What Should a Speaker’s Boundaries Be?

I was once asked to speak at a retreat which was 8 months away. Between the date that I was asked and that particular retreat I had four other retreats and numerous one-time events. I was also writing a weekly column, homeschooling my kids, and volunteering at my own local church.

The way that I handled my speaking engagements was I tried, as much as possible, to use the same talks or the same retreat packages to minimize prep time, and I would start getting ready for one after the previous one was done. So this particular retreat, probably in mid-May (I don’t remember now) I planned to start thinking about in early May.

But in November I received an email. Can I send all my notes and my handouts? And can I give feedback on the brochure and the graphics?

In December they wanted answers to whether I felt the schedule was good, so could I come up with my ideal schedule.

In January they wanted to meet for a prayer meeting with all of the committee members. Could I come for a three hour prayer meeting (this would have required a two hour drive one way).

And on and on it went. I was starting to get an email a week with questions.

Finally I had to put a stop to it. I told them I could not attend the prayer meeting, because I had other speaking engagements, and I had other responsibilities. But they could rest assured that if they covered me in prayer, I would be ready when the time came.

I received a Twitter message from a new speaker recently asking about a similar scenario. She had promised to teach a series of studies for free to a church, but the church wanted her to come and attend the service beforehand so that she could get a feel for the type of background these women came from. But the church is 1 1/2 hours from where she lives. And they would not be providing transportation.

These types of things are really quite common when we start speaking, and you’ll find that people will infringe on your time as much as they can. They will think:

• You cannot do a good job unless you know them intimately
• You must meet to pray with them or the prayer may not be effective
• They must know everything you are going to say ahead of time or the evening won’t be seamless
• They must get to know you as a person first

None of these things is true, by the way; but let me try to explain what is behind the urge to know you.

When churches run events, they are often very nervous. For the person running the event, this is probably her primary focus for months. This is all she is thinking about. And so she assumes that everyone else is, too.

And if you are not a seasoned speaker, she may assume that she has to keep a careful watch over you or everything will be horrible.

Ironically, I usually run into much more problems in this regard with smaller churches and smaller events than I do with large churches with big events. Large churches are used to putting on events, and know that things will go smoothly. They are used to working with seasoned speakers and are used to people being able to come in, do a good job, and leave. Small churches, which may be doing something new for the first time, are often much more nervous and much more demanding, especially when you are doing it for free, or for very little money. If you’re not charging much, then it’s a “labour of love”, and you should love it as much as they do. And so you should sacrifice more of your time!

That, however, does not work. If you allow your boundaries to be really stretched, then you will find yourself exhausted, guilty about the home life you are leaving behind and the other duties you are neglected, and often a little bitter when you actually do the engagement.

So how do you deal with these things? I prepare a letter which I send when a church books me, that says something like this:

Between now and the event, Sheila will do her utmost to prepare her heart and her mind to speak to your group. She will ask God for guidance during her daily devotions; she will pray specifically for this event and for the music team and others who will be ministering with her; and she will endeavour to tailor her talks to meet your needs.

Should you need specific information from Sheila, feel free to email, and she will try to get back to you within a few business days. However, her schedule is very full, with both family commitments, her own church commitments, and other speaking engagements, and so if other planning meetings are necessary, you can contact her about her fees for meetings outside of the agreed upon date.

And that usually does the trick!

I do believe that as speakers we have a responsibility to pray and prepare ourselves; but part of preparing ourselves is caring for our families and tending to our own personal responsibilities. So you cannot let a speaking engagement make undue demands on you. And what might some of those demands be?

• Speaking too much on the phone
• Driving for meetings when time is an issue, and mileage isn’t being reimbursed
• Asking for a complete outline of everything you will be saying more than two weeks before the event (even then, I rarely give one in case God changes my mind; I just give the main Bible passages and main points).
• Too frequent emails

The best way to deal with this is to reassure people that you have spoken before; that God always has a way of making everything tie together, and that you will be praying for the event. Then spell out your policy in writing, and that usually takes care of things.

Now it’s your turn: Have you ever had unreasonable demands on you before a speaking engagement? How did you handle it?

Use Your Words: Finding the Work/Life Balance

Well, somehow I got through another Use Your Words show with a throat that is absolutely killing me! So if I sounded funny, forgive me.

But today’s show was inspired by an email I received from Lisa, who said,

“how do you find the time for everything? How do you balance your work and your family? How do you figure out how to find time to market? I just feel like I never get anything done.”

I so feel your pain, Lisa. And so you can listen to the show right here. But here’s a synopsis for the rest of you:

1. Stop Apologizing for Your Ministry

When I started speaking and writing, I felt like it was something I was doing for me–stoking my own ego, so to speak. Therefore, I couldn’t take any time away from my daughters, or my home, or my marriage, or I was somehow cheating. I was being selfish. So the ministry came last. I had to make sure I was SuperMommy before I could go on the computer.

