Shortcuts to Public Speaking Success

Billie Shepard has been an actor and an acting coach for forty years. Twenty years ago she recognized business speakers have the same performance anxieties that actors deal with and so she founded the Billie Shepard and Associates Acting Academy. She uses acting techniques to transform all types of business speakers into powerful presenters. Now Billie is what with some amazing and super well-known clients like Facebook... READ MORE Find out more about Billie's work at billieshepard.com  Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Baljit Kaur is an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Consultant. Listen to learn about how to foster inclusiveness in the workplace, applying transactional analysis principles for effective communication, the importance of understanding individuality and personal experiences in organisations to build a good culture... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Olivia James is a Harley Street Therapist who works with people suffering from fear of speaking and who have experienced trauma. Watch this interview to learn a simple technique Olivia has used to help her clients overcome speaking anxiety. WATCH THE INTERVIEW HERE Find out more about Olivia's work https://harleystreetcoach.com Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

I am so excited today because I have a wonderful guest here with me on today’s show, who has helped me no end to bring the message of How to be a D.I.V.A. at Public Speaking to the masses.  A little while ago, I decided that I would find a wonderful voiceover or voice recording artists to help me to get the book... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Are you ready to be connected under any circumstances? If you are going to make a presentation, do you have what it takes to connect up your presentation with the AV at the venue under any circumstances? I’m sorry if you are listening to this on my podcast you cannot see this bunch of cables I have in my hand. I urge you to jump onto my website www.sholakaye.com/blog and check out this episode there because you will be able to watch it all in video format... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Do you ever feel that your voice doesn’t cut through? Perhaps because it’s too breathy?  One of the problems with a breathy voice is you don’t get very much volume when you’re speaking. Another problem with having a very breathy voice is that it can become fatiguing to listen to by the audience... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Is it time for you to tone it down a bit for your audience? Interesting question, right? I’m going to explain a little bit more what I mean in just a moment. Just recently an agency contacted me, they’re based in Miami, and they asked me if I was available to do a professional speaking gig. I was available so I said yes... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

I want to ask you today have you eaten the food of champions before? If you haven’t then you need to stay tuned and watch the entire video. And I’m not talking about Atkins diet, or whether you’re a vegan, or whether you are… I don’t know there’s so many different diets out there… I’m not talking about dieting. I’m talking about the food of champions which is otherwise known as feedback... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

When you speak and perhaps you forget a couple of words, or it doesn’t go as perfectly as you had hoped, do you beat yourself up? Do you sometimes find you are judging yourself while you’re speaking and you can’t be 100% present with the audience and focus because that little negative voice is chatting away? Today I want to share a tip that you can use. A little hack that will help you to stop judging yourself... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Do you need to speak slower when you are in front of an audience? That’s the question that I am sometimes asked so let’s have a chat about it today, shall we? A few years ago, I was participating in online dating and I went on a date with a guy who spoke really slowly. So slowly that after about five minutes on the date I was desperate to get away... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Are you through a person that continually wants to improve at whatever it is that you do, speaking being one of those things? If so, then I’m going to share a little step by step process you can use to regularly improve your public speaking... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Have you been asked to speak on a panel? I know some people love speaking on panels and they like that group aspect to it. Others, like me, prefer to have a more conventional speaking format and just speak on my own to the entire audience. There are different reasons why we like one or the other. Typically, if you’re on a panel there are a few different things to look out for... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Do you have a deadline for improving your speaking? I have a few tips for you coming up if you’re under a bit of pressure to improve your communication in your public speaking. What we’re going to talk about today are some of the areas that you may want to look into if you are under pressure to improve your communication ready for a big moment, a big event, or a high-stakes meeting or high-stakes conference... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Are you adding the human touch to your speeches? Now, we all know that the robots are here. There’re here and there are going to be more of them coming, but you don’t need to be one. What do I mean by that? Well, one of the things that makes us as speakers different than perhaps using Siri or Alexa is... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Are you the world’s pre-eminent expert on widgets and you have a speaking opportunity coming up and you want to share everything you know? EVERYTHING! Well in today’s video podcast I want to share why that may not be the best thing for your audience... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

