This was my second time on tbs eFM’s 1013 Main Street Leadership Lab and I continued the topic from the previous week, which was about presentations and public speaking. In this one, I talk about using different types of stories and then give some tips on how to overcome the fear of public speaking.
If you like, you can read a summary of what I said below… And if you’re really keen on getting the biggest bang for your buck, then scroll down to the bottom of the page and check out the special offer I have for new clients.

Listen here:

Carl Kwan talks about overcoming fear in presentations

Here’s what I covered:

6 Types of Stories:

  1. Stranger in a strange land – Like when you or your business goes into a new business area
  2. Revenge – Rallying the troops to get them fired up about beating the competition
  3. Love – Good for talking about establishing new relationships, like in an M&A, or starting something new and exciting, like a product launch
  4. Rags to riches – Good storytelling style for entrepreneurs to talk about how they got started and their path to success
  5. Quest – Perfect for talking about making a new discovery, like a breakthrough invention or new drug or something else exciting that you discovered
  6. Hero’s journey – The classic! The one you use when you want to talk about doing something you didn’t intend, but then realized it was what you were meant to do. You can use this one for how you started your business or career and not knowing where it would take you or what would happen.

The main thing about storytelling is to tell of the struggles and the triumphs over those struggles.

People love a good story. And when it’s your own and you have a passion for your story, you will be able to tell it without feeling all nervous.

But before I got to the overcoming-the-fear-of-public-speaking-part of the show, I talked about quickly engaging your audience by not using an agenda slide or self-introduction.

Instead, use a factoid or rhetorical question and then get right to your story. The important thing to remember is to make it about the audience. Always remember to answer this question in their head:

“Why should I care?”

You can do this by pointing out a problem that’s bothering them and that only you can solve. You want to spend as much time describing the problem as fixing it because this will help you to engage their emotions and intellect.

Then I talked about how you should outline the solution to their problem. You want to explain in a simple way how you can help them. Don’t make it hard for them to understand or vague. Be really specific.

Finally, give them an action step, make them do something NOW, in the room while you have their attention and you’ve gotten them interested in your solution.

And that was basically it for that part. Next I talked about…

How to overcome the fear of speaking publicly

Like most fears, the fear of public speaking comes from habit, past experience, or no experience. So I outlined a solution that I cleverly called…

The 4 Vs to Overcoming Fear of Public Speaking:

  1. Visualization & affirmation: Getting a mental movie of yourself giving your speech or presentation perfectly and using affirmations to help your subconscious prepare you for the task.
  2. Verbalization: Don’t just practice silently to yourself; instead, practice like you’re doing it for real, out loud.
  3. Videoization: The only way to see how you’re doing and improve is to actually see yourself. This is especially important for checking your body language because of how much non-verbal communication goes on between us mammals. So, pull out the iPhone or other camcorder and shoot a video of yourself giving your speech. It would help to have a friend or consultant (like me!), giving you feedback because you might think you look perfectly fine. This actually happened with a client until I pointed out several bad mannerisms and how quietly he spoke.
  4. Varyization: Get lots of real practice giving speeches and presentations and talking about various topics… hence, “varyization” 🙂

So if you or your business is struggling with coming up with ways to tell your story, try out what I said here.

But for real help, get in touch with me and I’ll be able to really nail down what story you should be telling and how to grab people by the seat of their pants and get them to listen…

And then get them to take action, like buying your stuff or paying you mega-millions (hopefully) for your services. 

We can help you do that in presentations, videos, sales letters and other cool stuff… So you can sell more of your stuff… Faster. If this sounds good, then let’s talk.

If you’re a first-time client, we’ve got a special offer for you…

A 30 second video about your business for only $500… A total bargain considering a lot of places charge $3000 per minute! We’ll write the script, do an awesome voiceover (my voice!), and put together a killer video that you can also use as a PowerPoint presentation… minus the awesome voiceover, unless you want to pay me to do the presentation for you 🙂

Call me… My number is +82-10-9087-2086 internationally or 010-9087-2086 here in Seoul. Or you can email us by clicking here: Let’s talk