Tag: presentation skills

Comparing Learnings from being a candidate in a Council Election and Business Growth

Published on October 7, 2024 by Adrienne McLean

There’s a timeless quotation from US President Theodore Roosevelt Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

—

Recently, I went in a local government election. It actually was a challenging experience and as it is the second time, I should have known better. An election is a complex process and I am impressed with anyone who goes in as a candidate and should they win, it must be a huge high.

Here’s an overview of my comparison and learnings from going through a Council Election and running a business.

Both running for council and growing a business require leadership, resilience, and connecting with people. Here’s how lessons from my local government campaign align with business growth strategies:

1. Authenticity Matters

• Council Campaign: I focused on real community issues like local facilities and cultural spaces. While some candidates relied on charm, my authenticity built trust.

• Business Growth: In business, addressing genuine customer needs drives success. Offering value-driven solutions builds strong relationships and loyalty.

2. Real Value vs. Self-Promotion

• Council Campaign: My focus was on delivering solutions for community issues like improvements for the community, rather than self-promotion. This resonated with many voters.

• Business Growth: Clients look for real value. Businesses should position themselves as problem solvers, offering meaningful solutions that impact their audience’s lives.

3. Resilience Through Setbacks

• Council Campaign: Political setbacks, like backroom deals, revealed challenges. However, they strengthened my understanding of the process and my resolve to advocate for the community.

• Business Growth: In business, setbacks are inevitable. Resilience and a clear strategy ensure continued growth despite challenges.

4. Listening and Connecting with the Community

• Council Campaign: Listening to residents’ concerns was key to aligning my campaign with community needs.

• Business Growth: Actively listening to customers builds trust. Two-way communication ensures businesses deliver solutions that resonate.

5. Continuous Improvement

• Council Campaign: Despite not winning, I gained a better understanding of community priorities, helping refine future approaches.

• Business Growth: Continuous improvement through feedback and performance metrics keeps businesses competitive and drives growth.

Conclusion: Moving Forward with Confidence

The lessons from my council run—authenticity, delivering real value, resilience, listening, and continuous improvement—are just as essential in business as they are in a political campaign.

Whether in politics or business, staying committed to your mission, learning from challenges, and focusing on the needs of those you serve ensures success. These insights will continue to guide both my community work and business growth.

My work involves coaching experienced Experts who are brilliant at their expertise but they find it challenging when it comes to promoting themselves, creating presentations, using speaking as a marketing strategy and simply going out of their comfort zone to achieve their desired business initiative. This is where my work with AdrienneMcLean.com and TheSpeakersPractice.com.auhelps Experts to grow their business by using speaking as a marketing strategy.

My final learning is that you have to be in the arena to achieve your goals and aspirations.

By using Speaking as a Marketing Strategy …….

Published on by Adrienne McLean

When you use speaking as a marketing strategy, this can be an effective way to establish yourself as an authority in your field, build up your brand and generate leads. There are certain do’s and don’ts to keep in mind when using this strategy.

Firstly, define your target audience. Understand who your audience is and tell your message accordingly. This will help you to connect with them more effectively. And increase the chances of generating you may contact event planners who are in your target market.

See if the event planners audience would be interested in your topic. Send them a speaking proposal covering your presentation topic when in contact with the event planners say that if they need help, then you’re happy to help them with short notice. This is a big help to the event planner and they will appreciate your assistance and help you in return when they can prepare thoroughly.

Spend time preparing your presentation and practice it several times. This will help you deliver your message more confidently and effectively. Promote your speaking engagements. Use social media tell people about it or your emails, whichever trends you promote to tell them about your speaking engagements.

This will help you to reach a wider audience and generate interest in you.

Certainly when speaking, provide value. Make sure that your presentation provides tools and techniques to help your audience. This could be in the form of actionable tips, insights or inspirations. Then after your presentation, follow up with the attendees to thank them for their time and provide additional resources or support. This will help you to build relationships and potential customers don’t to consider isn’t when an event planner contacts you be open to the opportunity that they’re giving you when you do speak in index. This will be a month or more of promotions to raise awareness of your speaking at the conference or event.