Stop it. If God is calling you to ministry, He wants you to take some time. You don’t have to apologize. You don’t have to compensate. You don’t have to work four times as hard in every other area of your life to get “permission” to do ministry. Ask for help, explain to your mate what you feel is your calling, talk to your friends about it, and stop feeling guilty.

2. Stop Apologizing to Yourself

But if we’re not feeling guilty for letting everyone else down, we often feel guilty for letting ourselves down. I should be accomplishing so much more, we think. I should be trying harder. I should be further ahead.

No. You do what you can, when you can. When my kids were young, I only had time to work while they napped. My ministry grew slowly. When they were older, I did what I could. I didn’t begin blogging or using social media until 2008, when they were able to do most of their homeschooling independently (they were 11 and 13 at the time). God may be calling you to something, but it may be something that grows slowly, in different stages of your life. That’s okay. Even in the beginning years, when you are busy with little ones, or in years when you’re busy taking care of older relatives, He’s still grooming you. He’s giving you great stories to tell one day! He’s giving you life experience. You can still read and learn and pray, even if you don’t do as much speaking now. That’s all right.

3. Stop Feeling Guilty About Not Keeping a Schedule

I used to feel guilty about not getting up at 6:30 to start my day off right. I have finally come to peace with the fact that I’m not a morning person. I often don’t go to sleep until 11:30 or midnight, so I”ll spend some “time” with my husband early in the evening, say from 10-11, and then he’ll go to sleep while I’m on my iPad until midnight, lying in bed beside him. That’s okay. I’m getting work done at night.

I also used to feel guilty because I read all these productivity magazine articles that said that I was supposed to have “work hours”. I tried that. It never worked. And I felt horrible about it. I tried working from 10-12, thinking that then I would get stuff done. But then we’d have doctor’s appointments, or Katie would need help with math, and I’d end up resenting he for it.

You need to do what works for you. I start a timer at the beginning of the day, and try to work for 2 1/2 hours on my big projects. I hit start, and get to work. When an interruption comes, I hit stop. And then when I sit back down, I hit start again. So over the day I’m trying to get to 2 1/2 hours. When I do get there, I stop. I go make dinner, or I relax, or I do something else.

I find working for 2 1/2 hours less stressful than saying, “I need to get this done today”, because then if you don’t get it doen you feel guilty. Instead, I do what I can in the hours that I have decided are reasonable.

One caveat: this doesn’t work well when you have small children. If you’re constantly trying to “snatch” time when there are preschoolers underfoot, you’ll end up resenting them because they’re always interrupting you. It’s better in that case to have time at night, when your husband has them, or to trade baby-sitting time with friends, or to work when they nap or when they watch a video (we used to save movies for when Mommy needed to work).

4. Figure out your main goal for the month

We all have endless to do lists on what we need to do to get our speaking ministry going. I need a better website. I need a Facebook page. I need to write my talk for the retreat. I need to send out my newsletter. I need to do this. Stop it. Just stop it. If you think in terms of your to-do list, you’ll never feel to done. You’ll always feel like you haven’t accomplished anything because there is always more to do.

Instead, think in terms of one or two big projects you want to work on this month. Maybe it’s getting an ebook together, or cold calling churches to book a speaking tour. Figure out your main goals (and if you have trouble focusing, my webinar, Treating Speaking Like a Business, gives you an amazing tool to figure out what is most useful for you to concentrate on, and what will most help your ministry). Then you’re focused, and the other stuff can get done later. You’ve taken care of the importan tthings.

Do these four things, and you’ll stop feeling so guilty! So listen in if you missed the show. And be sure to check out my webinar, Treating Speaking Like a Business!

Finding Partnerships to Grow Your Ministry

Let’s say that you want to speak to teenage girls about anorexia. You put together a workshop that will last all day, and you look at how to market it.

You can try to find a church to book it yourself, but it’s unlikely one church will have enough people that would be interested to make it worthwhile. Or you could try to book it in a hotel and invite a ton of churches out.

All of that sounds like a lot of work to me.

Or perhaps you want to put together a workshop on how to choose a spouse, and speak to university students. Again, you can try to contact a church, or a campus group, but that’s hard.

In both cases, there’s a better way.

Find a ministry that is already targeting your group/area of concern, and ask if you can partner with them.

This isn’t as scary as it seems. Let’s take the workshop on anorexia, for instance. What if you could find a ministry that already dealt with teenage girls? Or with women in general? Or with eating disorders? Or when it comes to the premarital stuff, you could find a marriage ministry that didn’t really deal with engaged couples yet. Or a big campus ministry group.

Many groups are already doing ministry, but everyone is cash strapped. They’re often eager to expand what they offer, but they don’t have the money to do so. If you can come alongside and say,

I see you have a hole in your ministry–an area that isn’t currently being filled. I would love to fill that for you.