How do you make your talks more engaging and more interactive? That’s what we’re going to look at today. If you have a formal topic and you're finding it hard to plan in some interactive activities, what’s an easy way that you can use to get people involved throughout?... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Are you struggling a bit with your public speaking? You are struggling with your public speaking. What’s the difference between those two? Well, in the first situation, of course, I asked. And in the second situation I told. We’re going to look today at the difference between asking and telling your audience and the impact that this has upon them... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

When you stand up to do a bit of public speaking, do you ever feel like “oh, I don’t have the confidence to do this… I’m not good enough… I shouldn’t be here…”. Well, today I want to share a tip with you, a little hack if you like, that will hopefully diminish and reduce those feelings of lack of confidence. So if you bear with me for just a moment I’m going to share that hack with you... READ MORE. Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

When you create a speech or write presentation, do you know what the purpose of it is and you know which of the five categories of speech that it falls into? That’s what I get to discuss today... READ MORE. Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Olivia James is a Harley Street Therapist who works with people suffering from fear of speaking and who have experienced trauma. Listen to learn how she helps her clients overcome speaking anxiety. Some of the techniques Olivia teaches are visual. You can watch this on video HERE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Just say yes. But make sure you know what you’re saying yes to! In this particular case I think you should just say yes to public speaking opportunities because it’s not only an opportunity to speak but it’s an opportunity to grow... READ MORE. Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Today let’s explore whether you should use bullets to practise your speech or go for learning every word! I’m often asked which approach is better so let’s take a look... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

When you write a speech, presentation or a talk, do you practice it silently in your head? Or do you practice it out loud? Because it can make all the difference!... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Have you ever thought of employing a coach to work with you to help you get to the next level? This is not going to be me selling myself as a coach, no. I want to share with you some considerations that you might want to put into practice before you choose the next coaching professional to work with you because I had an experience recently that I think is useful to share with you... READ MORE  Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Today I want to share with you why it’s so important when you’re public speaking to walk tall. When I say walk tall I’m not saying be conceited, be arrogant, be full of yourself, but have that quiet confidence. The kind that comes from knowing you’ve done the prep, you’re ready to speak to the audience and you’re being your authentic self... READ MORE  Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

This is one of my behind-the-scenes videos. I will explain how I create videos for my vlog and how I set up my podcast. I will share with you a few bits of hardware that I use... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Do you ever have problems speaking up in meetings at work? That’s what I want to chat about today. Years ago, I used to hate being in meetings and I would never ever speak up, to the extent where I was actually cautioned by my employer because they weren’t seeing the value that I was adding. I wasn’t really connecting... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Are you exploiting your speaking opportunities? Recently, I was working with a client who had created an amazing opportunity for her herself to get in front of an audience and give her first talk as a business owner. She was particularly ingenious because she was able to get six video testimonials from one talk, six! What she was also very clever about doing is that... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Do you go business networking? If you have to stand up and give a 60-second pitch that is a form of public speaking. That’s why today I want to talk about what you include in your 60 second pitch. Because sometimes less can be more. I want you to remember this little phrase: if you want to impress, say less... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

This is one of my behind-the-scenes episodes and I want to share how I find time to keep learning. Have you ever thought I would love to learn to do XYZ but I don’t have time? I want to share with you what I do to find time to keep learning. I’m one of those unfortunate types who likes to learn stuff for its own sake... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

This is the second episode of a two-parter, which is looking at humour and some ways you can add a little bit of gentle humour without having to kill yourself with studying comedy or working too hard to get those laughs. In the last video, number one of this two-part series, I talked about poking fun at yourself. In this one, I’m going to talk about how to set up a joke using what we call subversion of people’s expectations... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Do you try and add some humour to your presentations and your speeches? Or does it seem like a huge mountain to have to climb to try and be funny and it’s something you want to steer well clear of? I want to share over the course of two videos a couple of simple tips that you can use to be a bit funnier... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

I am starting off a new series in my videos my vlogs and my podcast and it’s called Behind The Scenes. While I absolutely love to share speaking tips with you I also get questions about the way I run my business and why I do certain things.  I want to talk about why I have started running corporate off-sites for one person. And that one person is me. I’ve got a small business ... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Do you use live streaming as a tool to help you with your public speaking? Because if you’re not using it to help you with your speaking you might be missing a trick. A lot of my clients are small business owners who want to get out there and make more of an impact and grow their businesses. Of course, live streaming is a big deal these days because we can livestream on pretty much all the social media platforms... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Are you prepared to act it out? Now, I didn’t say "are you prepared to act up and be difficult?", but are you prepared to act it out. An act out is a specific tool that we can use in public speaking to add a bit of drama and a bit of life to our presentations. Why would we include act outs when we present?... READ MORE  Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Are you prepared to take control? And I’m not asking you to march into the audience, start telling them what to do and become a little dictator towards them. No, the question is are you prepared to take control of your stage area?... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

