Pro Speaking Tips for Women

You.

Hey, everyone. Bringing you some pro speaker tips. I get this question all the time, Tracy. Like, how do you do this? How are you on stage? Like, what do you wear? How do you do your hair? Like, I mean, there's a whole bunch of questions that are kind of girly questions. So for you female speakers out there, for you women speakers, these tips are for you. And some of them are my insider tips. So I've discovered them the absolute hard way. Like, this doesn't work. This does work. This looks really good on stage. This looks terrible in the after photos or in the video later. So I'm going to give you a few of those. So I just want to really share them with you because I know there's a lot of you out there who are aspiring to be speakers and you've never done this before. And if you haven't gone for formal speaker training, and even if you have, you might find out that there's a bunch of men giving you tips. And it doesn't really work. All for us, when we're women, we have a few different things that we need to do. So today is kind of about accessories and girly stuff, like stuff that you should prepare, you should do, you should wear that kind of thing. So that's what I'm going to talk about today. Another time, I'll give you some of my other tips about the rules that I violate for speaker tips, the ones that all of the gurus give you that are all men. Okay? So I'm going to give you the ones that are for girls here. But right now, these ones, these are. These ones are my girly tips. My things that I never leave home without, that I always bring with me every time I go. So here's the thing. A lot of times we wear a dress. We wear a really cool dress, a really nice dress. It's really cute. Maybe it's a wrap dress. We're wearing something like that. Or we wear like what I've got on here, which is a nice loose top. The issue is, is that when you go there, they're going to give you a microphone. That's a lav. And if you're not wearing pants or if you don't have the right outfit, unlike men, we can't tuck it in the inside pocket of our jacket if we aren't weari. So, like, there's a whole issue there. And I don't know about you, but I'm over 40, and when I get hot on stage, I start to, like, not look good. It's Not a glowy look on me. And so I really don't want to be sweating up there. So I definitely don't like the jacket over something, which is how us women mostly do it. So I don't like to do that. So what I always bring with me is my favorite thing, and this one's my favorite that I wear. It's a stretchy belt. It, like, has a really cool clasp and everything like that, so it looks really good in front. And if you've seen me on stage, you probably see me wear this thing. So I wear this belt all the time. You clip it on, and I clip the lav mic behind me, bring the. You can bring it up through behind my hair, all of the wires and everything, and then hook it hook to the front. So now that's another thing. Then what shirt are you wearing or what top are you wearing? Make sure you have a V neck, because the scoop neck is almost too close to your neck. So I always like to have a V neck. Not too low, mind you. You don't want, you know, things popping out. You want to just have it be perfect. And so, you know, that gives you a place to clip it to. But it's hidden under my hair for all the wires and everything. And people can't see behind you because you usually don't turn around. You want to be facing your audience at all times. And so, you know. So any amount of wire, a small amount of wire goes up from the belt into under my hair and then up through the front to where I clip the microphone. So that brings me to the second thing that I always bring with me, which is a really cute necklace. Now, this one is one of my favorites that I wear all the time. And you can see it's a tree of life. Many, many people love this, especially when I go to the conferences where we have lots of health and wellness and spiritual people and energy workers and lightworkers and those kinds of things. They love it when I wear this because it knows that I understand them, that I get it. So I like to do that. I also have a purple one that I wear because purple's my signature color here. So I have a little bit of color thing going on. So I kind of keep it like accent. I like to wear black, and sometimes that can be bad against the backdrop. I know that. So you want to have a little accent color that pops on that. And so I try to keep whatever it is an accent color. So one of my favorite people who taught me lots of things about speaking so Wears blingy things right up here at the neck, but you want to keep it small. So, like, you know, I have this one necklace that I was given. It's a. It's for the Crypto Vixens, and I absolutely love it, but it jangles, and if you're wearing the mic, it jangles against the mic, and that's a terrible sound. So you definitely don't want anything long, anything that's going to move. You want to keep it tight and close to your neck. You want to keep it colorful or a signature item. So that's the second thing I always take with me whenever I give a speech. And the third thing, and this I discovered the