4 Levers That Will Help You Become A Better Speaker

In today's episode, I'm going to teach you four levers that you can adjust to become a better speaker. Pinpointing exactly where to focus will allow you to self-evaluate so you can make quick progress with your development. I believe that when you are more intentional with your message, speaking can become your best marketing tool. 

EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇

➡️ https://heathersager.com/episode67/

Transcript

0:00  
Speaking is a skill and I think so often we take it for granted because, I mean, for the most part, we've been speaking and communicating our entire lives, so we just leave speaking on autopilot. It's how we speak to our children, our spouses, our clients, our team members. I was gonna say, milkman, but that's not a thing. The UPS guy when we wave out the window, like the person at the grocery store. When speak to other people, it's on autopilot. It is something that we, for the most part, do not put any intention behind unless we have to have a big talk. You know, the big talk were you like running through your head a bajillion times, and then you put it off and put it off until you finally are sweating bullets and finally, just do the damn talk. and it's not as terrible as you thought. 

0:49
I like you to focus on being more intentional with your speaking because you are not like most entrepreneurs. You are using your speaking as a marketing tool. You know that you are your best brand asset. You know your brand story better than everyone else. You know how you treat your clients better than anyone else, like your ability to articulate the passion and reasoning behind your brand and how to uniquely communicate to your audience like only you can do that. And when you get really intentional with that skill of speaking, it can become your best marketing tool. 

1:34 
Well, Hey, friend, welcome to another episode of The Heather Sager Show. I'm Heather and I believe that people don't connect with marketing, they connect with other people. So if you want others to see you as a go to authority, you've got to start showing up using your voice and sharing your message with intention. So consider this show right here your new playground to become an influential speaker so that you can actually start making strides towards that dream on your vision board. Let's go.

2:19
Well, hello, friend, welcome back to the Heather Sager show. It's Coach Heather, and today is a juicy one. I have to laugh at that for a second because I keep laughing at myself a year ago, swear I'd never said the word juicy. But it's a thing that I say now when I talk about something being content and value rich. I'm gonna laugh at this right out of the gate today because you know how in your industry, you hear certain influencers say words and you kind of roll your eyes, but then months later, you realize you're using those words, it happens all the time so something like juicy is one of those. Also the phrases you hear a lot right now, 'I don't know about you but,' or 'if you're anything like me but,' or 'I don't know who needs to hear this but.' Yeah, these are phrases right that a year ago nobody said these things in like mainstream marketing, and then they start catching on like wildfire. Just a total side note, it has nothing to do with the episode today but I've been noticing that lately and while I roll my eyes, I still find myself using them. I hope you get a chuckle out of that because I'm sure you find yourself doing that too or have something that you used to never say but then you find yourself saying it, literally, either one of those works. People used to not say literally, but now everybody says literally. They say incorrectly and it drives me bonkers.

3:42
Ah, there's my tangent for today. I really needed to get that out. You're welcome. Also hope you're not new around here because that was probably a weird way to start this episode. But you know what, we just give it to you straight around here. The show is all about helping you show up as a more confident and dynamic speaker, showing up more authentically, which means we don't show up perfectly around here. And in fact, that's our competitive advantage because people like real, not perfect. Today what we're going to talk about is I'm going to teach you something called my four levers that are going to help you become a better speaker. Specifically, in my own like internal work, I call them the four C's. This is for specific areas that allow you to be more intentional with how you show up. Now today, we're not going to talk about pitching. We're not going to talk about finding speaking opportunities. We're not going to talk about the strategy and business of speaking. No, no, no, no. I want to keep things more lighthearted is not the right word, but more tangible and more practical for you because let's get real. We are approaching the end of the year most likely you are not hitting the gas pedal right now, although, side note make sure you go a few episodes back where I teach you my four things you should be doing right now in the offseason to get ready to accelerate in 2021, I'll link that in the show notes. But right now you're most likely getting ready to take some time off for the holidays or at least take a little bit of rest and have some retrospection in your business, reflections, strategic planning. You're most likely not say that a little better, hitting the gas pedal and trying to get out a bunch right now. You are in the offseason. You're hibernating to get ready for next year. But with that, I don't want you to use that as an excuse for you to take your foot off the gas pedal when it comes to your own skill development. Oh, yeah, I threw out that phrase. Your skill development speaking is a skill. And I think so often we take it for granted because, I mean, for the most part, we've been speaking and communicating our entire lives so we just leave speaking on autopilot. It's how we speak to our children, our spouses, our clients, our team members. I was gonna say, milkman, but that's not a thing. The UPS guy would we wave out the window, like the person at the grocery store, when we speak to other people, it's on autopilot. It is something that we for the most part, do not put any intention behind unless we have to have a big talk, you know, the big talk where you like running through your head a bajillion times, and then you put it off and put it off until you finally are sweating bullets, and finally, just do the damn talk. And it's not as terrible as you thought. I don't know maybe that was just me. 

