How I Got My Start as a Public Speaker | Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy describes his personal journey into professional public speaking, including early challenges (very small, unprofitable audiences), the importance of repeated practice, and concrete techniques for effective presentations. He emphasizes preparation (calling it 90% of success), a simple three-part structure (tell them what you will tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them), and audience-centered messaging, using sales examples (prospecting, presenting, closing) to illustrate points.
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Hello, I'm Brian Tracy, and today I want to talk to you about public speaking and how you can learn to do it and become excellent at it and how it can actually change your life. Wonderfully enough, Public speaking, like any skill, is a learnable skill. Although everybody starts off and according to the Guinness book of records, 54% of adults rate public speaking above the fear of death as among life's greatest fears, everybody is terrified. Sometimes I would say to my audience, I say, now, later on today, I'm going to call one of you in this audience up here to tell us what you've learned and what you most benefited from. In my talk, I'm going to call one of you up here, and I'm not going to tell you who it is. It's going to be a surprise. And I stop. I say, now, how did you feel when you heard me say that? And I was sweeping and looking at the whole audience. What happens is their solar plexus went. Every person's. Their heart sped up. They felt nervous. Everybody in the room got choked up with the very idea that they might be called up to speak. So one of the things we need to do is you need to get over the fear of public speaking. And you know, how you do that is you learn how to do it as I'll show you in a couple of minutes, and then you just do it over and over again. And at the beginning, you'll have very high level of fear. But as you do it and you get positive responses from your audience, you will fear less and less and less. So I started off learning about public speaking. Actually, several decades ago, I realized that the most successful people in my industry had the ability to stand up and speak well on the subject. So I began to study and read and practice, and I subscribed to Speakers magazine, and I joined the National Speakers association. And I spent a fortune learning how to speak. And what I found is that learning how to speak is very, very much like learning a recipe in the kitchen. There are a series of ingredients that go into the recipe, and if you put these ingredients in the recipe, soon you can speak on any subject to any group of any size. When I first began professional speaking, my first audience was seven people. Seven. And I spent a fortune attracting these people, advertising and promoting and sending a salesman out to see them. And all I got was seven. And they came to my seminar. And of the seven, only one paid. The others were all kind of deadbeats. And so I paid a fortune. I rented the hotel room. I rented the Facilities. I traveled, I stayed in a hotel. It would have been cheaper for me to give each of those people 3 or $400 as a gift than to have them in that room listening to me. That was my start. The next seminar that I gave, public speaking was 12 people, and it was very much the same. The next seminar was 15 people. It took me almost three years before I could get enough people in the room who paid me before I could make a profit. So it's really, really hard. So if you want to speak, what is the starting point? Well, my son Michael came to me about three years ago and he said he wanted to be a professional speaker. He wanted to be a professional speaker like me. He had been a salesman, he had knocked on doors making sales presentations, and then he had become a sales manager. And he was training salespeople and giving sales seminars. And he decided that he could teach people sales. He still is in, in that area. And so he said, dad, what can I do to be a successful speaker? Sales trainer? And I said, well, then I began to teach him. In fact, I was speaking to him today, number one, and we both agree on this, number one, is preparation, preparation, preparation, preparation. Preparation is 90% of success in speaking. And what does that mean? It means that you think on paper, you write it down, write it down, you organize your words. Now, there's a very simple three point method of speaking. It's first of all, tell them what you're going to tell them. Second of all, tell them, and then third of all, tell them what you told them. And so you always open up with a statement that introduces your subject in such a way that it is interesting that it causes people to want to learn more, that it causes them to lean forward. And then you begin to develop your subject. I'll give you an example. In my sales seminars, I will start off by saying, thank you very much for being here. And I'd like to open up with a question. How many people here would like to double their income? And I just stop like this. And everybody in the room involuntarily, like a spasm, the hands would go up. Everybody wants to double their income. So I say, if I could show you how to double your sales and double your income in the time that we spend together, would you consider that to be a good use of time today? And everybody's raised their hand. They don't even realize it, but they've just bought in to my whole seminar. I say, well, then, let's begin. The first thing we know is this, is that you're surrounded by people today who are earning twice as much as you are. I'm going to show you how to earn as much as them. And remember, every one of those people was at one time earning half as much as you are or even less. And you, whatever they did over and over again to get to where they are today is what you can do as well. So let's start off with number one. So the starting point is to be very clear about the subject and get people interested. And remember this, it's not about you, it's about them. So when you're talking to your audience, always talk to them about how your subject can be helpful to them, how it can improve their life, how it can increase their income, how it can make them more. More successful in whatever it is they're doing so that everybody is in weight, leaning forward to learn more. One of my good friends, when he was alive, one of the top motivational speakers in America was Jim Rohn. And Jim Rohn was kind of philosophical. They called him the American Socrates. He was like a philosopher. And what he would do is he would say, write this down, write this down. And everybody in the audience would be scrambling and looking around and reaching for a pen or asking for a pen from someone else. Everybody wrote it down. And this is sort of a device, but it's a kind of a trick that gets them obeying you, gets them doing what you ask them to do. So tell people to write it down and then divide your subject into numbers. There are three things that you can do to be more successful. Let me talk about the first thing. Number one is prospecting. Prospecting means finding the kind of people who can and will buy from you within a reasonable period of time. So how do you identify a good prospect rather than a poorest prospect? And then I would tell them a good prospect is someone who's interested in your product or service, who listens to you, who asks questions, and so on. And I've got whole sections of my books and articles and programs just on prospecting. Prospecting, I say, is very much like the kickoff in the football game. If you prospect well so that you're speaking to the right people, then everything else goes easy after that. Prospecting is how you show your customers how they can achieve their goals. Goals in a cost effective way. And you say that now that you know where they're coming from. Here are the things that you can do, here are the things that you need to learn, here are the things that you need to practice and so on. And the third part of selling is closing the sale. It's answering objections. And all sales have objections of one kind or another. And then asking the customer to make a buying decision and getting the customer to pay. So we always remember it's prospecting, presenting and closing. And then later on you have follow up and referrals and customer satisfaction and many other things. And then you close. And the close is very important because it's the last thing they remember. It's the first thing they remember as well. Say so let me just wrap up by saying this. If you want to be a big success in life, you have to prepare for every call. You have to prospect and talk to the right people. You have to present your product or service as the very best choice and you have to then get them to make a buying decision immediately. So I wish you very good luck and I wish you great success. Preparation is the beginning and the middle and the end. Read everything that you can to become better. Read what has been written by myself and by other professional speakers. Listen to audio programs which you can get from Audible and download and listen as you move along. Attend seminars and workshops that will help you upgrade your skills. And remember, when you become a competent public speaker, your self esteem goes up, your self confidence confidence goes up, your self image improves and you can dramatically increase the quality of your entire life. And I hope you do. If you enjoyed this video and you feel it was valuable in teaching you about public speaking, share it with your friends or anyone else who might benefit from this information. For more resources on public speaking, visit my website@Brian Tracy.com.
