So you struggle with speaking in public? Use these expert tips from entrepreneur and public figure Manick Bhan to help you conquer your nerves.
Public engagements and events can make or break businesses. If you depend on networking to gain B2B connections, you could be short of leads due to your social anxiety. New York entrepreneur Manick Bhan has operated throughout the public speaking and conference scene for years now, and he regularly visits businesses and team-building events to discuss his insights on SEO strategy, building businesses, and internet marketing. With his help, we hope to make public speaking more straightforward for you and benefit your business.
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Mr. Bhan on Public Speaking
Manick Bhan started in 2018 with a website specializing in ticket sales, which he later cashed out to Stubhub. Shortly afterward, he was invited to talk about his former business at a local event. After this, he landed several gigs as a keynote speaker for business and grad school events. This ability to network helped him make the connections he needed to go on to be the founder and CTO of LinkGraph, his very own SEO building company. After LinkGraph, SearchAtlas invited him to craft the SearchAtlas software suite, which houses their tools. Every step he made, he added to that list of connections and built upon his career success.
Manick maintains that once you understand that people want to talk to you, there is no turning back. Using his expertise and knowledge in conventions and events, he gave us the following advice on improving public speaking. Use it wisely. With great power comes great responsibility.
Public Speaking 101
According to Manick Bhan, no amount of imagining your audience naked will put you at ease. So instead, try these tips to speak to strangers quickly.
1 – The Questioner
This tactic is ideal for when you feel overwhelmed by people surrounding you. It revolves around the concept that we all love talking about ourselves. Use it when you are alone with someone and find yourself uncomfortable. To perform the questioner, all you do is ask a question, listen to their answer, and ask a follow-up question.
When it comes to public speaking, throwing out questions to the audience can help you practice the questioner from the stage. It helps the audience stay engaged and they will remember how attentive and pleasant you were. Audience interaction on any level is fantastic. It means you have their attention. They might not remember much about you, but they will recall that they liked you… and that’s all we need.
2 – Eye Contact
This is both the most complex part and the easiest part of public speaking. Those that watch you speak only feel connected if they see you single them out from the crowd, but the larger the crowd, the more difficult this can be.
So when you get up on stage, make sure to sweep your eyes over the crowd. Continue to do this all the way through your speech, as you want to make sure that you don’t miss any section of the audience, particularly the bigger the room.
Try to span your eyes across the entirety of the crowd every minute. This is a good benchmark for you to aim for, as you don’t want your audience to go any longer without feeling they are making eye contact.
3 – The Storyteller
If you have stories that can help illustrate your point, do your best to include them in your public speech. Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of public speaking, and humans are inclined to listen to stories.
Storytelling can paint you as thoughtful and entertaining. It also helps to drop a few personal details to make your speech more engaging. It’s all acceptable when you use public speaking to network.
Follow Manick for More
You can follow Manick Bhan on Twitter for more motivational tips on networking.