The problem? That’s not what potential clients are looking for. They come to you because they have a problem to solve, a goal to achieve or a concern keeping them up at night. If your marketing doesn’t speak directly to those questions, they’ll quickly move on to someone who does.

The good news is that attracting more clients (and referrals) doesn’t require flashy marketing. It just requires listening carefully to the questions your clients ask and then building your content around answering them.

Why Answering Questions Builds Business

When your marketing focuses on addressing real client concerns, several things happen:

• You build trust. Clients see you understand their challenges and know how to help.
• You become memorable. When referral partners hear someone ask a question you’ve already addressed, they’ll think of you.
• You save time. Instead of struggling for content ideas, your clients give them to you.
• You show expertise naturally. Sharing useful answers demonstrates credibility without feeling like a sales pitch.
• You attract better leads. People searching online often type in their exact questions. If your content has the answers, they’ll find you.

Think of the difference between an accounting firm talking about its business advisory services vs. having content focused on how an owner can keep more cash in their business. Or a law firm outlining its regulatory practice vs. providing information to prospects on what regulations apply to their business/industry. One is about “services offered;” the other focuses on client-driven questions.

How to Build Marketing Around Client Questions

If you want your marketing to be more client-centric, here’s a simple process:

• Listen carefully. Keep track of the questions clients ask you most often. You can also ask them about their challenges or concerns and do research into trends and issues that may be impacting them.
• Look for patterns. Group client questions into a few broader themes.
• Make a list. Pick 2–3 key themes to focus on first. These should be ones that reflect the firm’s main areas of expertise, strengths, priorities and its target audience’s interests.
• Break it down. The themes should be broken down into related subtopics that can become individual pieces of content. Think of the hub and spokes of a wheel.
• Create helpful content. Develop blog posts, videos, social media posts, webinars and other forms of content that delve into specific subtopics.
• Organize the information. Make it easy for someone to find related content on your site. Create a comprehensive hub page for each theme, then link to content that goes deeper into subtopics.

Best Practices for Making This Work

Once you’ve identified your themes and subtopics, keep these best practices in mind:

• Keep the client’s perspective front and center.
• Publish consistently to build momentum and visibility.
• Repurpose content into different formats and promote them across multiple channels to maximize reach.
• Use visuals (charts, infographics, videos) to simplify complex information and attract attention.
• Update content regularly as clients’ concerns and market conditions evolve or new developments occur.

By consistently focusing on client concerns, you’ll build trust, stay top of mind and make it easy for clients and referral sources to know exactly when and why to turn to you.

If you need help with your marketing or content, contact us for a consultation.

Here are a few dos and don’ts when using AI:

1. DO use it to assist with market research. Get help with researching, analyzing and summarizing information about clients, competitors and trends in order to create more relevant content.
2. DON’T rely on it for factual research without verifying accuracy. AI tools can “hallucinate” and provide incorrect information that sounds real, including citing nonexistent source material. Information may also be out-of-date.
3. DO brainstorm with it. Ask your AI tool for feedback on your ideas and to make suggestions for improvement. Use it to come up with topics, titles, headings, email subject lines and the like.
4. DON’T limit it to text-based content. Some AI tools can help develop and/or edit video, images, graphics and charts to stand alone or complement and give more impact to text.
5. DO use it to edit/refine content. You can get a second opinion on the content you wrote by asking your AI tool to recommend changes to the substance, structure, tone or style of a piece, proofread and check grammar and otherwise help polish the material.
6. DON’T let AI speak for you. It’s fine to get suggestions from AI tools but your content should always be in your voice. People who know you and have seen AI-generated text before will realize the content isn’t from you and it will reflect badly on you. Plus, AI text tends to sound formulaic so it won’t help you engage with readers.
7. DO use it to repurpose content. Existing content can be repurposed for different audiences, marketing platforms (ex. social media, email, website) and formats (ex. text, video, graphics) using AI tools.
8. DON’T forget to provide context. When asking your AI tool for help, share relevant background information about yourself and your audience, needs and goals. The more context you provide, the better content you will get.
9. DO check all results. AI-generated text and images must be carefully reviewed and vetted, not just for accuracy but also for bias, intellectual property concerns and other issues.
10. DON’T hide the use of AI. Internal policies should be adopted to ensure that any employees using AI in their work disclose it to the appropriate manager. It may also need to be disclosed to clients and other parties.
11. DO be concerned about privacy, confidentiality and ethical issues. AI tools learn from your queries and the data you provide, so you must take care what you reveal. There are some solutions which may help but they should be carefully vetted.
12. DON’T use AI results ‘as is.’ An AI-prepared draft can provide a starting point but should not be used as a finished product because of the problems with AI discussed here.