6:39
Anyways, today we're gonna talk about speaking, you already know this, if you hang out around here. I like you to focus on being more intentional with your speaking because you are not like most entrepreneurs. You are using your speaking as a marketing tool. You know that you are your best brand asset. You know your brand story better than everyone else. You know how you treat your clients better than anyone else, like your ability to articulate the passion and reasoning behind your brand and how to uniquely communicate to your audience like only you can do that. And when you get really intentional with that skill of speaking, it can become your best marketing tool. So today, instead of giving you a ton of different strategies, or even like really micro things that you should do, I want to teach you how to think about using your voice and be more intentional with how you show up. So these are four levers that I'm constantly thinking about to up level. You can always self-evaluate on each of these four levels and say, which of these am I going to focus on in this next conversation, in this next video, in this next Instagram story, which one of these do I need to like amp up just a little bit. And here's the beautiful thing, I call these levers because when you move one, your outcome, your output is higher, right. Your connection to your audience or outcomes of your audience feeling, energy, and knowing what to do next, and feeling connected and like you get them and all the things that happen with a really good talk. When you move one of these level levers, they all rise up and they're interconnected. So but I want to give you a way to think about using your voice, communicating your message in a simple self-evaluation model, I guess we'll call it so let me hit you through it. 

8:36
Let's go through these. What I want you to think about is for many of you, you most likely fall into one of two categories. One, up until this point, you have relied on your natural charisma and that natural speaking ability that I talk to you about. Most likely you're a pretty good speaker, you've been able to get through it, you have high energy when you get in front of an audience. And it's working pretty well but you're still feeling like, Oh, I don't really feel prepared, or I don't really feel like my audience is getting the best that they could if I put a little more preparation into it. Another group of you might be thinking like, oh, man, yeah, I got that charismatic thing down. I'm pretty good when I get in front of an audience but quite frankly, when I think about what I'm going to say in front of an audience, it is a cram session the night before, where I'm up at my computer until one o'clock in the morning, crank it out, and that's when all the gold comes and that's what you bring to a stage. But you and I both know that when you do that when you put all your energy in creating the content the night before, it leaves your gas tank empty and a couple other areas. Leave your gas tank empty when you think about oh my gosh, was I really strategic and connecting with the audience? Did I bring in examples, the best examples I could have? Did I bring in the right stories or just the ones that were top on mind? Did I serve this audience in the way that they deserve? Did I do my brand and my story justice? It's this lingering hangover, we'll call it that happens after a talk that regardless if you're scared on the front end, or super confident on the front end, when you cram the night before, there is this hangover that happens after the talk after the high, wears off of oh my gosh, it was amazing. You get a lot of claps, the hangover lingers where you start questioning and second guessing yourself. And if you've ever felt that before, where you start going, Oh, man, I feel like maybe I should be more intentional or Damn, I shouldn't have wait until the 11th hour again. If you ever have that nagging feeling where you're second guessing your message after the fact or even before, friend, I just want to remind you like you need to take my free training that's out right now for you to understand how to show up as an authority by speaking on stages without second guessing yourself because all that second guessing you're doing, all of that like debate you're having in that hangover aftermath after a video or a talk, it is time that you are not putting into being more connected to your audience, time you're not spending being more creative or showing up for your family are all the other areas that you could be focused on. If your mind wasn't in that remorse, I want you to have the tools to get over that. So if you haven't yet taken the free training head over to heathersager.com/masterclass, it is live ready to go, you can enroll right now and watch it today, that is going to give you the tools you need to start becoming more confident in every single step. But for the meantime, let's give you some tools for you to get a little bit more confident right now. So let's talk about the four levers, cleverly referred to as the four C's. Let me go over them for you. I'm gonna hit you with all four right now and then we'll go in each one by one.

