Why do speakers self-sabotage their speeches by beginning this way? It’s simple. It’s because they haven’t clearly defined or prepared their opening. Consequently, nervously, they search for what to say next and fill in this awkward gap with a filler word, “ah” or “um.”

Your goal as a presenter is to grab your audience’s attention and keep it. Although there are numerous ways to open a presentation, I have found three methods to be the most effective, especially when making business presentations.

1. Enrolling questions.
One of my favorite ways to open a presentation is with enrolling questions. Asking a question of your audience immediately gets them involved. Ask questions that are pertinent to your audience. Use close-ended questions, those questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no signified by a raised hand. The beauty of asking enrolling questions is that they engage your audience in both a physical and a mental activity. Stimulating these two activities often creates a higher likelihood that you will keep your audience’s attention throughout your presentation.

Prepare your questions ahead of time and practice raising your hand to eliminate any potential awkwardness in front of your audience. Below is an example of enrolling questions an executive recruiter asked a group of business owners:

“How many people here want to hire the right people?”
“How many people here want to hire the right people and keep them?”

The rule of thumb when asking enrolling questions is that you must enroll 100% of your audience. Rule 2: Always ask two questions. Why? Because one question alone is not as effective as asking two. So how do you ask these two questions? There are two different ways. If you know for a fact that your audience will be enrolled with the first question, the second question can be a building question.

For example: “How many people here need to talk in order to sell your products and services?” “How many people here would like to talk less and sell more?”

If you’re not sure your first question will engage the majority of your audience, with the second question you ask the opposite or the complement of the first. For instance: “How many of you like chocolate?” “How many of you don’t?” Or “How many of you have children?” “How many of you don’t?” By asking two questions you have a better chance of engaging 100% of your audience and keeping them engaged.

2. Statement of declaration.
A statement of declaration is a powerful way to begin any speech. A statement of declaration is simply an announcement—with meaning. This statement can be a starting point from anywhere in your speech as long as it relates to your topic. What I love about this method is that this type of statement usually jerks anyone who may have mentally left the room back into their seats.

Once I heard a speaker begin his speech with “I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!” He said it with such emotion that the audience could actually feel his frustration with being late and waited to hear more. Another memorable statement of declaration used by a young college student was, “I’m tired of being a grunt!” The entire audience fell silent because most of us could relate to that statement in some form or another. It grabbed our attention, big time.

The rule of thumb when making statements of declaration is to say them with strong conviction. Say it like you mean it.

3. Staggering statistical statement.
A staggering statistical statement is one that includes statistical information. This information is usually measured by a percentage, a number, or a dollar value. For instance: “80% of communication is nonverbal!” “Fifty thousand Americans suffer from diabetes!” Or “Our country has an all-time high deficit of sixty billion dollars!” When using a statistical statement as your attention grabber, do your homework. The information has to be 100% TRUE. If not, you will lose your credibility and your audience.

It doesn’t matter which of these “explosive attention grabbers” you use to begin your presentation, as long as you use one. Experiment with using the three different types to see which one works best for you and your speech. Remember, your opening question or statement must be relative to your topic and appropriate for your audience. Memorize it, practice it, and own it. If you grab your audience’s attention in the beginning, chances are you’ll keep it until the end.

Here’s how you can create one.

Step One: Set Up a Basic Calendar
You can use a monthly calendar or even a couple sheets of paper to do this step. All you need is a place to write your ideas, divided into monthly chunks, January through December.

Step Two: Brainstorm “Big” Topics
Create a list of at least 12 topics you’d like to cover over the next year. These should be big topics that you make granular later. For example, for this blog, I chose “Planning for the New Year” as my topic for this month.

Step Three: Assign Topics to Months
Now take your top 12 topics and assign them to individual months. So January is “Topic 1,” February is “Topic 2″ and so on.

Now, depending on how granular you want to go, this could be where you stop. However, I recommend you go further.

Let’s say you need a specific topic once a week. Then you would go into each month and come up with 4-5 sub-topics for the month. For example, if January was assigned the topic of “business plans,” you could have weekly topics of “Mission Statement,” “Vision Statement,” “Ideal Client Profile,” “Objectives” and “Action Plan.”

Setting this all up in advance can help you on many levels:

• You can be more focused when it comes time to develop the content, because you’ve already chosen the topic.
• You can plan your marketing promotions around your content.
• You can develop your content well in advance and set it up to be posted either by your virtual assistant or automatically through a blog.

Now is an excellent time to create your content calendar for 2010. I know I’ll be doing mine this month. How about you?

I’ve since learned that lack of objections is not necessarily a good thing. In fact, I now welcome it when prospects tell me “why they can’t”.

When a potential client shares his reasons why he or she hesitates to take advantage of my offer, to me it’s a sign of two things; one – they are interested in my services, and two – I’m getting closer to closing the deal.

But many professionals find “overcoming” objections and “closing” the deal stressful, unpleasant and “pushy”. If that’s you I want to share with you two lessons that helped me develop a different mindset around this.

First, a “no” doesn’t always mean “no”. Mostly it simply “not now” or “I don’t have enough information to say yes.”

Second, you can’t “overcome” your prospect’s objections – but you can give them information and tools that allow them to make a new decision

If you too experience anxiety around “closing sales” here are my favorite responses to the top five objections your prospective clients are likely to raise.

OBJECTION #1: I HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT
“I don’t blame you. Hiring a can be a big decision. Can you share with me what specific aspect of my services you are concerned about?”

“Yes, I can see how this can be a big decision. You know I found that typically my clients are initially concerned with one of the three things: is the problem important enough to solve it now, is this the right solution for your situation, can you afford the solution? Which one of those concerns you the most?”