As AI evolves, the opportunities and risks will only increase. Don’t be afraid of AI but use it thoughtfully to save you time and effort while enhancing content for your marketing.

If you need help with your marketing, contact us.

1. Do know your audience and prioritize accordingly. Yes, you’re very knowledgeable but that doesn’t mean you need to share everything you know. Understand your audience’s interests and organize your thoughts accordingly to ensure you present your strongest points in your PowerPoint.

2. Don’t include too many details. Your slides don’t need to restate every word you’re saying. Keep your PowerPoint concise and let your speech fill in the details. Remember too that too much text may distract your audience from listening.

3. Do create interest in learning more. Don’t provide comprehensive answers in your written materials. You want to leave your audience wanting more. Encourage questions and give attendees reasons to follow up with you during and after the presentation.

4. Don’t clutter up your slides visually. Avoid too much text or images on a page. While you may think it’s better to put a lot of information on a page to make the PowerPoint fewer pages; it’s overwhelming and hard to read blocks of text. Make sure you have plenty of white space on the page. Be mindful of font type and size, color usage, and word count. Look online for examples of clean, simple PowerPoint designs.

5. Do use visuals.  Studies show that 90%of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. Take advantage of that by adding impact to your slides with charts, infographics, photos, videos and other visuals.

6. Don’t forget to proofread. Check for typos diligently but, if possible, also ask someone else to proofread it to catch things you may have missed.

7. Do infuse personality and humor. It’s okay to have some fun with your presentation materials. It can be hard when your topic is pretty dry but look for ways to make your written materials more memorable. For example, add lots of color, a cartoon, interesting graphics, or imbed a video.

8. Don’t treat it as a throwaway. Invest time and resources in creating a well-designed and compelling PowerPoint. It will not only help during the program but can be repurposed and promoted on your website, social media, and email to give you additional exposure after the event.

Your written materials are integral to your presentation’s success. They should complement and reinforce your speech ensuring a lasting impact during and after the event.

If you need assistance with developing a seminar and/or marketing it, contact us for a consultation.

For more help with your presentations, also read our related posts:

How To Promote Your Public Speaking On LinkedIn

Top Strategies For Marketing Your Speaking Event

How To Improve Your ROI On Public Speaking

Let’s say your piece of content is a 500-word blog post. You can:

1. Shorten it. Create multiple social media posts from your post that you can share over weeks, months or even years, so long as the information stays valid. Just pull out interesting excerpts for each one.

2. Lengthen it. Expand your blog post to turn it into an article, white paper, book or eBook, webinar/seminar or podcast. This is easiest to do if you have several blog posts on a related topic that you can combine into a longer piece.

3. Change the format. Record your post to create one or more video clips or a podcast. You can also turn it into an infographic.

4. Rewrite it for a different audience. If it was written for fellow professionals, revise it to appeal to consumers, business owners or referral sources (or vice versa). You can also tailor it to different industries or types of clients. For example, discuss how a new law might affect manufacturers, technology companies, or retail businesses or adapt it for different geographic regions. Most of the content could be the same but just highlight relevant differences.

5. Update it. If there have been changes since you wrote your blog post, revise it and republish it. Even if the updates aren’t significant, it shows that you are staying abreast of new developments.

6. Tailor it to different marketing channels. You can share content from your blog post on social media; in an email newsletter, client alert or press release; to pitch to a journalist, publication or organization; as a guest blog post on a third-party website; and so on. In each case, you aren’t simply copying your blog post somewhere else. You must adapt it to the platform. For example, on social media and in email, you may be giving a teaser to encourage people to click to read the whole piece on your website; in a pitch, you are focusing on why a publication’s or organization’s audience would be interested in your content.

7. Add visuals. Studies show posts are more likely to get views and engagement if they have visuals, such as charts, photos, graphics, videos, etc.

8. Mix and repeat. These options can be combined to create numerous variations. For instance, lengthen and rewrite the blog post into a presentation that you pitch to an organization. The presentation can then be recorded and turned into a full-length webinar, multiple video clips, and transcribed and edited into an article.

Maintaining a steady stream of content to market your expertise is difficult but not impossible when you learn to repurpose everything you do. Remember to ‘create once, repurpose everywhere’ to save time and money and help you attract more business with your content.