11:56
Lever number one, clarity. Lever two, confidence, level three, competence, level four, charisma, clarity, confidence, competence, and charisma. By the way, these will be listed in the show notes. So click on those if you're driving the car, you're out on a walk, you're decorating your Christmas tree, your cookies or whatever you're doing. Note to flag this episode do come back to because the notes will help you when you were thinking about self evaluation and what to do next to show up just a little bit better next time. But let's dive into them. 

12:31
Number one lever clarity. What do I mean by clarity, I'm not just talking about clarity and ensuring you're enunciating your words, so people can understand them, although do that too but that's not what I'm talking about clarity here. Clarity is making sure that whenever you speak to an audience or to a person, you know what the heck you're trying to say. I think all too often, we think maybe for a moment about what to say but when we open up our mouths, we just word vomit all over an audience. It's just like, all of the ideas come out. And I know you've done this before, we're as you're speaking, you have this outer body experience of going, I know I have a point here, but I'm not quite sure what it is but I'm going to get to it. And then boom your point comes and you're like, Whoa! Okay, this was wonderful like, yes, I'm on fire. They're following me. We're excited but if you're being honest with yourself, you know, you and your audience had to trudge through the mud a little bit to get to your point. I mean, let's be honest, that happens a little bit on the show sometimes. It's okay for it to happen. But what I want you to understand is if you want to be a dynamic magnetic speaker, meaning a speaker that other people are drawn to, not just because they think you're really good at speaking but because you are the kind of person they want to work with, they want to be around, they want to be inspired by if you want to be that person, you have to be clear with what you're talking about. 

14:02
Now, I don't mean clear by saying you have a script, I don't mean clear by saying you need to boil everything down into like, one concise thing. But I do want you to know that every time you speak, you need to be having a clear message. In my program speak up to level up. We call this a core message. And it's the if you're giving a presentation or you're doing a video, you're clear on what is the main idea of this talk, of this video, of this conversation? What is the main idea? It doesn't have to be super complex, right? It just has to be really clear. So for example, for me for this episode, my main idea is four levers that will help you become a speaker like the main idea behind it is I want to give you the tools so you can self evaluate for how do you get better, where should you specifically look. That's the core message of this episode today. I have it written here on a little piece of paper at the back of my day planner. I have some notes that I'm going through, but I am not just winging it on the episode. 

15:05
Now I'm speaking extemporaneously, which means there's no script, right? I'm not following a bulleted outline here. Whenever you guys hear me speak on this show show, actually, pretty much anything I do, I always speak like, it sounds like I'm off the cuff because it's extemporaneous, which is a fancy word to say, I'm speaking from my mind, from my experience, there's not a script. But don't confuse that by just speaking off the cuff, there is still a plan. So number one, if you want to up level your speaking skills, start by creating more clarity doesn't have to be crystal clear, like exactly what you're going to say, but have a clear direction of where you're going and what the point is. What do you want your audience to do? What do you want them to feel? What do you need them to know in order for that to be true? That's what clarity is about. And I think we all have some room to grow within this one. We're always in pursuit of more clarity. But that is the first place I would start for you to up level your speaking skills. 