So there’s a lot of value in getting your message out by other platforms. promoting you as an expert in your field. Be careful not to over Promote your products and services. Avoid using your speaking engagements as a selling from the stage and being too aggressive with it.

The important thing when you get up and present, is show your expertise. If you become too salesy and pushy, this lay term the audience are certainly in your presentation prepare your topic. don’t ramble or go off topic. Stay focused on your topic. This will make it easier for your audience to understand your message and take it in.

Otherwise you might lose the attention of your audience if you use jargon and highly technical language, unless you are really speaking to a very select audience. This may be too much for the audience to take in. So really judge the level of jargon that you use, and be careful not to use too much.

Please don’t ignore feedback, be open to critiques and what the audience’s about your presentation. take it into account for future presentations. This is a wonderful opportunity and the more speaking engagements and the more you engage with your audience, the more you build your speaking skills.

It is important to follow up don’t not follow up. Failing to follow up with attendees you become a distant memory. If you do follow up. It keeps you front of mind.

By following these do’s and don’ts. You can really use speaking as a marketing strategy to grow your business grow awareness of your brand and grow awareness of your expertise in the industry. enjoy going out and speaking to groups you’ll meet marvelous people experts in their field. Who you can help if you’d like some assistance, please give me a call check out speakers Practice website, www dot for speakers practice.com.au. You’ll get my contact details there and you can certainly email or even call

For more, check out this video and The Speakers Practice website.

The Important Public Speaking Skills

Published on January 22, 2023 by Adrienne McLean

Public speaking skills are important for professionals, in many fields, as they often need to present ideas, persuade others, and communicate effectively with audiences of various sizes.

Here are some tips for improving public speaking skills:

  1. Practice: The more you practice, the more comfortable you will become with speaking in front of others.
  2. Know your audience: Tailor your message and delivery to the specific audience you will be speaking to.
  3. Use visual aids: Use slides, videos, or other visual aids to help illustrate your points and keep the audience engaged.
  4. Use storytelling: Telling a story can help make your message more relatable and memorable for your audience.
  5. Be yourself: Speak in a style that is authentic to you and your personality.
  6. Be passionate: Speak with enthusiasm and energy, your audience will be more likely to be engaged.
  7. Be well-prepared: Research your topic thoroughly and have key points outlined before you speak.
  8. Be flexible: Be prepared to adjust your message or delivery in response to audience feedback or questions.
  9. Rehearse: Rehearsing your presentation will help you to feel more confident and will reduce the likelihood of mistakes.
  10. Seek feedback: Seek feedback from others on your speaking style and content to help identify areas for improvement.

Adrienne McLean is an Internationally Accredited Speakers Training Camp®️ Instructor and a Distinguished Toastmaster and a Book Yourself Solid®️ Certified Coach specialising in helping professionals and business owners with workplace presentations and communications.

The importance of preparing for the big day!

Published on June 25, 2021 by Adrienne McLean

Wedding speeches are one of the most memorable speeches that can be delivered. Whether, it is the Bride and groom or the Father of the Bride or the Best Man or Bridesmaid.

Presentation skills and public speaking impacts on many areas, both in business and personal. At The Speakers Practice, we work with professionals but, in essence, we are supporting and training individuals so they can be more confident with personal presentation matters ,as well as, at work with presentation and in marketing efforts. At The Speakers Practice, we do offer Speciality Speech writing and assistance with delivery.

A loving father got in contact and was looking for some support in preparing a speech for his daughter who was getting married. As the Father of the Bride, he wanted to deliver an impactful speech as it was such an important day for his family.

Being a builder, getting up in front of groups and speaking wasn’t something that came naturally to to Jim. His wife was the one that did a whole lot more talking and had that skill. For the wedding, Jim was the father of the bride and this was his duty. Jim had the intention to do the best speech ever, he was willing to prepare and practice to do it as well as he could possibly deliver the speech. Jim called on me , as a presentation skills coach, to help him with his presentation.

