digital media strategy blog

A series of studies confirms the fact that public speaking is feared more than death. Think about that for a moment and just how ludicrous it is. More people are afraid of delivering a simple presentation than they are of life’s end. Clearly, that is irrational. No logical person would trade their life away in order to avoid ten minutes in front of co-workers discussing recent company trends.

So, we know that speech anxiety is common. We know that it can lead to all sorts of discomfort and nastiness for people forced to confront it. We also know that many people are so afraid of speaking that they consider it a fate worse than death. All of that points to one conclusion: speech anxiety is a very powerful force.

The fear of public speaking, although more intensely felt than some other fears, still holds a lot in common with other sources of nervousness. Assuming a fear is misplaced to at least some extent, the original source of the worry tends to stem from some level of personal insecurity and/or a lack of information. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance creates fear, and that fear is intensified even more when we know we are ignorant. That is the case with public speaking.

We do not feel comfortable giving a speech and we know it. We feel unprepared, disorganized and unsure of our ability to make a point without humiliating ourselves in front of others. We feel inadequate and we know it long before we open our mouths to give an introduction. Had we found the information necessary to approach speech construction and delivery and learned it, we would feel better about the situation.

If everyone knew some simple ways to come up with a great presentation and some simple tricks regarding delivery, they could approach public speaking with a greater level of assuredness. If they knew even more about public speaking–perhaps even some details and perspective on speech anxiety–their fear would be even further mitigated.

There are few people in the world who can hop up in front of others and being speaking without hesitation or fear. They are the exceptions. Most of us, all things being otherwise equal, would choose to avoid giving a public presentation. That preference may be a reflection of our personality, but it is also a reflection of our good sense.

You see we do not want to give a speech because we know we are inadequately prepared to do a good job. Our fears may be inappropriately large, but they are rooted in some honest self-assessment. We fear what we do not know. We fear that even more when we know just how much we do not know!

If you were called upon to deliver a public speech today, how would you react? If you said you would be glad to do so and were ready to go that means one of two things: either you have a great deal of confidence based on having developed good public speaking skills or you are one of those few people who have no qualms about presenting (even if they don’t have the talent or technique to do it well). In other words, those who have no fear of public speaking are either skilled or ignorant without realizing it.

The fear of public speaking is rational. Many people, however, carry that rational fear to an irrational extreme.

How can we combat this? The answer is simple: information. If once is willing to seek out information and guidance regarding the development of public speaking, anxiety can be calmed. Information also leads to the development of skills, which will further abate any speech anxiety. There is even available information that deals directly with the issue of speech anxiety, making it that much easier to conquer. Fear breeds in ignorance, and eradicating that ignorance with a solid guide to public speaking is a sensible solution to the problem. see http://www.sblmarketing.info to overcome all your Public Speaking Fears.

Heard about article marketing but not sure why you’d need it for your business? Posting Articles on the net is a great way to capture the “stubborn” half of your audience who resists a direct sales pitch.

While some folks don’t mind being approached directly, many others don’t take kindly to it.

Let’s say you have a service to offer, so you hit someone up face to face with a proposal:

“Hello Fred, isn’t it time you made improvements on your life? My product can help you do this!”

Suppose Fred is in a foul mood that day, or maybe Fred’s email box is overrun with messages. Or maybe Fred just doesn’t like anyone confronting him about areas where his life can stand to be improved… because even if that’s true, FRED WILL NEVER ADMIT IT.

Thanks to the unfortunate timing between your sales pitch and Fred’s bad day, Fred reacts defensively to your suggestion and mentally blacklists you for bothering him with your pointed insinuations.

Now, suppose that instead of hearing or reading your direct approach that you delivered via email or in a chat forum, Fred came across your ARTICLE that day. The jist of the article was the same as the sales pitch you might make to Fred… but instead of being aimed directly at FRED, it’s written to a general audience.

This time, Fred is reading your information BY CHOICE, and nobody is finger-pointing or insinuating he needs to change in some way. Therefore, Fred is free to analyze his own situation and determine whether your service or product might enhance his life.

Pretty soon, Fred is visiting your website with interest… and not long after that, Fred has come to terms with his shortcomings and surrendered to the fact that, YES, what you’re selling may be of help to him.

Finally… cha-ching!

Thanks to that article that you wrote that wasn’t aimed directly at his fragile ego, Fred feels comfortable to just whip out his credit card… and surprise! He’s officially your paying customer.

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

Dina Giolitto is the author of ARTICLE POWER: Create Dynamite Web Articles and Watch Your Sales Explode… a 49-page manual covering every aspect of article marketing on the web. Learn about article marketing, copywriting and more at http://www.wordfeeder.com

A little known way to receive ongoing web visitors, a higher Google Page Rank, and inbound links to your site without having to exchange links. All for free…

Article Writing - Pick a category you’re interested and/or know a lot about and write an article about it. It doesn’t have to be too long, just have some facts about something or even your opinion. At the bottom of the article make a new paragraph ‘About the Author’. Here you write a short summary about yourself and your site name and URL. You can even have related links in the article, this is especially good if you write an article pertaining to your site, than have links to your site to show examples.

Here is an example. Go to Google and type in - “Why Paid Inclusion Is Better Than PPC Advertising” be sure to use the quotations, you want to get an exact match. This is an article I wrote last year an already it’s listed on over 400 websites. I didn’t pay a dime. That over 400 links pointed to my website, because of my ‘About the Author’ section.

Another example is - “Dear Santa: Christmas Sucks!” also in quotation marks. My sister wrote this one and it is on over 60 sites. Again free advertising for your website because of the ‘About the Author’ section. Both of these articles are based on opinion and look how many sites listed them. Most people know to get a higher Google Page Rank you need people to link to your website. This is the easiest way, plus it’s free.

WebProNews.com - An excellent site to be listed on. They list almost any article that is webmaster related. They also allow you to upload a photo of yourself. Your article will be seen by thousands of people here.

http://www.webpronews.com/submit.html

You also have to be aware of some sites that offer to publish your article to thousands of websites for a fee. As you can see above, this really is not necessary. Just search the web for free article submission sites and you’re set.

Here are some more free sites that you can submit your articles to:

http://www.articlesubmission.com

http://ezinearticles.com

http://www.articlesfactory.com

http://www.infonexus.org

http://www.articlehub.com

Kristian Pulz is the owner of http://www.Links2See.com an online family directory and http://www.web2webgroup.com an interactive Yahoo Group for webmasters and website owners. He can be reached at webmaster@links2see.com