If you need assistance with creating or promoting high-quality content, contact us for a consultation.

Evergreen content is content that doesn’t go out of date. It stays fresh – interesting and relevant – long after it was created. Trending or time-sensitive content is the opposite. It attracts attention when it is first shared, but loses relevance quickly. Both are useful in building a reputation as an expert, but evergreen content often has a greater return on investment because you can keep using it in your marketing. As long as it is still accurate, you can continue to share it in emails, social media posts, presentations and articles months or even years later. It also remains on your website to boost your credibility and drive search engine traffic to your website.

The most effective evergreen content should:

• Focus on a niche area. It’s better to be an expert in a niche area because you have fewer competitors and it is easier to stand out and be memorable. It also tends to result in better quality leads because you are attracting exactly the people that are likely to need your services. Your evergreen content should drill down into your niche and cover the range of issues that may come up. It should also highlight any unique expertise that you have but others may not have (ex. industry knowledge, a multi-disciplinary approach, etc.).
• Target a specific audience and the problems they need to solve. Who is your ideal client? Now write for them. Know what keeps them up at night and give them helpful information to prove you understand them and they can rely on you for assistance. An added benefit of this approach is that writing/speaking about specific problems is likely to draw high-quality leads to your site because your target audience will be looking online for the information you are providing.
• Be based on research. Don’t just guess at what might make good evergreen content; do your homework. In choosing topics, look at what content has been most successful for you in the past. Review your website, email and social media metrics to identify popular subjects. Also, what topics have others (e.g., clients, prospects, organizations, media, etc.) asked you about. It’s also helpful to look at your competitors to see what they are doing. Finally, research long-tail keywords. These are search terms that people use online that are at least a few words long. Typically, they are questions or phrases on a specific topic or problem. Understanding what people are searching for can help you frame your content so it is more likely to be of interest to your audience and be found online.

While you should invest in creating a library of evergreen content, remember that you will need to cover topical issues periodically to boost your visibility and show that you stay current in your field. In addition, evergreen content does not last relevant forever. It is a good practice to periodically review and update it. That can be as simple as adding/changing examples or statistics, reorganizing the content or creating new versions (ex. long/short; expert/novice) or different formats (ex. video, written, live presentation).

So, how can you come up with evergreen content? Drill down into the Frequently Asked Questions you get from clients, offer ‘How-tos’ on a series of topics, provide Checklists that help your audience understand what issues they may be forgetting about, and offer Case Studies that demonstrate a successful outcome. These are just a few ideas, but there are plenty of others.

If you need assistance creating or promoting evergreen content that will help build your credibility as an expert, contact me for a consultation.

1. Who is the desired audience for your content? This is the most important question of all. Identify who you want to read your content. Is it existing or past clients, prospects, referral sources or others? Then break it down further. What are their key demographics and behaviors? This can include:

• Age, gender, profession
• Job title and responsibilities
• Company size and revenue (or personal income and wealth)
• Industry
• Location
• Role in deciding to hire you
• Budget and priorities
• Interests, concerns and pain points
• Information sources
• Level of knowledge about your services.

Essentially, you are creating a buyer persona, which is a detailed profile of the person you want to attract. You can gather this information by analyzing and talking with your client base and referral sources as well as through internet research.

The reason you are doing this is that the better you define your audience, the more effective your writing will be at reaching them and appealing to their interests.

2. What does your audience want to know about? Your content has to focus on what your audience is interested in, not what you want to talk about. Ask contacts what is important to them. Write about the frequently asked questions you receive. Also, do research. For example, identify and subscribe to publications your target audience reads, set up Google alerts to monitor areas of interest to them, and use social media to “listen” to what topics they care about. You can do this yourself or use paid media monitoring and business intelligence tools to gather information.

3. In what way can you offer something unique? Your goal is always to stand out from the competition. If you are talking about your business, you should focus on your differentiators – your unique selling proposition and unique value proposition. Similarly, if you are creating substantive content, such as a blog post, presentation or article, you want to offer your unique insights and analysis on that subject. This is a big problem when professionals write or speak on a topic. Dry factual recitations are not particularly interesting and are available from multiple sources. Clients and prospects want to understand how something affects them and what they need to do to solve or minimize their problems. This is an opportunity for you to shine by providing your audience with genuinely helpful information that highlights your knowledge and expertise. Yes, this requires more work, but your audience wants to see that you understand their concerns, have the know-how to handle them and want to educate them as opposed to give them a sales pitch.