The process:

  1. Brain storming the topic
    Jim worked with me for three sessions. The first session, we brainstormed about his family, I asked questions and took notes. From our discussions, we came up with some family stories that were most important and from these discussions, a speech developed.
  2. Preparing the SpeechThe speech was prepared and this was discussed during the second session.For Jim, it was a nice moment to reflect over the years, for me it was delightful to learn about the family. A speech was prepared and discussed with Jim. We worked on fine tuning the content.Jim got input from others and I helped along the way.
  3. Practice
    Jim got to practice and even though it was on line, Jim was able to practice and I was able to give  Jim feedback.Jim practiced in front of anyone who would listen. Yes, he got lots of input to support him through the process. This is valuable, as practice, gets in out of your head and into a performance. It helps with getting the language right and with the flow.
  4. The Big Day!
    The big day happened and Jim messaged to say how wonderful the day went and he was thrilled with his speech. Everyone congratulated Jim on the fabulous presentation. Think there were a few tears of happiness!

Jim messaged me saying “ I pulled it off! My speech went well. Received so many lovely comments on how well written and presented it was! Thank you so much, I definitely could not have done it without your help. “

His message goes on” The speeches all went very well, mine went well thanks to you. My daughters made some lovely speeches too and the boys spoke. But the groom didn’t want any speeches in the video for some reason. So there are no records of the speeches” Jim thought it was mainly because the groom, his brother and father had nothing prepared and they didn’t come across very well. “

In summary:

The moral to this story is planning and preparation helps prevent presentation predicaments! Plan, prepare, rehearse and practice. Do the work to make the outcome as good as you can do it. Invest in yourself. Do the hard yards. It is worth it. It means you’ll never need to cover up or hide or hide others efforts.

Whether it is a wedding speech, as in this example, or it is a work presentation or a presentation selling your business, doing the preparation and working on each aspect of the presentation will at the end of the day mean you are better off and can present in a much better light than someone who didn’t prepare.

Adrienne McLean is a BookYourselfSolid® Certified Coach, SpeakersTrainingCamp® Internationally Accredited Instructor and the Principle of The Speakers Practice. Offering marketing discovery audits, online training programs, Public Speaking for Professionals, Effective On-Camera Presenting workshop and much more.

Email on adrienne@thespeakerspractice.com.au or ring on 0414 367 960

Speak Up & Stand Out! Bi-Monthly Newsletter

Published on April 6, 2021 by Adrienne McLean

Positioning Yourself as an Expert using Content Marketing

Published on July 3, 2019 by Adrienne McLean

When you are speaking or writing about your topic of interest, you are displaying your expertise in that niche. The more you do this, the more you display your skills, understanding and knowledge in that area, helping to build trust and credibility. By continually creating content to promote on social media platforms, where your target market will see, you become the category authority and, over time, the “go to” person in your niche.

Building a body of content in a niche helps grow your Intellectual Property which can be used in a number of ways – even monetised. But before you get started, preparatory foundational steps are required to ensure the content you create addresses your target audience’s problems, ensuring it’s valuable and answers market questions.

Being clear on these five points is the preparatory work required, before you get started on your content creation:

Determine your niche
Look at content already created for gaps
Determine your ideal client and target market
Determine the problem you’re addressing and the solutions you offer
Create a list of content topics

Speaking

Presentations & Signature Speeches

Speaking helps to convey your message to large groups of people and efficiently spread the word. However, delivering presentations is a craft – a learnt skill that requires connecting with the audience through the use of stories, examples, statistics and any other device that connects your audience with the topic.

Preparing a signature presentation can be something you can develop and hone. Then promoting your expertise to event planners can help get you in front of the right audiences at the right time. Not only that, talking one to many is a fabulous way to connect and grow your audience and your network of influence.

