9 Ways to Stand Out As A Conference or Tradeshow Speaker

If you're a professional speaker, you spend your professional life learning to be a polished presenter. But what if you don't do this for a living, but have been asked to speak at a conference, trade show, seminar or other place where you get the opportunity to promote yourself, your ideas and your business?

Rohit Bhargava presents nine excellent tips for making the most of this opportunity, including:

• Have a simple theme.
• Get to the point.
• Stay real.
• Stick around.

Ask your market: Even ads are doing it!

So you've got a great message. But how do you know whether it matches what your audience wants? Easy - ask them! Even advertisers are doing it - right in the ads themselves.

Most experts and leaders assume they know what their listeners want, but this isn't necessarily the case. Do some simple market research. This doesn't mean you have to get a bunch of people in a room with cheap wine, cheese and a one-way mirror. Even informal market research - just asking your target market to tell you their biggest problem - is useful.

E-Book: You Are Being Lied To

In this provocative e-book, Larry Winget rants about experts who don't practise
what they preach. It's an extremely important issue whenever you're delivering
a message.

Download the e-book here - it's free.

Creating on-line community in your organisation

The Internet is abuzz with on-line communities like Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn. How can you create an on-line community within your organisation? You might already have an organisational intranet, but how do you turn that into a community?

Tim Shaw provides some answers in his article The "in" club - thinking about members-only sections. Shaw offers these four broad guidelines:

1. Provide members-only content
2. Provide access to experts
3. Provide enhanced networking opportunities
4. Provide enhanced access to events.

By themselves, these might seem obvious and even simplistic. But taken together, they can create an on-line community that combines added value and stronger relationships.

James Watson - no longer a credible source

James Watson, world-famous as one of the team at Cambridge University who discovered the structure of DNA, has done irreparable damage to his reputation by making comments linking intelligence to race. In fact, Watson's critics now point to this as one in a long chain of similarly unscientific comments in his past.

How does this apply to your message management? You might not be a Nobel prize-winning biologist, but if you're in a leadership position, you do have some authority because of that position. But don't take that authority for granted. Some audiences are more skeptical than ever, and will take apart everything you say. Make sure your messages are grounded in fact, not speculation - and certainly not in ignorant bias.

Reputation Really Matters, by Penny Mulvey

One of our clients, Penny Mulvey of Positive Media, has just released her new book "Reputation Really Matters". In it, she draws on her experience working with some of Australia's leading business and organisational leaders and teams, talking about the importance of your reputation in creating an environment of trust for delivering credible messages.

Virgin America creates a watchable safety video

You know those airline safety videos you watch carefully every time you take off on a flight? No, we don't watch them either!

To counter this problem, Virgin America created a safety video with a difference: It's entertaining! Watch it yourself and see:



This clever twist on the standard safety video taps into people's natural inclination to watch something interesting. Virgin asked the question, "How can we make this something people want to watch?"

How can you do the same thing in your message management? Even if you think it's interesting, your message might be boring, mundane, prosaic or humdrum to your audience? How can you make it interesting - even entertaining - for them?