192: Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Speaker?
“Am I ready? Am I good enough? Can I really be a speaker?” Do these questions sound familiar to you?
Maybe you’ve been waiting to become a speaker until you reach a certain level of success or hit a milestone in your business. But you know what? You already have what you need to become a successful speaker.
All you have to do is tap into your skills that’ll take you to the next level. In this episode, I talk about what those skills are and what it takes to become an amazing speaker.
If you loved this episode and it motivated you to work on more polished presentations, I’d love for you to leave a review on iTunes and tell me about your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, post it to your Instagram Stories, and tag me @jessicarasdall.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
WHAT A SUCCESSFUL SPEAKER LOOK LIKE
What does a successful speaker look like in your mind? What qualities do they have?
That’s kind of a trick question because there isn’t one archetype or mold of a successful speaker! In my opinion, a successful speaker is someone who is true to themselves above all.
Instead of trying to copy another person’s speaking style, career path, or onstage persona, I encourage you to offer a branded experience that is true to yourself. Duplicate someone else’s voice or sense of humor, and you’ll just…sound like that speaker rather than yourself.
Being yourself on stage consistently builds trust with your audience. They’ll know what to expect every time they interact with you, whether it’s the first time you’re on stage, the second time they read your email newsletter, or the fifth time they buy one of your offers. They’ll recognize you — and like you — for being you.
WHAT YOU DON’T NEED TO BE A SPEAKER
Now that we’ve covered what type of experience you want to provide your audience, you might be wondering if your experience is “good enough.”
Let’s take a backward approach here and list out some qualities that you DON’T need to become a successful or impactful public speaker. (And then we can talk about what’s good to have.)
You don’t need:
A large following. Not a social media influencer? Don’t love Instagram? Don’t have a ton of email subscribers? No problem.
A high-energy, big personality. As a soft-spoken introvert, that is not me at all. And that’s okay! If it is you, that’s okay too! Just be yourself.
A specific type of story. This gets a little tricky, so let me explain. You have a story to tell (whether you think you do or not), but it may not be a huge emotional story or a rags-to-riches story that would make a good movie. It’s okay because your audience cares more about your desire to help them, not your past.
A specific type of look. You don’t need to have the perfect outfit or body type to start showing up on the stage. You are perfect the way you are. You’re ready now.
Feel better knowing that you don’t need any of that stuff? Let’s move on to what you do need.
WHAT YOU DO NEED TO BE A SPEAKER
You may not need a specific personality or a stereotypical story, but there are some traits that will help you find success as a speaker.
You need:
A desire to serve your audience in a bigger way. This isn’t to say that you can’t seek success for yourself, but you need to care about the people you speak to! If you don’t, your talk won’t feel genuine…because it isn’t.
A desire to understand and serve your audience. What do they need or what do they want to achieve? When you really get your audience, you can better understand how to serve them through your presentations.
A message that matters to you. If you’re not talking about one of your passions, why should someone invest their money to have you speak at an event? You have to care about your topics first!
A willingness to lead. Show your audience the way to get that transformation or results they desire; don’t bark orders at them. You can do this by sharing experiences, case studies, and stories.
A commitment to improve along the way. Public speaking isn’t a goal to achieve. It’s not a one-and-done task. It’s a skill set you want to strengthen as you go along. The content of your talk, the way you deliver it, how you connect to your audience — these skills get better with every speaking opportunity you book.
All of these qualities go hand-in-hand with practice. You have to be willing to practice your talks and learn from your mistakes. And yes, that means watching recordings of your presentations and figuring out how to improve!
It’s uncomfortable at first, but I promise it gets better. Practicing and learning from your past experiences will help you build confidence and nail your talk now, before you deliver it to thousands of people on stage.
YOU’RE READY TO BE A SPEAKER
I hope this episode today helped you realize that you already have the tools you need to become a great speaker. Forget the big following or the big and loud onstage persona. All you need is a desire to show up, to serve, and to learn and grow along the way.
If that sounds like you, I’d love for you to check out my other video, How to Scale Your Business with Speaking, where I talk about how you can use speaking to scale and move forward with your business.