Video

Using video to promote your business topic is a great way to talk one-on-one, but many times. Developing the skills to prepare great video is invaluable, helping you speak with impact in front of the camera with a script that truly connects with the audience. Naturally, the more comfortable you are in front of a camera, the more you will be able to get your message across in a meaningful way.

However, there are skills to learn and develop – planning, the presentation skills to camera and then the post-production work, including editing the video with your branding. Your video can also be transcribed and repurposed for blogging and eBook/Book creation.

Webinars

Webinars offer a multi-faceted approach, but require some planning/up front considerations, including:

the webinar topic
the webinar platform and how it will run. (Are you running it with a business partner or alone?)
where people will log in?
pre-webinar promotions to get people to sign up
post-webinar promotions (uploading on to YouTube and Vimeo for circulation)
contact detail collection
Webinars can also be used as online training programs or broken up into smaller promotions.

Writing & Blogging
Writing about your expertise is a wonderful way to create your own Intellectual Property and to explore areas of expertise that may even surprise you. The blog creation process helps convey your expertise, with each blog article being able to be amalgamated to form longer articles and eBooks – even chapters of a book.

Audio
Doing interviews with experts in other areas can help highlight your own expertise and, as with video, your audio can be transcribed and repurposed for blogging and eBook/Book creation.

Radio

Speaking on radio not only displays you as an expert, the Mp3 recording can be uploaded to create a podcast.

Podcasting

Finding a suitable podcast platform is useful to share your interviews with the world. Mixcloud and Anchor are my favourites. It’s easy to upload the Mp3 recording and then the platform will make it easier to share.

Opportunities with Content
By creating video content, you can also prepare an Mp3 recording for audio use and have this transcribed using an app called Otto. From the edited transcript you can then go on to prepare a blog article or eBook. Then, you can create an online training program using the video or audio, prepare some slides, pdf questionnaires and so on.

The repurposing opportunities are enormous, so take the time to consider how you can fully utilise your information assets, remembering that everything you create helps position you as the expert in your field.

Seven Tips for Creating Content
Ensure your content adds value to your ideal clients and prospects
Create content on topics that resonate – aim to inform
Upskill as necessary to create good content – blog writing or production of video and audio content
Create a Content Calendar
Amalgamate your content to create eBooks and Books
Develop your own IP by creating online programs
Build a community to help promote and share your content
Summary
Before you proceed, consider the purpose behind what you are creating. Perhaps you’re doing fortnightly blogs, which can be read aloud to create audio files, then slide decks and supportive video can be created. Use your imagination and see what amazing content you can produce.

Most of all, have fun and enjoy the process!

Adrienne McLean of The Speakers Practice helps professionals with Marketing & Communications. This was written by Adrienne McLean and first published for the Spin the Sourcebottle, Source bottle – https://www.sourcebottle.com/blog/POSITIONING-YOURSELF-AS-AN-EXPERT-USING-CONTENT-MARKETING

Technology to make Marketing Easier with guest Ana Melikian

Published on April 22, 2019 by Adrienne McLean

Ana Melikian, the Founder of Tech Tips For Coaches and loves to help business owners achieve their BIG goals! Ana has a Phd in Psychology and is passionate about helping purpose driven, creative entrepreneurs with online marketing and understands the importance of working on mindsets in order to succeed.

Ana is an Elite Level BookYourselfSolid certified coach and co-founded the More Clients More Fun, where they developed leading-edge LinkedIn strategies for business development to land high-value clients.  In 2018, Ana launched Tech Tips For Coaches, a very affordable members

hip site designed to help coaches, consultants, trainers, and speakers to navigate the online world and market their services online with ease and joy!

The topic of our interview today is “Technology to make Marketing Easier ! ”.

The questions Ana discusses are:

  1. There are so many online marketing tools – where do businesses start?
  2. Which is your favourite CRM  and Email Management system and why?
  3. What are some of the things to watch out for when choosing online platforms?
  4. What are some other business tools that are essential for a business today?
  5. What is a Business strategy that you recommend? 