They may just say yes! Especially if you don’t ask for money.

“What’s that?” you say. Don’t ask for money?

That’s right. Don’t ask for money. Because few ministries have extra money lying around today anyway. But if they can expand their ministry, and reach new people, they may be eager to do it.

If you don’t ask for money, what’s the purpose of a partnership? Well, they can provide you with other things.

They might be able to:

• Provide posters/graphic design for you
• Give you access to their email database to send out invitations to your events
• Lend you their name so you have credibility
• Call churches for you to arrange an introduction
• Allow you to incorporate some of the materials they already have
• Sell your materials on their website and at their conferences

I know some people right now who are trying to start a new ministry for people in job transition. It’s a great idea, but it’s a hard one to do on their own, and they’re sending out tons of emails and aren’t necessarily getting a big response. I know people want to maintain ownership of their ministries, but I think you can still do that by being under the auspices of something bigger. For instance, if you wanted to do something in job transition, I’d contact some of the Christian financial planning agencies or financial services companies and see if they’d be interested in your workshops. Again, you don’t have to charge, but having their name behind you gives you tons of credibility. And then they may even book you to do other things!

These partnerships aren’t necessarily easy to find, but I do think they’re worth investigating if  you want to veer off the traditional Christian women’s ministry speaking gigs (speaking at churches to general audiences) to speak in a niche market. When you’re in a niche market, you need something bigger behind you in order to get enough people at your events. It’s very hard to do on your own.

So brainstorm about who is trying to reach the same people you are, or who might see what you offer as an interesting expansion on what they already do. And then start sending out feelers. Don’t just sell yourself, but send out an email introducing yourself and asking if you can talk with them on the phone or in person about their vision and see if you could establish a mutually beneficial relationship. Make sure that you have something to offer–like showing a promotional video of theirs to your audience, or giving your audience out information from that organization, or anything. But if it’s a win-win, many organizations will be willing to do it.

You’ll need some testimonials that say how good you are, and likely a DVD or a recording of what you do, along with your own promotional materials. But don’t overlook the benefits of combining ministries. Sure, you may give up a bit of control. Yes, you may give up the potential of huge name recognition. But few of us are going to create huge ministries on our own, anyway. I think partnerships offer you the opportunity to get off the ground quicker, and are far more strategic for advancing the kingdom, anyway.

I’ve had partnerships with FamilyLife Canada and World Vision Canada, and they’ve gone so well. Anyone else had experiences like this? Let me know!

How to Stop Nervousness When You Speak

Today on Use Your Words BlogTalkRadio, I talked about how to end nervousness! And you’ll be happy to know I didn’t say anything about picturing people in their underwear.

Listen in to the show here for great tips! It’s thirty minutes long, and well worth your time.

But here are a few highlights:

1. Practice one talk really well

You don’t have to create a new talk each time you speak. Use one talk, and adapt it to fit the theme that people ask you to speak on. The more you deliver your one talk, the more confident you will feel.

2. Be careful of speeding

When we’re nervous we tend to speak quickly. To stop this, make a habit of stressing one word per sentence, which forces you to vary your speed. Just keep emphasizing SOMETHING, all the time. You can also write throughout your notes the time that you’re supposed to be at different points. I write it in two minute intervals when I’m getting used to a new talk. I practice the talk, and then I bring a timer up to the podium with me, setting start when I begin speaking. Throughout my notes, it shows me where I should be at 7 minutes, or at 9 minutes. If I get there early, I know I’m speeding!

3. Be Careful of Filler Words

Fortify yourself on chocolate if you need to first, but then listen to a recording of yourself speak. Do you say filler words, like Ummmm, you know, right? If you do, learn to take a deep breath between sentences rather than trying to fill the space. Read this post for more information on overcoming filler words.

4. Use Stories

The more you use stories in your talk, rather than many theological points, the less nervous you will be. It is hard to keep 15 “proof texts” straight in your head, and that’s why we tend to rely on notes. But if you use one main Bible passage, and the rest of your talk uses illustrations and stories that expound the message of that passage, it’s easier to keep everything straight in your head.

For more information on how to do this well, check out my downloadable seminar, “Crafting Your Life Changing Signature Talk”.

5. Step Away from the Podium

Often we read our notes verbatim, or we cling to that podium, because it forms a barrier between us and our audience, which makes us less nervous. But even if we feel less nervous, we appear more so, and it isn’t very effective.

Learn to step away from the podium. This is easier to do if you don’t write your notes out verbatim, but instead just write down the names of the stories or illusrations you’re using. Then, when you go to tell a story, step away from the podium. Keep one hand on it, if you need to, just so that your hands know what to do, but you appear much more confident if you’re not always behind that podium!

There’s lots more in the Use Your Words show! So listen in, and remember, if you have questions you want me to tackle in one of the FREE BlogTalkRadio shows, let me know in the comments!