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Transcript for Episode 192:
You, my friend are already qualified to be a speaker Did that surprise, maybe it did, I have a feeling that you've been thinking about showing up and speaking as the face of your company. But you're waiting until you get to a certain level of success, you develop some sort of secret sauce. Today, I'm going to show you that you have everything you need to be a successful speaker and how to tap into those skills that are going to take you to the next level. Hi, I'm Jessica and I help small business owners and CEO leaders use speaking to make a difference in the world and grow the companies that they have worked so hard to build. And I know that so often when we are starting to show up and be the face of our company, there's a lot of feelings that come with us and more importantly, a lot of comparison and wondering, Am I ready? Am I good enough? Do I have what it takes to be a speaker so today, we're going to break down what actually makes a great speaker and help you see that you have everything that you already need. So what does a successful speaker look like? Do you know those traits? Let me know in the comments if you do well, that's a trick question. Because there are not any specific traits that make up a successful speaker. In fact, a successful speaker and impactful speaker is one who is true to themselves. That's the biggest difference instead of trying to duplicate someone else's success, someone else's speaking style, someone else's appearance or onstage persona, what I want you to focus on is creating a branded experience that is true to you. That's the key expecially. As a business owner, what you need is to create an experience that builds trust with your audience. And that's consistency. Every time your audience interacts with you. You want it to feel the same. And here's what I need to let you in on a little secret when you show up and speak whether it's a stage in front of 1000s of people. It's a live stream, a collaboration, a podcast, interview, anything you name it, most of the audience is meeting you for the very first time, right you're making that first impression and I know you want to make it count. But making a count means making it consistent, not making it standout or making it look like someone else. See what we want to happen is we want to think through the entire client journey from that first impression to lifetime client is it all going to feel the same, it's going to feel like you in genuine so when they hear you on the stage, when they talk to you in the hallway, when they follow you on social media, join your email list. We want that experience to feel consistent because that builds trust. So if you're asking, but just do I have what it takes? What is my experience good enough? Do I have what it takes to be a great speaker? Let's find out I've got a little checklist for you. This should help first instead of saying what we need, let's talk about what we don't need. Because I like this list a little bit better, I think it might make what we need a little easier to receive. So here's all the things you do not need. In order to be a successful or impactful public speaker. You do not need to be some giant social media influencer and have a giant email is You also don't need a giant high energy personality. That is not my style. I am an introvert and I'm not the big Tony Robbins beating on my chest singing type of person, like you're never going to catch me doing that on stage. And that's okay. If that's you stick to it. If it's not, don't try it. We want to create an experience that is true to see you want to think about after your presentation like hanging out with your audience in the lobby that vibe that energy, how can we create that on the stage. So you don't need a big list. You don't need a following you don't need some giant what you think is a magnetic personality. You don't need to have a big story. And I'm gonna say that cautiously because you have a story that so often we can compare our stories to others and say, Well, I don't have a big rags to riches story. I don't have a big emotional story and your audience does not care. That's not why they trust you and want to learn from you. They care about your desire to help them more than they care about your past. So you don't need some big story to be a successful speaker. And you don't need a specific appearance or body type to be a speaker. So often we can see things like will all start showing up more when I lose 10 pounds or all start showing up more when I have that perfect outfit that I want to where all start showing up more when I have time to start taking care of myself and you are perfect just the way you are and your audience is focused on the difference you're making for them, not the little things that you are seeing and standing out to you in the mirror. You're ready you have what you need. So if we don't need a large following is a big list a big personality to be the perfect size that we think or have a story that's going to make everyone cry, what do we need to be a great speaker? Well, these are my non negotiables you do need a desire to serve your audience in a bigger way. If you are getting into speaking for solely self serving purposes and to bask in the spotlight, it's going to fall flat kind of going hand in hand with that you also need a deep understanding or your desire to develop a deep understanding of who your audience is what they need from you what they want to achieve because if we have the desire to help
For them, we need to understand how to help them. And those two things together are going to make you completely magnetic to your ideal audience. So those two points really focus on our audience and wanting to show up and serve them. But there's another part of this list that kind of impacts ourselves more, you need a message that matters to you, if you are getting up on stage, and you're talking about something that is that you're not passionate about, that you wouldn't talk about for free. And there's no way somebody's going to invest hundreds or 1000s, or 10s, of 1000s of dollars to bring you in to talk about a topic that you're not passionate about. So you need to actually care about this topic you're speaking on? Well, your audience and what organizers don't want is for you to get up on stage and bark orders at your audience and say, here's what you should do, you're not actually doing those things behind the scenes, they want to see you leading from the front showing the way and that not only is going to make you just a better leader, but it's going to give you great material for your presentations, case studies and experiences and stories to share. We want to see you walking the walk, not just talking the talk. The final thing that I think is non negotiable for a successful speaker is a commitment to improve along the way. So often I talk about public speaking as not a goal to achieve but a skill set we should all be working to strengthen. And that's because it is an evolution, it's not a destination. As we speak, every speaking opportunity that we do is more experience and more skills. And we work to develop and strengthen our skills as a speaker, whether that's the actual content in our talk, the way we connect with the audience, how we navigate the event, behind the scenes in our business, or our onstage delivery, we get better every single time we show up and do that work. So if you want to be a great speaker, you need to be committed to growing and evolving along the way and not just having it perfect the first time you do it because spoiler your first presentation is most likely not going to be your best presentation. If you were at my first presentation I ever delivered back in 2006. I apologize since that was not my best one. But I've come a long way and a commitment to working on your craft refining your message perfecting your delivery from the stage. That's what makes you a great speaker. Because Say it with me practice makes not perfect practice makes confident and the more you practice, the more confident you're going to get on stage. And when you are competent and delivering your message your audience is going to be more receptive to risk to watch video footage of them speaking and say, What did I do wrong? What could I have done better, like it's not fun, but that behind the scenes work that practice that dress rehearsal. That's what makes you a great speaker. That's what keeps you on that journey to constantly improving. In fact, inside of our coaching program, the speaking strategy Academy, we hold space for our students to deliver their presentations. So they can have that dress rehearsal, and they can practice their talk not only in front of me, their speaking coach, but our entire community of people who are on a similar journey, who can say this is what you did really well. But I would have also loved to see you do this. It gives you that space to practice and rehearse and improve before you get on the stage. So hopefully this conversation today helped you see that you do have everything you need to be a great speaker. You don't need the big list or the existing following need a desire to show up and serve your audience and leave them better than you found them and be committed to learning and growing along the way.
Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of The speak to scale podcast. It means the world to me that you keep showing up here every week. And I'm going to keep doing the same. But if you liked today's episode and you want to continue the conversation, I want to personally invite you to join us inside of our free, private community to speak to scale community. We can continue this conversation chat all things business and speaking and you can meet and link arms with other business owners that are working to scale their impact and income from this stage. So if you're ready to come hang out and dive deeper into speaking, just head on over to our show notes and click the link to get direct access to our community or go straight to speak to scale group.com I'll see you inside
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