Adrienne McLean DTM , The Speakers Practice – helping clients with business development. Adrienne empowers Business owners to implement a powerful business building system to get more clients & communication skills to connect with impact.

 You can contact Adrienne on adrienne@thespeakerspractice.com.au or ring on 0414 367 960.

Video is a powerful way of connecting ……

Published on December 17, 2018 by Adrienne McLean

Video is an incredibly powerful way of connecting with your clients.

You, as a business owner, can connect one-on-one with your clients and prospective clients in a way that was unheard of 15 years ago. Today, it is so easy to use a phone or tablet to create a video, the quality is reasonably good and connections can be made one to many easily and regularly.

For more professional video, access is available and quality video is more affordable than ever. You can create your own commercial with high quality displaying you as the expert in your field to everyone that clicks on your website or Youtube channel.

So what sorts of video could you create to speak to your prospects?

Here’s a list but there’s over 50 different types of video – see – 51 ways you can use video

  1. Short, sharp phone video for use on Facebook
  2. Branded professional video for websites
  3. How to video for Youtube and websites
  4. Video for Online Training programs
  5. Video via Webinars

Each profession will suite various sorts of video. Its a matter of thinking about how can video be best utilised in my business to help my clients.

Once you have thought through the use of video within your business, then its the creation of the video that is to be considered.

Video creation involves –

  1. Planning – the script, the message, the location, how the video is to be created, who is to be involved , is it a person speaking or animated video?
  2. Production – the creation of the video – who is going to do this and how
  3. Post Production – preparing the digital recording into a professional MP4 recording.

There’s plenty to think about when preparing a video.

The important consideration is the connection with you and your clients and prospects.


Video can help your business by:
a.displaying you as the expert in your field
b. keep a personal connection with your audience
c. use various, interesting video to keep your audience engaged and following your topics
d. giving your audience valuable information using video in an easy to watch format
e. you, as the business owner, only need to say this once on the video and then it can be seen multiple times by viewers so for you it is actually time consuming not having to say the same thing again and again.

Consider the ways video can help you. Perhaps, give us a call to discuss opportunities where you can utilise video to help you.

Check out the Effective On-Camera Presenting program Video is a powerful marketing tool and that marketing using video is becoming an important way of connecting with your prospects & clients. To use video, are you looking to understand ✔︎ How to effectively present to camera ✔︎ What you need to be aware of when using video ✔︎ What are the best approaches to create successful video? ✔︎ Get nervous in front of a video camera ✔︎ Wanting to create successful video? ✔︎ What tools you need to do this

Adrienne McLean DTM – SpeakersTrainingCamp International Instructor and the Founder of The Speakers Practice – Adrienne specialises at The Speakers Practice helping clients to confidently deliver presentations for maximum impact. Adrienne has been training presenting to camera programs since 2012 and has been coached by Lou Bortone – US Video Marketing Expert.

 You can contact Adrienne on adrienne@thespeakerspractice.com.au or ring on 0414 367 960.

The Speakers Practice & Adrienne McLean.com October newsletter, 2018

Published on October 13, 2018 by Adrienne McLean

In our work, we are serving Service Professionals who are looking for:
✔︎ More clients,
✔︎ Improved marketing and sales,
✔︎ Improved communication skills, as well as,
✔︎ Techniques to raise awareness of their business.

We also help the business development, marketing and sales managers who are also looking to build their skills.


What are important skills needed in the workplace for growth - both personally and in business?

Marketing Skills and Business Development system 
Public Speaking, Presentation Skills and Communication Skills 
Effective Speaking to Camera and creating Video 
Professional Services Marketing Conference 

Here are our programs that are coming up -

The Professional Services Marketing Conference 2018 was a day of learning, connecting and being motivated to get to the next level. Check out this Professional Services Marketing Conference overview video (https://youtu.be/voFTnJy1m4E)



If you missed attending and would like to see the presentations online or attended and want to see the presentations again - enjoy the
Online -  Professional Services Marketing Conference 2018 (http://professional-services-marketing-conference.thinkific.com/courses/professional-services-marketing-conference-2018) - there are 6 hours of presentations full of really valuable information to help you with marketing, digital marketing, sales and mindset.