Is It “Unspiritual” To Charge a Fee When You Speak?

photo © 2008 Horia Varlan | more info (via: Wylio)

I’ve been conducting speaker training for two years now. Most of you who come to this site truly want to speak in the Christian world. You want to speak in churches, at camps, to youth groups. You want to make a difference for God. You want to share the message that God has given you. But you can’t do this without receiving some sort of compensation, because you need to be bringing in some income.

Does that make you unspiritual?

That’s an important question, and it’s interesting that it seems to come up pretty much solely concerning female speakers. Male speakers, after all, are paid all the time. They’re called “pastors”. But many ministries to women exist that do not really believe in compensating their speakers.

In fact, I read a thread from one of these ministries where people were appalled that one speaker asked for about $150 to cover her gas, rather than the traditional $50 or $75 that the group paid. How could she think of doing that?

And yet, my question would be, how could she not?

I’m afraid that many women speakers are battling this idea that to ask for money makes us unspiritual. I find this puzzling, because at these Christian events, the people have paid caterers. They have bought decorations (and thus paid stores). They have, at times, rented halls. It was not unspiritual to pay for food; it is only unspiritual to pay for food for your soul. Very strange.

But I’m also opposed to it for two reasons: the first is scriptural. The second is practical. Let’s tackle them both in turn.

1. The worker is worth his wages.

The Bible clearly states in 1 Timothy 5:18 that “the laborer is worthy of his wages”.

In other words, those who are involved in ministry should be paid. They should not be expected to do it for free. Certainly those in the New Testament church sold their belongings and gave to the poor, but that was their choice, and they were giving to their own community. I often take the money that I receive from speaking and give it away, but I give it away to the charities I support. If I go to a church that is two hundred miles from where I live, I do not know that church or its ministry. I want to support the ministries that I do know. To expect a guest, who is not part of your fellowship, to pay your fellowship for the privilege of speaking (which is what it amounts to if a group does not pay adequate travel expenses), is unreasonable.

Now some groups don’t pay because they don’t have the money. I’ve spoken at both churches and groups who apologize profusely for not paying, and I don’t mind that at all. They have little money, and so they can’ t pay, even if they want to. What bothers me is the groups that make it an issue of spiritual pride that they do not pay, so that no one becomes puffed up. I think this is a misunderstanding of Scripture, and can be damaging to their own group.

2. If you don’t pay, you damage your own ministry

Here’s where I really see the problem, though. Becoming a gifted, effective speaker is something that takes work. Yes, we are gifted, but that gifting needs to be trained. It needs practice. I have always been a gifted speaker, but I am so much better today than I was eight years ago because I have had so much practice.

Who are the best speakers out there today? Those who are actually speaking to groups that hire only good speakers. When a medium-to-large size church hires a speaker for an evening, that speaker knows that he or she has to really prepare. She has to be engaging. She has to be a little bit funny. She has to be able to speak well. She has to have an effective, well-crafted message. And so she works hard to be that.

The groups who insist on not really paying speakers are also saying, “we don’t believe that speakers should have practice or a lot of training, because that’s worldly.” Certainly they may give some training themselves, and I know groups that do train their speakers to a certain extent, but the best speakers are those who have spoken to a variety of groups, not just one type of group. They are speakers who have had to adjust to different personalities or circumstances. Speakers who have had to develop different talks, or gone deeper into the Word to find new material and new thoughts.

I used to speak for a group that didn’t really pay, going to a number of different circuits and speaking to a number of different individual groups under their umbrella. And I can tell you that the quality of speaker there differed tremendously from the quality of speaker at most women’s conferences I attended, simply because once people got good, they left.

Some women are comfortable speaking for no money, because that’s their ministry, and if God is calling you to that, that is perfectly okay. But we need to understand that it is not unspiritual to be paid for one’s work, and in fact, being paid for one’s work usually brings better quality.

I still speak for free occasionally when I feel God prompting me to. I often speak for little or no money when it’s a real opportunity to share the gospel to people who haven’t heard. But I don’t speak for organizations who refuse to pay speakers well as a rule, thinking that this is spiritual. It’s not. What they’re really looking for in speakers are people who are completely dedicated to their particular ministry, and not to ministry as a whole. That cuts down the number of potential speakers drastically.

It also puts an undo burden on the speakers, asking them to be away from home–from family responsibilities, from children, from their own churches–far more than the organizers of these events are. The speakers travel; the others don’t. And they are asking the speakers to take the money out of their family’s pockets to pay for these speaking trips, because it costs money to drive to different groups. They say this should be done in the name of “ministry”, but I question whether it is ministry to ask children or husbands to sacrifice without compensation. That can cause a lot of family friction and hardship.

I come back to the Bible: “a worker is worth his wages”.

My conclusion? Listen to the Holy Spirit and be open to speaking for free. But you are not unspiritual if you ask to be paid. You are simply being faithful to your family and enabling yourself to grow as a speaker, and that is a good thing.