16:08
Level number two, confidence. Now, you know, we weren't going to get away from a conversation without talking about confidence. People buy from those who are confident. People listen and follow those who are confident. If you were second guessing yourself on a stage or on a video, people are going to feel it. They're going to feel it in your energy, they're going to feel it in your words, they're going to feel just something is not quite there. And this lever right here is where so many people stumble. They stumble because they second guess themselves, they stumble because of imposter syndrome, they stumble because they don't quite know if they remember what they wrote down in their clarity statements. They second guessed. I think it's just there's a lack of confidence. What are people saying about me? What do people think? Ar they get enough value out of this, like, Oh my god, I just stumbled on my word Holy crap, that wasn't even real sentence like our head game, it completely sabotages our connection with our audience. 

17:06
Now I know building confidence is much easier said than done. But just like with clarity, this is a constant pursuit. We always have to be mindful of our own confidence and let me teach you a little, let me call it a little trick that I adopted years ago, that has helped me tremendously with my confidence and here it is. It's not about you being the best in front of a room. It's you having confidence that you can help who's listening. It's not about you being the best in front of a room or in a room, it's about you having the confidence that you can help. You see a long time ago, when I first started my big girl job and I was helping doctors, specifically, helping audiologists work with hearing care patients. They were working on fitting hearing aids, selling hearing aids, all of those things. If you're new to the show, something unique about me is I have a hearing loss. I've had a hearing loss my entire adult life and I were hearing technology. Well, let me be honest with you, when I was teaching doctors, I definitely was not the smartest person in the room. I do not have a medical degree. I've never been in medical school. Hell at that point, I'd never run a business and knew anything about their businesses but I didn't know I could help them because I was a hearing care patient. I knew what it was like to wear technology. I knew what it was like to not. I knew what it was like to not be able to hear my family. I knew that my experience could help them, and that is the only semblance of confidence that I had. 

18:39
So what I want you thinking about is I mean, I would I would highly doubt that you are in the exact same situation that I was. But I would bet that you have helped people before that are similar to who you're speaking to. I would hope feel confident that you can help your audience because you've helped others like them, maybe you used to be like them, and you've navigated through something hard, maybe you've helped other people that are in their shoes, maybe you're a coach, maybe your service provider. I want you to put your confidence in knowing that if you were to get on a phone call with someone or if you were to dig your hands on their website as a copywriter, you know, you could add value and help. That is where I want you to place your confidence knowing that you can help and serve another, have confidence in that. Take the emphasis on you needed to be the best. You need to know the most. You'll be the most dynamic on stage. Take the emphasis on that and put your confidence on your ability to serve. And holy crap friend does that do wonders for your mojo on a stage. You've got to start having more confidence in who you are and how you serve because that right there oh my gosh, that is such a magic moment connecting with your audience. That confidence in service that is like the kibosh on a high ego like it is a beauty thing and people are so attracted to it so I am super excited to hear how that specific shift in your thinking helps you show up more confidently next time on a YouTube video. 

20:11
Now, just to clarify, it doesn't mean your nerves are going to go away. Oh my god, your nerves are still gonna be there but you are more likely to push through them and show it confidently because you're focused on why you're speaking, which is your audience and how you can help them. Okay, that's lever two.

20:26
Lever three competency. Competency, that is such a funny word. Competence is what I think I actually wrote down. Okay, this is your skill set. You and I would be just crazy town if we thought we can get better by speaking without learning new skills. That's just ridiculous. If you want to get better speaking, learn new skills. Now you can learn these new skills two ways, one, just by practicing over and over again. Or you can actually study and learn new skills, learn the skill of hand gestures, learn the skill of moving your voice around so it's more dynamic, learn the skill of organizing your content so it makes sense to your audience. Shameless plug, these are all things we do inside my program, Speak Up to Level Up but you also can learn it from my podcast, you can learn it from my blog, you can learn it from incredible books online, watching other people's Instagram stories, listen to other people deliver content on video.