The BookYourselfSolid Masterclass Intensive - 8 sessions live, online - going step by step through the business development system BookYourselfSolid - check here more details  






Marketing Discovery Audit
By doing an annual marketing audit, you will find out:
✔︎ Are your marketing systems working for you
✔︎ Are there processes that need implementing for growth
✔︎ Are your strategies & tactics being followed
By doing the Marketing Discovery Audit , this will give you insights for marketing activities to help you get off to a great start for the new year.





Check out the Effective On-Camera Presenting program 
Video is a powerful marketing tool and that marketing using video is becoming an important way of connecting with your prospects & clients.
To use video, are you looking to understand
✔︎ How to effectively present to camera
✔︎ What you need to be aware of when using video
✔︎ What are the best approaches to create successful video?
✔︎ Get nervous in front of a video camera
✔︎ Wanting to create successful video?
✔︎ What tools you need to do this

The Speakers Practice is taking bookings for the next upcoming Effective On-Camera Presenting for Professionals" 



Hornsby Business Information Forum - a networking event to meet, ask those niggling marketing & business development questions, share & be inspired - 4th Thursday, Thyme Square cate - 8.30am to 10am, Free to attend. Business Professionals meet and discuss the topic of the day - - topic is the 6 steps to grow a business - book in Next Forum -  25th October, 2018 

For more details or to ask any questions, ring 0414 367 960.
See: www.thespeakerspractice.com.au and www.adriennemclean.com

21 Step Marketing System Checklist

Published on January 11, 2018 by Adrienne McLean

By scheduling in regular marketing, this will help with keeping your business front of mind with your prospects. If your business is front of mind, when the time is right, the prospect will discuss with you their needs & business can be done.

Have you got a regular process to follow to implement your marketing regularly?

Here’s a checklist to do to consider your current marketing efforts. It’s a bit like doing an audit – checking what is currently done and what needs work on. Perhaps if you want some help – schedule in a time with me for a free 30 minute phone call to discuss. Here to help – Adrienne McLean – The Speakers Practice.
BooK here – 30 min Consultation – Free!

21 Step Marketing System Checklist

1

 Do you know who your “Ideal Clients” are? Yes/ No

2

 Have you a clearly defined target market? Yes/ No

3

 Have you developed your personal brand ? Yes/ No

4

 Are the problems your target market face clearly understood for your topic? Yes/ No

5

 Do you have a clearly defined #1 big result? Yes/ No

6

 Are you clear about the benefits your product brings? Yes/ No

7

 Can you confidently “Talk About What You Do” Yes/ No

8

 Do you clearly display your creditials? Yes/ No

9

 Have you clearly defined your products? Yes/ No

10

 Do you have a clearly defined Keeping in Touch Strategy? Yes/ No

11

 Have you any blogs, eBooks, Books, CDs, DVDs, online training? Yes/ No

12

 Are you confident with your Pricing? Yes/ No

13

 Do you have successful sales conversations? Yes/ No

14

 Have you a clearly defined Networking Strategy? Yes/ No

15

 Have you a clearly defined Direct Outreach Strategy? Yes/ No

16

 Have you a clearly defined Referral Strategy ? Yes/ No

17

 Have you a clearly defined Speaking Strategy ? Yes/ No

18

 Have you a clearly defined Writing Strategy? Yes/ No

19

 Have you a clearly defined Web Strategy? Yes/ No

20

 Are you implementing Strategies Networking, Direct Outreach & Referrals? Yes/ No

21

 Are you implementing atleast one of Strategies Speaking, Writing & Digital Marketing (Social Media/ Pay for Click Advertising)? Yes/ No

Perhaps if you want some help – schedule in a time with me for a free 30 minute phone call to discuss. Here to help – Adrienne McLean – The Speakers Practice.
BooK here – 30 min Consultation – Free!