4. What do you want to accomplish with your content? There are many reasons you may be sharing a particular piece of content including to increase visibility, drive web traffic, build credibility, establish expertise, stay top of mind with existing contacts, generate leads, etc. Your content won’t be successful if it doesn’t take into account your goals. Having concrete objectives enables you to establish metrics and measure the effectiveness of your content, including looking at which types of content are best suited for your purpose. In addition, when there is a clear reason for producing content and measurable results, it’s easier to stay motivated to continue to produce similar content.

5. How will you promote the content? Just because you created the content doesn’t mean it will be seen. You need a plan and appropriate resources to make sure you are taking full advantage of all available marketing channels to reach your target audience, including owned, earned and paid media outlets. Use social media and email marketing extensively. Encourage everyone within the firm to share your content with their personal networks. Incorporate strategic SEO tactics to increase the probability that your content will be found by search engines. In addition, don’t forget to test different marketing tactics and revise as needed to improve results.

6. Do you have a call to action? This goes along with # 4, but it is about accomplishing your goals at a micro-level. What do you want readers to do immediately after seeing your content? Contact you? Sign up for your email newsletter or event? Make sure to have a clear next step for your audience. You want to encourage people to continue to engage with you in some way. Ideally, your content should be leading people through your sales funnel. For example, you may have content that is intended to attract a large number of potential leads to your website. Once on your site, the next call to action may be an offer to receive related information in an eBook. This allows you to continue to nurture those leads who are not yet ready to make a decision.

CONCLUSION

Content is a valuable marketing tool when used strategically. If you take the time to understand what specific content will appeal to your audience and focus on your objectives, you’ll write content that will drive the success of your business.

1. Blog posts. The key to successful blogging is to consider what types of questions or concerns your audience has and answer them in your posts. This allows you to share your expertise, increase your visibility and enhance your credibility. It helps you stay top of mind with existing contacts as well as reach new people, all of which increases your chances of generating business.

On LinkedIn, you can share blog posts in 2 ways from your home page:

• Click “Start a post,” draft some teaser/introductory text from your blog post and then share a link to your post on your website; or
• Click “Write article” to use the LinkedIn publishing platform to write and share your post.

For tips on what to write about in your blog, see 5 Tips To Help You Develop Great Blog Post Topics.

If you don’t have a blog, check out How To Start A Successful Blog In 2021.

2. Third-party content. Many of us already share articles by other people on social media. But what you may not realize is that assuming you share useful and interesting information, doing this shows people you know what they care about, and you want to be helpful. And since it’s not your content, it’s not self-serving so it puts you in a good light. It also saves you time and effort because it is easier to share something that someone else wrote than creating original content. Now, you can share a stranger’s content (ex. a news article) or information from someone you know. If you do know the person, it can also be a good way to engage, connect and build your relationship with your contacts.

A key point to remember when sharing third-party content is to tell people why you are giving them this information. Add some introductory text to your social media post that says what you liked about the article or how it might help others.

3. Visual content. You know the expression a picture is worth a thousand words? People have short attention spans and studies show we are much more likely to respond to and remember visual information than text. So, use photos, infographics, charts, and videos in your posts. It may seem overwhelming to try to create good visuals, but there are many low-cost and free sites to buy images or design your own graphics (ex. Canva). When it comes to posting video on social media, it is acceptable to do it yourself. However, it is a good idea to invest in a ring light and microphone to improve the quality. If you plan to include these videos on your website, always use a professional.

4. Short text-only posts. While visuals often get great results, it is not universal because sometimes they can get in the way of compelling content. On LinkedIn, ordinary text posts often do well if they offer good content. Think of these posts as mini-blog posts. Try sharing tips, how-tos, do’s and don’ts, checklists, takeaways from something your heard/saw and motivational messages as text posts. The important point is to provide information helpful or interesting to your audience. Basically, follow the same rules as you would for regular blogging.

When you publish text-only posts don’t include a link to another website. This is another reason why these posts may do well. There are various opinions that LinkedIn prefers posts that don’t link away to another site and promotes them more heavily.

5. Accomplishments. On LinkedIn, you can let people know about awards you received, media mentions, speaking engagements and articles published. In fact, these posts often receive more views and engagements than other types of posts because your contacts want to congratulate you. However, I believe in the 80-20 rule when touting yourself. It is okay 20 percent of the time to talk about how great you are as long as the rest of the time, you focus on providing information of value. Now, much of this “promotional” information can be shared in a helpful way so make sure you couch it that way. For example, if you wrote an article or were quoted in one or you will be speaking to a group, let people know what information they would find useful in your article or speech as part of your introductory text. Then offer an excerpt or the full text if possible.

