How Far Does Your Speech Reach?

To become the leader you need to become, you need a far reaching message. It will no longer do for you to talk to small groups anymore. You have to look for larger groups to speak in front of, and when you do, how far does your speech reach in that room? Are you reaching that person in the back of the room, or just the people in the front rows who can feel your energy. You need your speech to reach further–as far as it can go.

Here are 6 ways to reach further with your speech. It might not happen the first 10 times you speak, or the first 100 times, but if you practice these E⁶ Concepts you will reach more people each time you speak.

The E⁶ Concepts:

1. Emotion

As a speaker you have to get clear with not only your own message and mission, but how you feel about it emotionally. You need to get connected with your own emotion so you can share and spread that same emotion to others.

At the end of your speech, people may not remember what you talked about, but they will always remember how they felt during and after your speech. Their feelings go far beyond any knowledge they got. They only know that you made them feel good or maybe they even had a breakthrough. People have breakthroughs because of emotion, not because of words. The best way is through stories.

The other night I was reading one of my journals from a seminar. (I recommend that you get a hard-back journal to write in, because you are more apt to read it than a tablet full of notes.) Every time I go to a seminar, I always come up with great ideas, not only from the speakers but from the people around me. I draw a light bulb to remind me later of this “great idea.”

As I was reading, I came across a “big idea” to start a Mastermind Group, which I did in 2011; but I posted that entry in 2009! I totally forgot about it. I could have started my Mastermind Group two years ago. The people who are with me now could have been two years further along in their journey. So not only is the lesson here to get a journal and write down ideas, but read it!

With that story, I created an emotional response because many of you forget to read your notes and miss the “big ideas.” When you choose a story, pick an original story, one that’s not over-used. You don’t want to use the old Edison story, the one where he made a 1000 tries to create the light bulb. That’s over-used.

2. Enthusiasm

You, as a speaker, must have enthusiasm. We’ve all heard that enthusiasm is contagious. When you’re enthused about your topic, your business, your audience, and being there, people will catch on. You’re like a light; like a magnet. People are pulled toward you. They want what you have.

I was talking to a dear friend of mine who is a fellow speaker. He told me this story about how he lost his enthusiasm for his business. He woke up one day and was like, “oh no, I have a seminar this weekend” — he stopped himself in mid-sentence and asked, “what is this about?” He used to have such passion and enthusiasm he’d jump out of bed and couldn’t wait to do a seminar. He had lost his enthusiasm.

What did he do? He quickly changed his mindset, his way of thinking, his way of action. If you ever find that you’re not enthusiastic going on that stage, stop for a minute and change your state, change your mind and what you’re thinking, change your body language. It might be doing jumping jacks, or your own signature move, or it might be that you say to yourself, “I’m enthusiastic! I can’t wait to get on stage!”

Before I ever step on stage, I say to myself, “I’m the best!” It doesn’t come from conceit or ego, but from a mindset ready to deliver a message that will change the world. I have to be in that state of mind so that my message reaches further. Never think that you are being conceited or self-centered by saying you’re the best. In that moment you have to be your best. It’s game on!

3. Energy

As speakers we have to make sure that we have full-blown energy before we get on stage, no matter what stage that is, whether a large stage, a small stage or just a speaking area. Do whatever you need to do to pump yourself up, to play full-out. Don’t stay up to 3 a.m. working on your computer and then get up and give your speech in the morning. You’ve got to be full of energy. You’ve got to be ready for that game.

When I get out there, I psyche myself up with “you’re the best.” I’m ready to jump up there and speak. I can’t wait. It’s thrilling. From the moment I do my first attention grabber, I take that nervous energy or adrenaline and give it to my audience. And it comes back as energy. If you say, “Good morning everyone!” and they say, “good morning” back–boom–energy! You have to have energy to give energy. So go full out.

4. Excitement

You have to create excitement among your audience. Get them really excited about what it is you’re doing from the very beginning when you’re building rapport. Let them know that this presentation is going to be exciting. You want to pre-frame it. You’ve got to be excited about your topic as well. I’ve heard many speakers over time who are not excited about what they’re talking about, so it’s hard for me to get excited about it.

So get behind it. Be excited! Some of you might wonder what is the difference between excitement and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is what you exude to your audience. You can be enthusiastic, but it doesn’t mean you like it. It doesn’t mean you’re excited about it. Excitement means you can’t wait to share your message with the world. You’re doing the happy dance. You’re stoked. Loving every minute of it. Be excited!