What do you think? I know this is a controversial subject, and I’d love to have some of you chime in!

How to Use Photos to Get the Word Out

You’re a Christian women’s speaker. You speak at church events. You do it for the glory of God. So thinking about marketing your speaking ministry sounds weird. Is that really part of ministry?

Yes, it is, because if God has given you a message, you should want to get it out there. And you can only get it out there if people have heard of you and if you capture their attention long enough to get them to suggest you or hire you.

So let’s look at one of the best marketing tools you have: pictures of yourself. You can use pictures in a whole variety of ways to get people’s attention, but to do that, you need one thing first: a professional photograph of yourself, taken by a professional photographer. It should look interesting, should portray you in your best light, and should make you look like you take ministry seriously.

I waited too long to pay for a professional photo. I settled for some that were just awful, and they were embarrassing on my website. One day I was asked to be on the most popular Christian radio show in Canada, and I sent them my photo to put up on their website before the fact. The host gently told me the photo wasn’t up to snuff–and honestly, it wasn’t that bad. It just obviously wasn’t a professional photograph. So don’t settle for your sister taking a picture of your smiling face. Ask someone who knows what they’re doing!

I finally paid for a photo shoot, and now I have 15 different pictures I can use at different times, and it’s so freeing!

Of course, it’s almost time for some new ones, because my hair keeps changing, but that’s one of the dangers of being a woman.

So get a professional photograph. And then here’s what you do with pictures:

1. Put them prominently on your website

Use a variety of pictures, if possible, on each page. People like visual things. Embed one picture into your header on your website so that it’s on every page, but you can add different pictures of yourself on other pages. They don’t all have to be super quality; as long as one really good one is in the header, you can include action or candid shots on the other. But include lots, to make it seem as if you’re very busy. The busier you seem, the more people will want to hire you!

2. Take pictures every time you speak

Whenever you  speak, ask someone in the audience to take pictures. Hand them your camera, show them what to do, and tell them to shoot away! And ask them to take a ton, because I find that usually only 10% are usable. So get them to take lots so you have lots of choice.

And make sure you get pictures when you’re just chatting with people after the talk, or sitting at a table with people at a dinner. People like the action shots and not just the shots of you at the podium.

3. Put them up on Facebook

Even if they’re not great, after each engagement, post pictures to Facebook, both to your page and to your profile. This is easy to do by uploading them to your page and then tagging yourself in them using your profile account, and then they show  up in both news feeds.

If they’re not great, I often upload them to Facebook and my blog and then delete them from my camera card, because I don’t need to save everything. But putting them up as often as possible reminds people: Hey! She speaks! And that may sound silly, but often people forget (especially your friends). Remind them, and they’re more likely to recommend you.

4. Wear different outfits as much as possible

This may sound a little too image-conscious, but I try to not repeat the same outfit very often, or at least within the last 2-3 speaking engagements. That way I have pictures of myself speaking in different clothes, which reinforce the fact: Hey! She’s doing LOTS of speaking! If you always speak in the same clothes, then the pictures can look as if they were taken on the same day, and people don’t have the same impression that you speak lots.

Give them the idea that you speak lots, and they will think of you as being in demand and want to hire you more.

5. Use pictures for video

You can make a video of your ministry without actual video. As long as  you have an .mp3 of you speaking, you can combine that with still photos and create a short promo video. Candy Troutman, one of my students, made one here. So never underestimate the power of what you can do with photos!

6. Send out newsletters

You should be sending out a monthly newsletter to those on your email list. Include speaking photos from the last month in that newsletter–or at least photos from engagements that perhaps you haven’t highlighted yet. Again, let people remember, “she speaks A LOT”, and then they’re more likely to ask you to speak for them.

Note that you can’t do many of these things if you don’t take pictures. So be sure to take as many as you can everytime you speak, and you’ll find your ministry growing!

Use Your Words: What Should I Charge for Speaking?

photo © 2008 Tyler | more info (via: Wylio)
What are the going Christian speaker fees? What do Christian speakers charge? And how in the world do I ask for it?

That’s the most common question I get from people–how do I figure out what to charge for speaking? What do other people charge? And is it selfish to ask for money?

On this week’s Use Your Words program, I tackled this thorny issue. I’ve already written a longer blog post about deciding what to charge. That really is useful for getting into the nitty gritty! But let me sum up here.

Once people start asking you to speak, as opposed to you generating the engagements, then you should definitely charge.

Some organizations pay about $50 or $75, but let’s face it: that doesn’t even cover your mileage. So you need to figure out what to ask for.

When I started out, here was my thinking:

If I had to support myself, what would I need to make? Then what is that on an hourly basis? (basically divide it in half and then divide by $1000. So $50,000 a year is $25 an hour).