21:30
 If you pay attention, there are skills everywhere. You just need to be more intentional around noticing them and asking, how can I make that work for me? What is the skill there that I need to practice? Let me give an example, if you're watching your favorite influencer online do a video instead of just listening to their content, what they're delivering, do that too. But I want you to watch it again and put on a different hat. I want you to study their art of speaking. What's their pace? How are they looking at the camera? What's their energy? What's their tone? What's the content? Is there a way that they organized it that just really flowed well. When you start looking at the structure of how other people speak and noticing that how they're speaking is a skill, not just their natural personality, you learn a lot. When it comes to competency, what I want you to think about what is the specific speaking skill that would serve you well? Is it body language? Is it tone? Is it facial expressions? Is it getting more comfortable on camera? Is it telling better stories? Is it coming up with analogies? Is it asking engaging questions on your audience? Is it, I don't know the list can go on and on and on but I want you instead of going everything out of the sun, I have to get better. Is there one specific skill that you can pick out, you could say you know what, I'm gonna work on that. Work on that by listening to a podcast episode directly correlated with that. Go back to the archives. You can get better by reading a book like I said, like, there's so many different things you can do. But don't be fooled if you think you can become a masterful speaker without doing the work friend. The work is practicing and studying the skill. You got to do those things in parallel. So if you want to get better next year, start treating your speaking chops as much as you do on learning about list building, or learning about writing effective emails, or learning how to design a landing page, or learning how to build your website or learning how to, you know all the frickin courses that people buy. If you want to get better at speaking, get the skills training to do so. Competency. 

23:50
And here's the fun part about competency, competency and confidence are highly correlated. Correlated, that was really awkward and hilarious to say correlated. What do we mean by that? Well, my mentor Brendon Burchard, he has a video online you can YouTube search it called the Competence Competency loop, where he talks about those two things together work hand in hand, and he draws visually with his hands, an infinity loop. You know that like back and forth loopy, loopy loop. He talks about how when your competency grows, ie your skills grow, you get more confident. You're like, oh, man, I didn't know how to open up a talk but once I practice it a few times, Oh, I got the skills and therefore my confidence went up. And the more your confidence grows up, the more you're like, Ooh, okay, I got the opening part of my talk down now how do I get more engaged with their people. You start now building those skills, but what happens is you start building new skills, your confidence goes down a little bit until you get a little better at the skill and your confidence goes up. Hand in hand, these two things work side by side competency and confidence. So earlier if you were still like, okay I get that point of view difference Heather around how to focus on my audience, but still I'm having problems with confidence, work on your competency and your confidence will grow. Work on your competence and your competence will grow. Work on your confidence, then take on more skills. Always be pushing and stretching those two. You got you following me? So clarity on what we're talking about, confidence, competence. Let's go to the last one, charisma. Oh, this one is so good charisma.

25:32
We both know what we're talking about here. Energy on a stage matters. But let me like kaibosh the whole, kaibosh, is that a word that I only say with my family? I don't know we're gonna find out 'cause some of y'all might text me and be like, what the heck is that weird word you're saying? Welcome to the Heather Sager Show y'all. Also, by the way, also say y'all now. I'm just giving you all the weirdness today but here we go. I want to make sure that you understand from this because I mean, a case in point, my little weird thing that I just did there for the last 20 seconds where I showed you all my weird things. Charisma does not mean you need to be weird and crazy, like me on a stage. It does not mean need to be loud and have big funny jokes and make fun of yourself and all the crazy crap that I do on a stage. That's true to my personality and who I am. What I want you thinking about charisma, charisma is about energy, energy with an audience. How do you bring energy? How do you elevate the energy in the room and it's not just the rah rah rah game, right? Don't be rah, rah rah, if that's not your normal personality. 

