One of the questions that’s been coming up for the last 61 years of the Bill Gove Speech Workshop is; Does this speaker look Presidential? In other words, does this speaker look and sound like a speaker a Fortune 500 company would pay $10,000 for a speech? Is someone who carries him or herself like a presidential candidate? This is a broad question that covers everything including dress, makeup, hair, gestures, movement on stage, etc. Sometimes people get upset about this during the workshop because they don’t want to change, and we always tell them the same thing: If all you want to do is speak in the public market, you might be ok. BUT…if you want to speak in the big leagues (Fortune 500) they expect the best. Wearing Hawaiian shirts and tennis shoes might work when you’re speaking at a public seminar, but big corporate won’t tolerate it. (The truth is most public seminar promoters don’t pay speakers. Their money is made from BOR sales. )But when a senior executive in a multi-national corporation is entrusting you with the keynote speech at their national convention, you’d better look like a million bucks…and have the stage presence of a presidential candidate. The good news is that with a little planning and a lot of practice, all of us have a legitimate shot at speaking in the most prestigious market in the professional speaking business. And as they say about New York: if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere! We’ll discuss ‘Presidential Packaging July 11-13, 2008 at the Million Dollar Speaker Marketing Seminar in Atlanta. For more information visit www.milliondollarspeakermarketing.com
Do You Look Like a $10,000 Professional Speaker?
Published By steve
Steve Siebold, CSP My name is Steve Siebold. I’m an author with 1.4 million books in print, and a professional speaker and consultant to Fortune 500 sales teams on how to increase sales and retention rates through mental toughness training. My corporate clients include Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, Harrah’s Entertainment, Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Ingersoll Rand, etc.
I once heard from someone very close to me, that the worst thing that could happen to someone is when they give up hope. To know, that a torch bearer carries on, in so many different ways of giving hope is a real honor. I have always felt that my students are my best teachers.
– Michelle
An inspiring post to say the least, and I agree fully with you and your world class friends .
This I believe is the core of what the greatest communicators and performers do out there in the world every day.
I hear it in the messages of the biggest selling artists (and from fan comments as well) that sell over 100 million records such as U2 and Bon Jovi, I hear it in the greatest and most awe-inspiring politicians (listen to any speech by John.F Kennedy for instance) and I hear it in the messages of the great public speakers that are out there such as you and Bob Proctor. Thank you for introducing me to Keith Harrell as well Steve, another great individual to study and learn from.
From an academic psychological point of view I found this post to have a lot of connotations with Martin Seligman´s (the “founder” of positive psychology) early work on learned helplessness. His theory is especially applied to depression, and it says that when a persons THINKS/BELIEVES they have no control of the outcome what so ever for instance when he/she is rammed by one of life´s bigger events, depression is likely to occur. This is of course not the only cause of depression, but it is regarded as one of the major ones these days.
Seligman has also called this phenomenon hopelessness, and that is how I see it as well. Basically, if we loose hope, we are much more likely to get depressed and just as you mentioned in your post Steve, many individuals these days feel down because they are lacking hope and I believe public speakers play an important part in keeping people who are at the verge of depression from going down that road in many cases!
The interesting part about Seligmans theory is that he has proven over and over again, that by changing one´s habitual explanatory style from a negative to a positive one some remarkable changes occur. I.e. instead of saying; “this is my fault, it will never get better and my life is ruined”, a person might say; “this to shall pass, I had a bad day, it was just one sale and it’s not the end of the world”. By making this shift, a person is likely to never become depressed regardless of the situations one might encounter, and a person who has had a depression is not likely to relapse into depression which is a constant issue for people who just get medication.
The change in explanatory style is effectively done with for instance cognitive theory, which basically is programming yourself with belief-questioning and a better quality self-talk which is something many public speakers teach these days. Also, the share energy and power at public speaking events shoots of surges of endorphins, which will elevate mood and give better quality thoughts at least temporarily 🙂 It has actually been shown in studies that mood affects what memories we have easier access to at any given moment.
While I don’t believe the explanatory style Seligman recommends is the best possible one for world class results all the time(there is a lack of responsibility in my opinion), it’s most certainly the way to go with depressed patients who can then progress further on the responsibility part as their strength and personal power increases.
Ok, this post really got me going haha. Thanks again Steve, I´m really enjoying both your blogs, I´m learning plenty and the message of hope is something I try to spread every day as well whenever I can.
Have a good one,
Ronnie Grandell
Finland
With hope comes inspiration, with inspiration comes action. With action comes results in the right direction,and improvements in ones situation. That hope and inspiration is in short supply in this negative world. So we need the torchbearers like Bob,Steve and Keith along with others headed in the same direction. Including John Regan. Oh yes! that’s me!!