If I want to make $25 an hour, then what do I charge for an event where I speak for one hour? Well, you have to look at what goes into that hour:

• Time spent speaking
• Time spent at the engagement
• Average time of travel for the engagements you do
• Time spent in preparation

But then there are also other hours that you have to account for, like:

• Time spent building a website
• Time spent networking
• Time spent in training/study

Once I worked all that out, it looked like I was spending about 8 hours directly for each engagement, and then I averaged about another 3 hours that I had to add in to each engagement to cover my other time. And that gave me a figure.

• Then, take that fee and double it for an all day Saturday engagement.
• Take that fee and AT LEAST triple it for a weekend engagement

And remember, expenses are billed separately! So check out the blog post for more information, and listen in to the radio show for my explanation of fees.

And, if, after that, you still have questions, ask in the comments. This is such an important question, and I want to really help. So ask away, and I’ll write a follow up post trying to answer them all!

If you want to learn more about how to earn larger fees and start using business principles to grow your ministry, check out my audio downlaod, Treating Speaking as a Business. It’s only $12, and comes with a spreadsheet that helps you prioritize your marketing ideas and figure out where to grow. I know it will help!

7 Ways to Bore Your Audience

photo © 2005 Jason Scragz | more info (via: Wylio)
It’s every speaker’s worst nightmare. You’re speaking, and you look across the audience, and everybody’s looking dazed. Some are obviously texting. A few are nodding off. And a bunch are writing things down–but you’re pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re talking about. It’s probably a shopping list.

Boring people silly is awfully easy to do. In fact, all you have to do to bore people is follow these 7 steps:

1. Don’t Tell Anything About Yourself

If you want to bore your audience, keep the talk very impersonal. Don’t tell stories about yourself; just focus on the biblical text. In fact, don’t tell stories at all! If you’re talking about prayer, tell people how to pray, but above all, don’t give any illustrations of people who have prayed. Don’t tell anything inspirational; just lecture people on what they should be doing.

And if you do tell stories, make sure they’re not about you, because audiences actually enjoy hearing about the speaker. If you tell people about what you’ve gone through, it gives you credibility, and it makes people’s heads shoot up and listen to what you’re saying. So instead, steer clear of anything personal, and try to lecture, as if you are better than they are. Nothing glazes people’s eyes over more than that!

2. Read Your Whole Talk

If you have to read it to remember it, then people will realize that your talk is really very forgettable! So they won’t listen, either. I know that learning to give your talk without notes is tough, but at least when you get to the story part of the talk, try to do that without looking down.

Much of the emotion in a room is conveyed from body language–eye to eye contact. When you’re not making any eye-to-eye contact, they won’t pick up on the emotion, even if it’s a powerful story, and even if you’re being quite funny. They need to see your eyeballs.

When they don’t see your eyes, they’ll tune out and start thinking about other things. So reading verbatim is a great way to turn people off!

3. Teach People In-Depth

If the cure for boredom is engaging stories, then often the cause of boredom is too much lecturing! Yes, you may have a ton of knowledge that you want to impart, but if all you do is impart knowledge, telling them what they should be doing and how they should be doing, without offering any illustration of someone who did this and is now better off, or someone who didn’t do this and is now worse off, or even something completely different, like an illustration from nature, then you’ll bore them for sure.

People learn not by hearing what they should be doing; they learn by emotionally engaging with the speaker and the speaker’s stories, and then taking that emotion and combining it with the head knowledge  you’ve already given. That way they buy into the message! If you just give head knowledge, it likely won’t move to their hearts. And it’s also less likely to enter their ears, because they’ll realize “this isn’t really relevant for me”. And they’ll stop listening.

4. Use Too Many Points

Do you have six points? Seven points? Are you sharing the 8 Ps of Prayer? Or going into depth on every single one of the fruits of the spirit?

That’s too many subjects for people to focus on, and it will definitely result in boredom. Often speakers have the audience’s attention for the first two points, but they lose it when they keep saying, “next”, or “and another thing”. It’s better to take far longer on each point, and only have 1 or 2, then to have 13 or 14. People will realize, “I can’t remember all this, so why bother listening?” And they will stop. And they will be bored!

5. Speak in a Monotone

Have you ever been trying to make a toddler go to sleep by reading a story, like Goodnight Moon? How do you read it? Chances are you speak slowly, in a monotone, so that you don’t arouse any emotion in that child except perhaps that urge to close one’s eyes.

So if you want to bore people, pretend you’re tucking your grandson into bed! Talk in that monotone. Don’t change the speed, or the tone, or the pitch of your voice. Speak always equally fast, or equally slow. Be like background noise when someone’s trying to drift off, like a fan. You’ll lose them for sure!

On the other hand, if you speed up during your interesting stories, and then suddenly slow down when you’re making an important point, you’ll jerk them out of their stupor and they’ll start listening to you again. If you vary your pitch, making your voice lower when you’re making a point you want them to take home, and higher when you’re being funny, then they’ll have an easier time following you, and they won’t drift off!