6. Nonwork/personal activities. The main purpose of social media is to allow people to get to know each other better. Therefore, go ahead and talk about organizations you belong to, causes you support, volunteer work you do, and interests and hobbies you have. You can also share personal stories that show others more of your personality. If you have photos from these activities, add them to the post as well. The only caveat to this is that LinkedIn is a business platform so you want to be mindful of discussing things that are too personal or may reflect adversely on your professional image. The best advice I ever read is not to share anything that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the New York Times.

Creating and sharing great content on LinkedIn is not as difficult as you may think. Use these tips to help get the best results.

If you need help with your social media marketing, contact us for a consultation.

1. Develop a plan. Who is your audience for the blog? What topics will you write about? Who will write the posts? How often will you publish? What are your goals for the blog? What resources do you need to keep it going? How will you market the blog? Before you start, you must answer these questions. Put it in writing to keep you accountable and help ensure your blog will help your business.

2. Decide where to host your blog. Most people have it on their business website, which has many advantages. However, there are also services that can host and help promote your blog. A good example is LexBlog for legal blogs.

3. Create an editorial calendar. One of the toughest aspects of blogging is figuring out what to write. Ideally, try to brainstorm at least 3 months’ worth of topics at a time. For advice on developing blog topics, read 5 Tips To Help You Develop Great Blog Post Topics. Once you decide on topics, put them on a calendar. That means set a due date and assign responsibility to the appropriate author/editor. Build in time for reviewing and editing the material and add reminders to your calendar before the due date.

4. Include a mix of timely and evergreen posts. Evergreen content is information that doesn’t go out of date. It is always of value to people reading your blog and it can continue to drive traffic to your website for years to come. In contrast, timely posts are on a current development or trend. While they may give you a big boost in the short-term because people want that information, there is less long-term value.

5. Don’t be self-promotional. People don’t want to hear about how great you are. They want helpful and practical information that answers their questions and assists them in avoiding or minimizing problems. By giving free advice, you will be demonstrating that you are knowledgeable, so you don’t have to “sell your services” overtly.

6. Focus on quality over quantity. Yes, it would be great if you could publish a post at least once a week or even more often. However, every post must be good. It’s better to publish high quality content less often than low quality more often.

7. Improve your communication skills. Maybe you’re not a great writer. If you have good ideas, you can work with a writer to develop well-written content. Alternatively, if you are comfortable speaking, you can create videos, which can also be transcribed and edited so you have both oral and written formats. If you want to try to improve your skills on your own, here are several posts on how to make your writing more effective.

7 Tips For More Effective Blog Writing For Your Business

5 Do’s To Help You Create Content That Your Audience Wants To Read

5 Things Not To Do If You Want People To Read Your Content

8. Leverage all marketing channels. On your website, your blog will help with your search engine optimization. When people are searching for information online, Google looks to deliver high-quality relevant content. The more effort you put into your blog posts, the more likely your content will appear in search results. However, your social media and email marketing are also important ways to promote your posts. In addition, you may also want to consider some form of paid advertising.

9. Include a call to action. What do you want readers to do after reading your blog? Contact you? Sign up for something (newsletter, webinar, eBook)? Make sure to have a clear next step for the reader. You’re using the blog to help your marketing, so you want to encourage people to continue to engage with you in some way.

A blog can be an effective marketing tool for your business, but you must make a commitment. If you need assistance, a professional writer can help you develop compelling content as well as promote it to the right audiences, so you get results.

If you need help with blog writing or marketing your existing blog, contact us for a consultation.

1. Who do you want to reach? Identify your ideal client or referral source including their demographics (age, profession, income, location, etc.). That’s who you want to target with your public speaking. Then research where and how to get in front of them. In other words, don’t pursue every speaking opportunity that comes along; be selective so you focus your efforts on the people that matter most to you.

2. What topic(s) should you discuss? There are 2 parts to choosing a topic(s). The first is to determine your audience’s interest. Again, do research about their concerns and pain points so your presentation focuses on those issues. The second part is deciding what you want to be known for (i.e., your niche or specialty). Typically, this is the area that would be best for your business. You should analyze what types of matter and clients are most profitable to your business currently or have the most potential for the future. Your topic should hit the sweet spot between what people want to hear about and the expertise you want to promote.

