5 Secrets to rock Public Speaking 1/2

In today's business world we hurry from one meeting to another presentation to the next conference. We listen to endless speeches and presentations which are, to be honest, mostly quite boring. In my whole career so far I have never heard someone say "Yeah, I'm so looking forward to this meeting!"

This shows us that public speaking is all the more important! That's why I want to share with you the key learnings of a seminar from Bill Hoogterp (who is an exceptional speaker and coach) I took part in back in 2011 during my time at Siemens.

No, imagining the audience naked is none of these. 

1. Lower the filters

Our brain cannot process everything we see, hear and feel. That's why we have filters that let only necessary information pass. These filters can go up or down, depending on the situation.

Your audience will probably expect another boring speech. That's why you have to lower their filters at the beginning of a speech to get your message across. But how?

Source: Reactiongifs.com

The most important thing is the start of your speech. Please don't begin with "I want to present you why...". This will raise the filters immediately!

Why not begin with a question? Or a quote? Or a little poll (e.g. "Will everyone who has >insert topic/action< please stand up?"). Especially the poll will lower the filters of your audience because they have to be physically active.

It's up to you! Try new things, be creative. You will see that your audience will be more attentive (and thankful for not another boring speech).

2. Eliminate weak language

A lot of the words we say don't add any value to the content like 'actually', 'basically' or the typical 'um' and 'err'. That is weak language. But why do we use it? Because we're afraid of pauses.

To eliminate weak language, it takes a bit of practice. Try this: Fill 1/3 of a glass with Coca Cola, add 2/3 of still water. Sounds disgusting, right (Spoiler: it is!)? Now concentrate on what you're saying. Everytime you catch yourself using weak language, take a sip. You will soon find yourself rather not saying anything than drink more of that!

Source: Reactiongifs.com

Which leads us to our next point, telling you what to say instead: click here for the second part!

What Scubadiving in the UK really feels like

Our uni scubadiving club has a new awesome blog and we needed some awesome content to fill it. As I wanted to practise my storytelling and writing skills, I volunteerd to write a post about our first dive in a drysuit. As I have written it anyway, I can post it as well on my own blog.

If you’ve always been what I call “tropical diving” you may wonder how it feels like diving in the UK (aka diving in cold waters). You must know that I am the typical “warm water diver”, preferring bath tub temperature. Well, but here I am now in England, no bath tub in sight and it looks like I need to adapt to the conditions. So I am going to tell you about my first UK diving experience at Andark Lake in Southampton.

Before the dive we're smiling...still! (Charlotte, Joanna and me)

It took quite a time until everyone was fully equipped. Then we arranged our tanks and BCD. Until this point, everything is exactly like preparing for a dive in warm water. Now it comes to the drysuit. First, you need to wear some warm clothes underneath. I went for thermal leggings, jumpers and thick socks. My drysuit was a onesie with latex collar and sleeves. After the painstaking procedure of putting that thing on (girls with long hair suffer even more!), we got a hood and gloves and off we went! Waddling into the lake, I realised that the hood and the gloves were not waterproof. Ouch, that stings! I really can't imagine how my friend survived a wetsuit dive in the 4°C Starnberger Lake...

Going down, you feel the suit press onto your body as the water pressure increases (make sure to get the air out of your suit, otherwise you won’t go down!). We took some time to get familiar with the new conditions (limited mobility, visibility of less than 2m and the cold) then we practised some rescue skills like using the DSMB (Delayed Surface Marker Buoy). Soon, we got a bit chilly (these warm water divers cannot endure anything!) and went off to dry lands again. As it turned out, a drysuit doesn’t necessarily keep you dry…

Looks like I've been to the gym lately...

When I asked Charlotte, our instructor, why on earth she swapped her instructor job in Australia with the UK, her answer got me thinking: “Diving in the UK is challenging. In Australia, you always have good weather and good conditions whilst here not every dive is a good one. But when you have a good dive, it’s a very good one!”

I will probably always be a warm water diver, but at this moment I am so very ready for some adventurous UK diving!

Frieda goes PR

Literally, Frieda goes PR. Or rather went PR because I joined today's PR graduate conference from Solent PR. It was basically supposed for PR graduates to get in touch with PR Professionals and to receive tips for the future career, but all other years and us masters were invited, too. About 30 (I'm bad at guessing and didn't count) PR students attended the speeches of PR professionals (see bottom for further information). 

What, in my free time? Don't I have a life? Well, yes, I do have a life. However, I take my future career very serious and don't want to let any opportunities to shape it slip through my fingers. So, yes, I managed to overcome the urge to just stay in bed this morning and guess what, I didn't regret it!

I want to share my insights about a successful career start with you and want to tell you why it is important to attend events like these.

1. Know who you are

For a successful career start you need to know who you are, what you're good at and where you want to go. Then, and only then, you can convince a potential employer to hire you. Or have you ever seen a successful salesperson selling a product he has no idea of? Yes, you are the salesperson and your skills are the product. It is not all about degrees, passion is at least as important.

2. Know your audience

So you want to work at this fancy agency? Do you know what they do? Yes, of course, you probably know their clients (if you don't, then you'd better do some research!), but do you know their culture and their style? You can have the most creative video-application with QR-Code on your businesscard, if the agency is rather conservative, it will probably land in the bin. So make sure you know who you are applying to, and even more important, make sure you and your future employer go well together. 

3. Know the news

This one's easy. As a PR person, you make the news. You want to be in the news (well, not you, but rather your product, you know what I mean, don't you?). This is why you need to know today's headlines. 

(And because you should always practise what you preach, I'd better go and buy today's newspaper...)

These are just the tip of the iceberg though. There was so much more that was being discussed and presented today. Now you get it, right? It is so helpful to attend events like these. Not everyone has the opportunity to listen to and talk to professionals (networking!!), the more I wondered why almost no one took the chance to chat with the speakers at the 'Business lunch' afterwards.

However, I realised that for the next event I'd better get some business cards for me. 

Speakers and Industry Experts at Solent PR conference on 06 November 2014:

• Ilona Hitel, MD & Founder CommsCo
• Tomasz Dyl, Founder GottaBe Marketing
• Beth Ansell, Lemon Squeezy Marketing (Freelancer)
• Emma Hazan, Deputy MD in the UK, Hotwire
• Mark Stretton & Michelle Williams, Fleet Street Communications