6. Put all your main points and sub-points on PowerPoint

Put cute pictures of kittens up on Powerpoint, and people wake up. Use Powerpoint to show interesting illustrations or pictures, and people will start engaging in what you’re saying.

But if you want to bore them, write out all your main points on Powerpoint, complete with bullets and subpoints, so they can read along with you as you speak. Little bores people more, so this is a sure winner!

When you have all your subpoints on Powerpoint, then people know exactly what you’re about to say, and when they can read it in black and white, it quite frankly does not look all that interesting. By putting it up on a screen, you also subliminally give the message, “you won’t remember this just from my voice, since I’m not interesting enough, so I’m going to put everything up here so you can read it, too.” That way you give the impression that they really don’t need to listen to you. And they’ll plan their grocery shopping list in their heads instead!

7. Use Proof Texts for every second sentence

A final surefire way to turn off your audience: proof text everything you say. Sure, you may have a main Bible passage that you have read, and you may have one or two verses which illustrate it nicely. But if you want people to lose interest, the best thing is to find not one but five verses that say the same thing, and read them all. And everytime you make a statement, even if it’s relatively obvious, like “prayer is a good thing,” read a verse which says that, too.

Sure, if you use a lot of Bible verses it shows people that you know your Bible well, and that you’re only saying things which God already said. But you also tell people something else. You say: I’m nervous about my talk, and I need to prove to you that I have authority to say this.

Everybody wants to hear a talk grounded in the Bible, but they also are here for your interpretation. That, after all, is why you were asked to speak. If you need to take a walk through every book of the Bible to show something fairly rudimentary, then you’ll cause people to drift off for sure. They’ll think you have nothing new to say. You have nothing relevant to our culture to say. You have nothing authoritative to say. A speaker who keeps their audience engaged keeps coming back to the main passage they use over and over to reinforce that passage. But a speaker who wants to bore his or her audience jumps around like crazy to add gravitas, and it almost always backfires.

So there you go: a 7-fold plan to bore audiences! There are times when cynically I must admit I think they teach these things in school, because I hear people following every single one of these rules. If you want to bore your audience, by all means, do so. But if you want an engaged audience, who listens to what you say, thinks about you say, and then applies what you say, you’d do best to run in the opposite direction!

This summer I’m thinking of running some webinars on helping people perfect their anecdotes–those little illustrations we use when we speak. Would you be interested in that? Then be sure to sign up here for information when we start!

How to Create a Platform for Your Ministry

photo © 2008 daretoeatapeach | more info (via: Wylio)

Platform. It’s a word we hear all the time in the speaking/writing business, but what does it really mean?

Today on my Use Your Words BlogTalkRadio show I talked about platform: the best ways to build one, and what’s really important. Listen in to that show here! Tons of great information.

But let me sum up.

A platform is usually defined as:

The number of people who interact with you; it’s usually expressed as a number, and it encompasses the number of people who hear you speak each year; the number of people who visit your website every week; the number of followers you have on your Facebook account/Facebook page, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.; the number of people who watch you on TV or listen to you on the radio; and the number of people on your email list.

That sounds daunting I know, but add all those things up and you can get a number. That’s the number that publishers, for instance, want to see in any book proposal.

The problem is: if you are starting out, where do you concentrate on building your platform? Are there some that are more useful than others?

Definitely. In fact, I would prefer that people defined platform more like this:

The number of people who visit you regularly and who interact with you and who are interested in what you have to say.

I know people with thousands upon thousands of followers on Twitter, but they aren’t targeted followers. They aren’t specifically in their niche, and so they do little for them. It’s better to have people who are excited about you! So let’s look at platform building from the two different sides: Authors and Speakers.

How Authors should Build Platforms

While speaking definitely builds platform, it does it in a limited way. First, it tends to be limited by geography; we tend to start speaking closer to home because that’s where we’re known. It’s hard to get known across the country speaking when your’e just starting out.

So for authors working on a platform, the place to really concentrate is on building an online community, which can reach anyone, and building for radio and television appearances.

Online, remember that Facebook and Twitter and blogs all work together. Twitter sends people to your blog. Blogs provide the content. And people talk about that blog on Facebook! I find Twitter a good place to meet new people in my niche, but in the end, Facebook sends way more people to my blog than Twitter does. It’s much more effective. So work on getting a Facebook Page set up, and make sure to link it to your blog.

And on your blog, write quality content that is specific to your niche. If you’re writing about parenting, don’t go off on politics. Stick to your defined category, so that people know who you are and what to expect. That keeps people coming back for more!

This seems like a lot of work, and if the idea of starting a blog or a Facebook Page sounds daunting, and you don’t know what Twitter is, my audio download “Build Your Online Community” can help. I also have a much more in-depth e-course on how to Build Your Online Community, which is 4 modules long and ends with how to throw an online party for your book (mine brought in $1000 in sales in one day).