“Hmmm… I see. Let me ask you… Let’s say we get started on this project – what are the downsides?”

OBJECTION #2: I HAVE TO TALK TO MY PARTNER ABOUT IT
”Great. What kinds of questions do you think they might they ask?”

“Good idea. I always discuss decisions like this with my partner (or spouse). But let me ask you a question – what will you do when your partner doesn’t like the idea of us moving forward with this?”

OBJECTION #3: IT’S TOO EXPENSIVE
“Expensive comparing to what?”

“Yes, it’s a sold investment. I tell you what – I know this is only worthwhile if you produce solid results, right? What’s the one result you would want to be absolutely sure we could produce in the next that would have you really happy you hired me? … Great- why don’t we make this our top priority and get started right away?”

“Not really. How does this price compare to what it’s costing you to do nothing about this problem?”

“Frankly, that’s exactly why you need me.”

OBJECTION #4: I SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO IT ON MY OWN
“Hmmmm…how long have you been dealing with this issue? If you haven’t solved it on your own so far what makes you think you can do it now?”

“Yes, I suppose you could. But let me ask you something – when was the last time you saw (heard) of a heart surgeon performing an open heart surgery on himself?

“With all the respect…I must disagree. If you thought you could solve this problem on your own we wouldn’t be talking right now. Tell me, how would things be different if you could rely on an unbiased opinion to give you a fresh perspective of this problem?”

OBJECTION #5: I DON’T HAVE THE TIME RIGHT NOW
“Yes, it will take some time to address this issue. How much more time per week could you devote to other, revenue-generating activities if you could eliminate dealing with this problem on ongoing bases?

“That’s funny; you just told me it takes you 10 hours a week to deal with this problem – wouldn’t it make sense to hire someone like myself and solve it so that you can use your time on more productive tasks?”

“Wow, if you are that busy and you are still not getting the results you want perhaps it would make sense to start the project by helping you better prioritize your activities and leverage your time more effectively?”

These are only a few examples of responses I found helpful in getting to a “yes” in negotiating a sale. Rather than trying to memorize those specific sentences learn the underlying concept.

On objection is a cover for a deeper concern. By voicing it your prospect gives you an opportunity to address it and provide information to eliminate it. So quit trying to prove your point and instead ask thought provoking questions. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the outcomes

The same goes for your business. And you’ll get HIGHER QUALITY clients and customers through referrals than any other method. So here are three super simple ways for you to help your current clients and customers tell others about you using the Tell-A-Friend strategy.

1. Simply add a sentence or two to the bottom of each issue of your ezine or any other freebie offering (pink spoon) you have. Something like:

We grow by recommendation! If you enjoyed this issue, we’d love it if you’d pass the word. Do so by forwarding this to a friend and inviting them to subscribe at the link (above/below).

You can embellish or simplify this according to your personality. See my own wording at the bottom of this ezine.

2. Put a Tell-A-Friend (TAF) feature on your sign-up thank you page.
A formal Tell-A-Friend software can help you make it super simple for people to tell a friend about you and your product or service. Some shopping cart systems and web hosts offer this feature, so be sure to check yours and start utilizing it now to help build your list.

If your current vendors don’t offer this feature, I highly recommend TAFPro for this. This software has a one-time only fee (it’s inexpensive), plus a very reasonable installation charge if you need help from the very customer service friendly Paul Galloway, the owner.

To see an example of this in action, visit my ‘thank you’ page for signing up for this ezine at:

http://www.clientabundance.com/thankyou.html

Just so you know, though, TAFPro doesn’t work with websites that are hosted with GoDaddy.com. As an alternate for GoDaddy.com users, you can try Will Master Craig’s CGI script at:

http://willmaster.com/master/recommendpro/index.shtml

If you don’t already have technical support of your own, Will Master will install it for you. I haven’t used his script myself, so you might want to ask around about it a bit first.

3. Having installed a Tell-A-Friend module, use it to implement a contest with prizes.
Using any of the Tell-A-Friend module, you can easily take the next step and use the contest management feature in the software and create a contest page to send out to your existing subscriber list. To see an example of what I mean, visit:

http://www.clientabundance.com/contestexample.htm

(note: this contest is NOT running – at least not yet… It’s just an example.)

Obviously, you’ll want to tailor this page to your own needs and brand but it should give you an idea of how the Tell-A-Friend module can really encourage people to point others in your direction.

Referrals are usually more qualified prospects for your funnel, which is exactly what you want. Pick one of the techniques of using the Tell-A-Friend module and implement it in your business today.

But, to have this method work, you need to have a continuity program that provides real value to real people. According to Daniel Hall, you just need to follow these five steps and you’ll be able to create a one that will not only provide regular income, but can also support a lifestyle you actually want to live.

Step 1: Examine your interests.
A continuity program is not something you create lightly. You’ll be more successful and able to keep it going for the long haul if it is based on something you are actually interested in and passionate about. Also, if it is based on something you are good at, that helps.

Step 2: Find a hungry audience.
Now take your list of interests, passions and expertise and do the research to find out if there is a hungry audience for what you have to offer. Do some key word research. Search phrases that are three or more words long and are searched for between 50 and 100 times a day are more likely to have buyers searching than just researchers.

Step 3: Determine the model you want to use.
There are several different types of continuity programs you can have:

• membership site
• fixed-term membership site
• coaching program
• association or club

And several other variations on the theme. Which one will work best for what you want to offer and the audience you want to offer it to?

Step 4: Set up the platform to make it work.
You can use protected directories, a membership plugin for Wordpress, and autoresponder service, or just a monthly mailing list. What ever systems and/or technology you need to make your model work, set that up.

Step 5: Market, market, market.
No one will join your program if they don’t know it exists. So you’ll have to continuously market the program to keep up membership.