list!

No matter how unique the content of your website might be, it will not be enough to get people to return to your website by itself. A mailing list is the only true way to entice otherwise one-time visitors into becoming repeat visitors.

A mailing list is great because it allows you to communicate with a visitor to your site through email without spamming them. Whether a new offer or the same product, you can reach potential customers this way. As with any website owner, you’ll want to maximize the potential income you could earn, and you could do this by increasing the number of visitors who become subscribers.

There is no better way to follow through with a potential customer than through the email provided by your mailing list. You want to try to sell your product through these subscriptions. Of course, the goal is to get the subscribers to become repeat visitors, or customers, and thereby earn you revenue.

Many enjoy the fruits of this viral marketing through article writing. Your worth and knowledge about the field you are in can be dazzlingly apparent in the articles.

You’ll build your mailing list through the resource box you attack to the articles. Also called a bio box, this tool lets you include brief details about you and your website, along with your site’s URL. As the point of the article was to get more subscribers to your mailing list, your URL should point to the landing page where new visitors can subscribe to the mailing list.

If well written, the publishers of the eZine directors will share the articles, and their resource boxes. As a result, you have a successful viral marketing without much effort on your part. The simplicity of including your details with every article you write is also a very effective one.

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Reducing Refunds on Information Products (Ebooks Part II)

Saturday, July 19th, 2008
by Stephen Beck

In my last article, I gave you some easy ideas to beef up your PDF ebook. Have you added a Table of Contents and a Resource Guide to your PDF e-books? If so, you are ready to finish adding bulk to your ebook which will increase your customer satisfaction and reduce refunds.

Use 12pt font and double space the content. And add large pictures and graphics. Not only will this bulk up your ebook, it will make it much easier to read and provide a valuable service to your customers. Look. We want to be entertained as much as we want to learn. So make your information entertaining by including pictures and even funny comics if you can. You need to consider this in the design and development of information products.

Include “Johnson boxes” to enclose important points in boxes that are separate from the rest of the text. By including one every two or three pages, you help your customers understand which information is most important - that adds weight to your document.

Use your e-book to tell the readers about other products you offer. One of the biggest reasons to publish an ebook is to inform your audience about what you have to offer. Add a list of products, complete with clickable links, so your readers can find those products. Three-dimensional cover shots will add visual interest, bulk up your content, and increase sales. It’s easy to do - if you can’t do it, find someone who can.

Finally, provide checklists and cheat sheets for your customers. People eat this stuff up! Any topic that has more than a few steps is better understood with a checklist. Tell your readers what to do and in what order to do them. Cheat sheets are great for technical things. Settings for a software. Settings for a camera. Tips for interviewing someone. Things not to miss when buying a new home. How to convert publisher files to a PDF ebooks. All of these work well with cheat sheets. And your customers will love them!

Are there other tools that could help your readers? Some things to consider include sample forms, spread sheets, contracts, and more. Your customer simply fills in the blanks. These can be important additions when you are writing an ebook.

So these are just a few ways you can provide outstanding value while beefing up your ebook. You will have fewer refunds because of satisfied customers and you can even charge more for your ebook. It’s all about value!

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