hard way from critique of being on stage. I thought, you know, I'm five foot two, so for those of you who can't tell here, I'm short. And so I'm five two, and I want to be taller. Right? I mean, who doesn't? That's why we're on stage. We want to have a platform. Right. We want to be tall. And so I wear my spiky heels and all of those things. But sometimes it makes people nervous when you're walking on those tiny spiky heels and you're walking back and forth on the stage. And I'm a very active speaker, and I like to move around a lot. It makes people nervous. So I'm. And also they're really uncomfortable. I know that a lot of you know this, but when you're on stage, you're leaning forward and you're activated, your toes are like getting jammed into the front of your shoes. So no matter even if those shoes felt comfortable before, they will not feel comfortable by the time you're done with that. And the more your mind is working on that and concentrating on that, the worse that it is. Never wear a brand new pair of shoes. Absolutely. Never wear brand new ones. But the spikier they are, the more that they're tilting you, the worse your feet will feel at the end of it, and the more conscious of it you will start to be. So I like to wear something that's more like a wedge. So this is one of my favorite pairs. They're a little more casual. I have much more dressy ones. This is one of my favorite companies, actually my favorite shoe company. They're called Sabikas. Turn it around that way. Sabikas. And Sabikas are made here in the US which is rare. But look at that. That is not something I'm going to fall off of. Right. It's going to be really easy. It's got a nice wide heel, it's got a little bit of height because it's a little bit of a platform. But that kind of shoe, those are the kind of shoes, they're interesting, they're detailed, they're cool looking. These are the kinds of things that I wear on stage and I get so many compliments. I've worn my, like, clunky wedgie heels that are big and clunky and people respond better to them than when I wore the spiky ones where they felt nervous. And especially, especially if you're going to do the tip that many, many speakers, many speaker trainers teach you to do, which is to get down off the stage and get in close to your audience. And you never know how rickety those stairs are going to be. And I'm going to fall flat on my face. Is there going to be an arm rail, you know, a handrail? Is there going to be something that can guide me down? And, you know, that's really where we get into this situation where we're not really sure what we're going to be in for and we got to pack ahead of time. So I have a set of trusty things, and so I just wanted to show you what that my shoes, my necklace that I always have, at least I usually have two or three that I rotate between. And my belts, I have a couple of them, actually, and I never leave home without those, no matter where it is, because you never know when you're going to be speaking or when you're going to have an opportunity to have a mic clipped to you. Now, if you're going to hold a handheld mic, bring your mic block with you. Hey, guys, look, I got a mic block. It says feed your brand on it. I. I might have one that says brandcasting you. I might have one that says potatoes on it. I might have one that says product launch hazards on it. Right. I might have one that's branded for the event and I bring it and I give it to them. This is something that I absolutely love to do, is to take one with me. Because pretty much this mic that I use here at home and in my office is exactly the same size and everything as the mics that are usually given to you as handhelds. So this is something that I always bring an extra one with me. You can order them, you can contact me, and I'll be happy to connect you with that. The other thing that I really do, lip gloss. This is my other tip for you. Guys, lip gloss. I never leave home without lip gloss that is brightly colored. That matches my theme, right? Because we want to keep our lips looking moist, not dry. We want to have them sparked because especially if we're holding the mic, we want our mouth to be contrasted against that. So be thinking about that. I like it to be a little bit of glossy and not too matte. That's just something that I think looks better on stage when the lights hit you. So that's just my personal preference on that. So the last tip is a little bonus tip that I want to bring you. I bring my own extra recording equipment. So sometimes I have two packs behind me and an extra lav, and I bring that because so many times these events don't provide you a recording fast enough. If you've got your own audio, you have the ability to turn it right here into a podcast. You also have the ability to flip it all off of that and send back a slideshare with audio from your event, from the energy of what you did immediately back to all the people who gave you their email address. So when you say, hey, I'm happy to give you my slideshare afterwards, you can give them a bonus by giving you the audio as well. So thanks so much for listening, everyone. This has been Tracy with my women speaker tips. Take care.