5. Entertain

Audiences don’t want a lecture, they want to be entertained. They want to have fun. So whatever way you can create fun by using audience participation where you ask them to raise their hands, or ask questions, or do breakouts or exercises. You need to do as many things as you can to insure that your audience has fun.

Even if your topic isn’t that fun, there are ways you can lighten it up without hurting the message. It doesn’t have to be doom and gloom. There’s a lot of irony in sad subjects. Find the humor. Entertain using that humor. Entertain by exercises, audience participation and stories. Stories can be very entertaining.

6. Experience

We want an experience. Don’t you? Think about it. When you go to see speakers, are you bored? Maybe. You want an experience, to be a part of the presentation.

Recently, I was an emcee for a Women’s of Wisdom group with over 100 women. The guest speaker was Emmy award winner, Rhonda Britten, from the show “Starting Over.” She was a fantastic speaker. I was to introduce her and she was sitting across from me. Before her speech, the group’s sponsors talked about what they do, and Rhonda would yell, “Whoo-hoo!” I have to be honest, I was thinking to myself, who is this loudmouth speaker? Why is she doing this? When I’m a speaker, I’m very low-key. I network and all that, but I wait for my speech. Then there’s Rhonda going, “whoo-hoo!” every few minutes, getting into what people were saying. I admit, I was judging her.

She got up to speak and her presentation was all about being full out, being fully present. She said to the audience, “I see some of you, with your arms crossed, making faces.” She said, “you’re not involved. You aren’t even clapping. You’re not playing full out.” I had to look at myself and think about that. As a speaker, am I playing full out when I arrive, or just on the stage? Am I just kicking back and reserved for awhile until I get on stage and put it into full gear?

I learned an important lesson that day. As a speaker, you need to be playing full out even before you’re on stage. You need to show other speakers the same respect that you want to get. If that story resonates with you, fantastic. It’s me just sharing a little bit of me with you in hopes that you, too, can experience it for yourself.

Let your audience experience you. Let them have their own experience. And let them have a live experience; whether it’s you having people on stage and working with them, or turning to the person next to them and giving them a high-five; let them share in the experience.

I have one more story. When I was with my friend at lunch, he said he used to give a little gift to people in his workshop, but he quit doing this two years ago to cut expenses. But, what he did was eliminate the experience. He didn’t realize the impact right away, but people weren’t talking about the experience anymore. Remember I said earlier, that I start with emotion and end with experience. People need an experience. If you create an emotional experience, they will remember it forever.

My friend said that he implemented the idea of the “curious gift” again this year at his five-day workshop. The idea is to put a “gift” (in his case a rubrics cube) in a box, nicely wrapped with a bow on it, in front of each participant. He told them that they couldn’t open it until he gave the word. They could could rattle it, but not open it. This created curiosity. “What is it?” The buzz was already happening. Once he let them open it the real experience happened. Some got a round one. Some a square one. There was a lot of talking and sharing. Throughout the next three days, people were talking about this gift, experiencing it, and it added to the experience. If you use this idea, pick a gift that relates to your topic or subject.

So let me reiterate Speech Concepts-E⁶: Emotion, Enthusiasm, Energy, Excitement, Entertain, and Experience — and sandwiched between Emotion and Experience is everything else. Remember if you create an emotional experience, your audience will be talking about you and the experience to all their friends for the rest of their lives.

Now, you have just made an impact on your audience and your reach went further out — in other words, it went beyond that day, maybe for the rest of their life–that’s a far reach, and that’s what you want to reach for in your next speech.

Arvee Robinson is a Master speaker trainer, international speaker, and author. She teaches business owners, service professionals, and entrepreneurs how to use public speaking as a marketing strategy so they can attract more clients, generate unlimited leads and grow their businesses, effortlessly. She teaches a proven speaker system for delivering persuasive presentations, and easy formulas for creating killer elevator speeches and magnetic self-introductions. Arvee has helped hundreds of individuals to win clients and close more sales every time they speak. As a high-energy motivational speaker, Arvee has shared the stage with speaking giants such as Mark Victor Hansen, Joel Bauer, Loral Langemeier, Chris Howard, Dave Lakhani, and many more. Arvee offers private coaching, workshops, home study courses and weekly tele-classes. Her persuasive speaker training programs transform ordinary business owners into superstars in their industry.

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