CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – DECEMBER 26, 2020 How to speak with confidence in public Focus on your message When you’re presenting focus on what you’re saying and why this message needs to be delivered to the audience. This will keep you connected with your speech and will prevent you from being distracted by, for example, an audience member falling asleep or your evaluation of how the presentation is going. Instead you’ll be connecting to the listeners who finding your presentation valuable. Create a stage persona It can be tempting to imitate favored public speakers but it’s better to work out what your characteristics as a speaker are and then amplify these. To develop a confident stage persona ask yourself: What are my…

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HARDISON’S TIPS – DECEMBER 25, 2020 – Get the Most Out of the Week After Christmas Did you know the week between Christmas and New Year’s can be a big game-changer for the profitability of your business? If done right, you can net more from this period than any same number of days period during the year. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of the end of the year for your retail store. Customer Experience Consider the day after Christmas the official launch of gift card season. People are in your store to use the gift cards they got for Christmas. Think of some ways you can add a little something extra to those customers’ experience. After all, it may be…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – DECEMBER 25, 2020 How to speak with confidence in public Practice If you’re very familiar with the content of your presentation, your audience will perceive you as confident. Practicing tips: Don’t just read the presentation through – practice everything, including your transitions and using your visual aids. Stand up and speak it aloud as though you were presenting to an audience. Ensure that you practice your body language and gesturing. Practice in front of others and get their feedback. Film yourself presenting and watch it back. Freely improvise so you’ll sound more natural on the day. Don’t learn your presentation verbatim because you will sound uninterested and if you lose focus then you may forget everything. Confident body language You’ll notice…

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HARDISON’S TIPS – DECEMBER 24, 2020 – Invaluable Sales Tips From a Former Door-to-Door Salesman 5. Don’t string yourself along. Sometimes, prospects are only claiming they need to think about it or discuss it with other people. They’ve already decided not to buy, and just don’t want to break your spirit — at least not to your face. So how do you stop the cycle of endless calls to see whether they’ve decided? Change the question. Don’t ask people simply whether they have a decision. Instead, ask: “Can you see yourself making this purchase within the next month?” A colleague of mine in door-to-door sales finally made this change, and the vast majority of those he called finally said “no.” It was a painful realization…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – DECEMBER 24, 2020 How to speak with confidence in public An estimated 75% of adults suffer from a fear of public speaking. When stress hormones are released we may behave differently – frequently, our minds go blank, our voices become harder to control, we may visibly shake etc. Even professional public speakers have to deal with nerves but they have techniques to cope. In this article, we discuss ways of speaking with confidence in public. Preparation and organization Be prepared and organized for your presentation because this increases your control and less things can go wrong. For example: Visit the venue and room you’ll be presenting in beforehand Ensure you print any materials you need at least the day…

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HARDISON’S TIPS – DECEMBER 23, 2020 – Invaluable Sales Tips From a Former Door-to-Door Salesman 3. Don’t try to convince. This seems counterintuitive, but it’s essential. If you go into sales thinking that you need to “make” people buy, you’ll fail. Unless you’re a cute little kid selling cookies in the street for a dollar, pressure isn’t going to work. People see what you’re doing, they don’t trust you, and they don’t believe what you’re telling them. Instead, get to know people. Your mission is to understand them. What are they going through? What are their ambitions and needs? Focus on them, first and foremost. The product comes second. Once you understand their story, you can connect the dots for them. You can show them…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – DECEMBER 23, 2020 TIP #4: INCLUDE STORIES IN YOUR SPEAKING If you are interested in influencing people at a deeper level, then use stories. Paul Zak, a neurochemist specializing in brain chemistry once said that “Stories are powerful because they transport us into other people’s worlds but, in doing that, they change the way our brains work and potentially change our brain chemistry.”  The operative phrase, “change our brain chemistry” provides such deep insight into how powerful stories are. If you are not using stories then you are leaving a lot of power on the table. Most women I work with think the story they share has to be incredible in some way. Nothing is further from the…

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HARDISON’S TIPS – DECEMBER 22, 2020 – Invaluable Sales Tips From a Former Door-to-Door Salesman When I tell people that I was a door-to-door salesman — yes, in this century — some are shocked. They didn’t even know that kind of work still exists. Granted, it’s rare. But it’s the best sales education I could have received. Knocking on doors to sell books taught me invaluable lessons that apply to every form of sales. There’s no question these lessons helped me co-found a successful tech startup, Pipedrive.  Here are five tips I learned the hard way. 1. Get to “no” faster. You will be rejected. Often. There’s no way around that. No one has a 100% close ratio. When I was knocking on doors, one person called…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – DECEMBER 22, 2020 Public Speaking Tips For Women TIP #1: PROJECT CONFIDENCE Have you ever heard the phrase, “It’s not about what you say, it’s how you say it”? There’s truth in that saying.  This is important because as women we can often be seen as being too meek and modest or too strong and aggressive in our speaking. The goal should be to strike a balance and that balance comes from authentic, confident self-expression.  According to a doctoral thesis examining the subject from the University of Wolverhampton, “a highly confident speaker is viewed as being more accurate, competent, credible, intelligent, knowledgeable, likable, and believable than a less confident, uncertain speaker.” In my opinion, confidence is the most important…

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HARDISON’S TIPS – DECEMBER 21, 2020 – HOW TO GET SALES THE WEEK AFTER CHRISTMAS 1) Mark it down. Aggressively get rid of the laggards from last year. Not sure what to clear out? Checkout my post on clearance items Balancing Your Retail Inventory and download a checklist of the ten types of merchandise to put on sale. Ideally start the markdowns on Christmas Eve so all you have to do is open your doors the day after. 2) Get them in the door. Update your Facebook Fan page on Christmas Eve with your sales information. Don’t be too specific but give it a headline, something like, Get what they forgot – for less or You gave them a little something before Christmas; how about a bigger something for you now? Send out an email…

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