How a Speaker Builds a Platform

For speakers, online communities are not quite as important. You’re not trying to sell a book; you’re trying to get speaking engagements. For you, then, the emphasis is different.

Nevertheless, you still need a website! As we talked about last week, before anyone hires you they will look at your website. So have a place where you list your topics and post any videos.

The next best thing you can do to build your platform is simply to network. It is much easier to get hired to speak if people know who you are. So go out to the fundraisers for Christian radio or TV in your area. Get to know these people! Join community-wide committees for Christian ministries. Form a group of ministry leaders that goes out to breakfast once a month. Attend writers or speakers conferences. The best networking I have done is at our annual writers’ conference, where I met my current agent, and the guy who books my speaking engagements, and lots of TV personalities.

Whether you’re a speaker or a writer, having people who you’re engaged with on a regular basis will help you grow your ministry! So keep track of key people. Send out email newsletters. And make sure your website is top notch! That will help you get better known, and help people remember your name when they’re standing in a bookstore, or when they’re thinking of who to hire for their Christmas outreach!

If you want to hear more about this subject, don’t forget to listen in to the show, where I go much more in-depth!

And if you have other things you want me to talk about it in Use Your Words, leave some ideas in the comments! I’m here to help you!

Prioritizing Your List: How Do I Know Where to Focus My Efforts?

photo © 2007 sunshinecity | more info (via: Wylio)
I’m an ideas person. When an idea strikes me, I get so excited about it! Unfortunately, about five minutes later I’ll get another idea, and I’ll get excited about it, too!

So which should I do first? And how do I decide?

Over the years that I’ve been trying to build my speaking ministry, one of the hardest things was feeling guilty about all the things I COULD be doing, but wasn’t. I knew blogging would help my name recognition, but it took me years to start. I knew I could self-publish a book, but it took a long time to get around to it. I knew I should join more networks online, but I didn’t have time.

The more ideas I came up with, the more guilty I felt.

Then I developed a tool that helped me rank my ideas to see which ones were actually worth pursuing. After all, not all ideas are equally good. I decided to rate everything on four different scales, based on how much time they would take to completion, how much money they would cost to complete, how much money they would bring in, how much they would add to my name recognition/platform, and how much they would contribute to expanding God’s kingdom.

I added a few more metrics in there, and then weighted each category. Thus, something that cost no money and was relatively fast to do would rank higher than something that cost a ton of money and took a ton of time, if each contributed to name recognition roughly the same.

When I filled out the sheet, I was initially surprised. I thought I should be self-publishing a book; what this sheet told me was that I should start speaker training instead (which is why I’m here, on this blog!). I thought I should do more with LinkedIn; it turned out that blogging was more effective for me.

I decided other people may find that worksheet helpful, so I turned it into an Excel spreadsheet, and I include it with my audio download, “Treating Speaking as a Business“. When you order that talk, you get the tool free.

And recently Julie Chandler, one of my “speaking students” whom I also met while I was on tour in Alberta recently, sent me an email explaining how it had helped her. She says:

This is what I did with my list on the Time Management worksheet…I’m a visual person, so after I numbered them in order of importance, I put them in this form and printed it out.  I also put sticky notes on each section from an average of 35 minutes/day to the bottom average of 5 minutes/day.  It helps me to remember what to focus on…for results.
 
What I learned:  I’ve been spending too much time on twitter for the results.  (I purchased a tweet program a while ago, so I’ll just automate many of tweets…)  I was also sure I should/would go to one or two conferences in the States this year.  But, now that I look at this (I’ll need to pray, but…) I’m thinking it may be better to focus on a little networking here in Calgary, work on an e-book and possibly start up my show on blogtalkradio again!!!
 
Thanks so so much!  I feel much more settled now.  That Time Management chart is a great way to organize all the thoughts I have had about what I could/should/want to be doing.

 Julie, who wrote Orphans and the Fatherless, has now redesigned her priorities. Here they are from 1-15 (some tied):

1.  create cds (of talks)
2.  speaking
3.  prayer page – facebook or…
4.  radio interviews
5.  write talks
6.  podcast interviews
7.  TV interviews
8.  telephone calls to libraries etc…
8.  go to conferences in Canada (Calgary)
9.  create my website
10.  strategic alliances
11.  get in Christian newspapers
11.  write “how to” e-book — ie. fundraising
12.  speaker training
12.  update O. website
13.  Networking ie. breakfast
13.  host a podcast
14.  write book (takes some research)
15.  do contests
15.  “blog tour”

If you’re struggling with where to focus your limited time, this tool is so valuable! It puts things right there in black and white for you, so that you know whether something is worthwhile or not. And it helps you focus on the areas that can be most effective for the least amoung of money/time.

You can get all of that for free when you order the download, “Treating Speaking as a Business“. So check it out! And I hope it helps you as it helped Julie.