26:38
So an example I'll give you with this. A few months ago, I was working with one of my private clients. I think I mentioned this before on the show. I was working with Tyler McCall on his event back in November. I asked him the question I asked all my clients, and I was like, hey, so how do you want people to see you on a stage? How do you want to come across? How do you want people to feel? And he told me, he's like, you know, I really admire and love the way that Barack Obama communicates. And I'm like, ooh, so we unpacked why within that. When you think about this for a second, if you've ever seen Barack Obama give a speech, which if you live in the US the answer, I mean, would be yes, because he was president for a long time. One of his speeches, I want you to think about did he ever have this big rah rah rah like crazy, wild thing? Hell, no. But man, was he a powerful speaker, and it's because he brought the energy necessary for the message. This is your lesson here, I'm going to say it again, you need to bring the energy necessary for your message. So that means you need to be a frickin cheerleader in that moment, be a cheerleader, as long as it's authentic to you, is that means you need to be a little vulnerable because that's what your audience sees in the moment, bring that vulnerability to the stage. If that means you need to be serious, if you need to pause, if you need to give it some space and slow it down for thoughtfulness, do it. Do you hear how I just brought the energy from the crazy craze I had there at the top down to this a little bit of calmer energy happening here. You see most speakers, most business owners don't have the one awareness or two confidence to create those pace changes so they live at the speed that is their natural speaking cadence, either fast talker all the time, or, you're live long day.

28:39
You need to be aware of the energy you're bringing to the audience because at the end of the day, I firmly believe this, your energy is what captures the audience's attention and drives them into action. If you don't bring the energy that's necessary for that moment, you will not convert them, you will most likely not get them as customers and you will not be remembered. Unless that memory is for not the right reason. Case in point, have you ever seen a speaker that was so high pitched, fast paced, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy crazy on a stage that they're like, ah, maybe I don't know. I've seen this quite a few times in my day at a conference. I've seen like a really high energy crazy down speaker. I don't remember what the hell they were an expert at just that they were a Tasmanian devil on stage that made me feel like I want to take some kind of like a sedative. I bought that for them so and the same thing right like speakers who are so boring to listen to you do not remember what they talk about. You just remember the era of the conference. So if you want to be remembered for the right reason, you need to bring the energy appropriate for that stage, for that audience, for that message. Charisma, I want you to understand charisma and energy are unique to you and you have to do the work to understand what's most natural to you. 

30:08
Okay, we've talked about a lot of things today. But specifically, we're talking about four levers that you can pull in front of an audience. That sounds weird, but you know what I'm saying, right? To make your next speaking opportunity, even better, whether that's on video on your Instagram stories, whether that's communicating to your family over the holidays, whether that's you actually showing up on a virtual stage deliver a presentation, here they are the four things, one, gain clarity so that your message is crisp, clear, and really rings true to your audience, what are you talking about, and then back it up. Two, have confidence, that confidence that you are there for a reason, and you can serve and help that audience, you have to be confident who you are, because that's what audiences are attracted to. Three competency, you got to grow your competence, you got to grow your competence. You have to grow your competence, whatever the right way of saying that is, you know what I'm saying you got to work on your skills, baby. You have to work on your skills, if you want to become a better speaker. And then fourth charisma, you have to bring the right energy for your message. That's what matters. And that's what's the lasting impact that people remember. Let's just make sure they remember the right like the right things. 

31:22
Alright, friend, I hope that these four levers were helpful for you so that you can start exploring Okay, which of these do I feel strong at? Which one of these areas could I really start doing some inner work and outer work to get better at because when you work on one lever the others follow suit. I can't wait to hear how you apply this episode. Please take a screenshot of this episode, post it on Instagram stories, or tag me on Facebook and let me know what you learned today. And more importantly, what are you gonna do about it? I want to know from you. And of course, the more shares you do of this show, the more ears this show gets in Oh my god, that's so terrible but you know what I'm talking about right? We all know that feel helped me get the word on the show. We just celebrated this month 25,000 downloads which I'm celebrating hard. This is a pretty big deal and thank you so much for sticking with me through this crazy year we've had. I cannot wait to see what comes for the both of us in 2021. Alright, friend, we'll see you next week. Same time, same place.

32:33
Hey, friends. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you had to hear, and you're looking to make a bigger splash with your brand online, then you've got to check out my brand new free video training. You can get it over at heathersager.com/minitraining, or I'm going to teach you the three speaking strategies that every online business owner needs for this virtual world here in 2020. Hint, you don't have to be some big pro speaker to make speaking work for your business. Go grab it now, heathersager.com/minitraining and I'll see you on the next episode.