3. How will you market your program? If you want people to show up and listen, you need to market your program using a variety of methods including social media, email, publicity and possibly advertising. Also leverage employees to help promote the program through their networks. In addition, try to partner with others who can use their own channels to promote the program. You may want to bring in co-speakers and sponsors or pitch your idea to an organization/association that will market the webinar. For ideas on how to market your event, see Top Strategies For Marketing Your Speaking Event. Also keep in mind that even if people don’t attend your program, your marketing is still going to increase your visibility and can bring in business.

4. How will you follow up afterwards? It is rare to get business from one speaking event. You need additional touchpoints with those contacts in order to build a relationship that will eventually turn into business. Ideally, you should try to get the names and contact information of the attendees so you can follow up using phone, email, and social media. If you cannot get their information because someone else is in charge of registrations and will not provide it, you still want to engage in post-event marketing. Use social media and email to offer attendees and non-attendees helpful material from the program (a recording, outline, summary of key points, etc.). You can also provide related content over the course of months as a way to continue to nurture these leads. If you partnered with others, look to leverage the relationship in your post-event marketing.

5. What are your goals and how will you measure progress? Consider what you want to accomplish through public speaking. Yes, you ultimately want more business, but break that down into smaller concrete goals. For example, maybe you want to increase referral business. Obviously, every aspect of your plan needs to be geared towards this goal as discussed above. So, you want to target a specifically defined group of referral sources (ex. accountants) with a relevant topic and appropriately market the program to them before and after the program. To gauge your success, you can track various metrics such as growth in the number of referral sources (the number of individuals who could refer you business), calls from referral sources (new or existing ones), calls from prospects who were referred to you, referred clients who actually signed with you, and/or revenue generated for the firm from referrals.

However, note that establishing a direct ROI in marketing is difficult because the path to new business isn’t a straight one. A prospect may have gotten your name from a referral source who regularly hears you speak, but also gets your emails, follows you on social media, and sees you at networking events. Regardless of whether the source first met you at a speaking event, your public speaking is helping your credibility and visibility with referral sources and is contributing to your ROI. Marketing has a cumulative impact, helping you stay top of mind with referral sources in a positive way, so you get the referral opportunity.

6. What resources do you have or need? Public speaking can be time-consuming. What resources can you devote to booking, preparing for, and marketing those engagements? Do you have enough resources internally? What work can you outsource? Remember you need time/money/expertise to effectively implement your plan. Put in writing who will be responsible for each task and establish deadlines to keep everyone accountable.

Figuring out these issues in advance will help ensure the success of individual speaking engagements and your marketing as a whole. Ultimately, your speaking engagements should support and complement your other marketing and vice versa so it is most effective and generates the best return on investment.

If you need assistance with obtaining or leveraging your speaking engagements, contact us for a consultation.

When presenting online, follow the 3 P’s to be an engaging speaker: Prepare – Practice – Passion

Here are seven specific steps to transform your screen presentation into a lively, engaging one.

1. Before presenting, do a few stretches and mild exercise for energy.

2. Be conversational and authentic no matter how many participants are watching your program. Instead of telling long stories, be brief with short anecdotes and examples. Less is more.

3. Vary your facial expressions to support what you’re saying and help participants keep their eyes on you. Viewers will focus on your face. Smile when appropriate.

4. For good eye contact, look straight ahead at the camera and not at the screen. Avoid shaking your head or looking up and down or side to side as it’s distracting. Standing is beneficial if you tilt the screen so your head can be seen.

5. Reduce the number of filler words like uhm and uh by pausing and slowing the pace. Emphasize specific words to help eliminate these types of empty words.

6. Wear appropriate business attire. Too many patterns and colors are distracting. Pastel colors are best and should contrast with the background – i.e., blue shirt against a beige background.

7. Use vocal variety to maintain viewer attention:

Pitch: Change your pitch (high, medium, low) to avoid a monotone voice.

Tone: Alter your tone. Use varied emotions for greater expression and interest.

Volume: Alternate between louder and softer depending on what you’re saying. If you use a microphone, practice volume changes before the presentation.

Rate: Speed up and slow down as it reflects what you’re saying. For example, if you want to show excitement, you can speak a little faster. If you’re discussing a serious issue, slow down.

Marla Seiden is president of Seiden Communications Inc., a presentation skills training and public relations firm for over 25 years.

Seiden Communications Inc.

PO Box 358, New Hyde Park, NY 10040

Tel: 516-437-6199

marla@seidencommunications.com

www.seidencommunications.com