What do you do when you’re in front of the audience? And they don’t seem to be in the right mood, or in the right state of mind, to listen, and to absorb your message?  What I want to share with you today is a little story about my time in the performance world and what I’ve taken from that to the world of public speaking. And how that applies to engaging your audience. Especially when they seem like they’re not in the mood to listen to what it is that you’ve got to say... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

When doing your public speaking, I want you to think carefully about how you close your presentation. The reason I’m raising this topic now is because I was lucky enough to watch 24 speeches back to back as the judge of a public speaking contest and it was clear where somebody put some time and thought and energy into how they were going to end vs "oh, I don’t know how I’m going to finish this, I’ll just make my last point" and then effectively kind of dropped the mic and walk off. ... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

When you speak, one of the themes that run through your presentations, are they love, hate, gratitude, fear? Whatever they are, let’s talk about that today. I want you to not be afraid of universal themes because they come back again and again. And quite often we feel that we need to be creating something outside the box and doing something really different, but universal themes can have a huge impact on your audience... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Would you like to grow your business and increase your impact with public speaking? Well, if that’s the case, then this episode is for you, because I’m going to show you and teach you how to be a STAR. This framework is one that I put together, which is called the STAR framework. And STAR is an acronym that stands for the four things that you must do, if you want to go out there and win business through public speaking... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Today I want to ask and answer the question: was Aristotle, the father of public speaking, a DIVA? And when I say was he a DIVA I don’t mean, was he a difficult bitchy woman - but was he a DIVA, a public speaking all-arounder? Aristotle passed down a framework that we still use today. He showed us the ideal of what every speaker needs to include in their presentation, for them to be persuasive. Aristotle said that to be persuasive, a speaker needs the three following elements... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Now, I have another couple of episodes on how to as your conference speaking, but this one is about how to get another opportunity from conference speaking, which is quite a handy opportunity. And that is to be the chairperson at a conference. Recently, I was the chairperson at a conference called Women in Law here in London for more than 1000 women at this summit that took place over a day. And there were six different streams, expect them in six different rooms... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

If you are wanting to be a better public speaker and to have a nice little framework that will help you to check all the boxes every time you speak, then this is the episode for you because I’m about to teach you how to be a DIVA at public speaking... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Do you need to speak at a conference? Then follow these tips. This is my second episode in a series of two about speaking at a conference. And maybe you’ve seen the first one, maybe you haven’t. But this one will also help you to as your conference speaking... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Are you about to speak at a conference or a summit or any sort of large event? If so then this episode is for you. Earlier this year, I was a conference chair at a big event in London, which was called the women in law summit. And as conference chair, you are lucky enough to hear multiple speeches in a day... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

This time we explore why business networking can be great for your public speaking. Clients and members of my Facebook Group frequently ask me where they can find more speaking opportunities... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Is it really possible to enjoy yourself on stage?! Of course it is!! And in today’s post let’s look at why you should try to have a good time in front of your audience. The opportunity to speak in public is an honour, and not some form of cruel punshiment, so let’s treat it that way... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

So how do you become confident enough to stand on stage and speak? That’s what we look at this week... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Back when I used to run my regular monthly Speak Up Like A D.I.V.A. events, I was routinely contacted by would-be speakers. They would tell me they had a great story, and that I’d be missing out if I didn’t invite them along to the meeting to share it with my attendees. So today, we look at whether having a fantastic life story is enough... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

If you’re a business owner wanting to promote what you do, or a budding speaker, where do you find your speaking opportunities? And what do you do to stand out? It can be a bit of a downer seeing so many people responding to seemingly scarce opportunities. Good news… there are more speaking gigs out there than you may think! READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

In this post, I share a few tips and insights around occasion speeches and how to approach them. A number of my clients come to me for help with these kinds of speeches and typically, they’re people who don’t make speeches regularly at work. The clients are often slightly freaked out at the thought of having to speak up at an important event like a wedding or a funeral... READ MORE Go to www.sholakaye.com for useful freebies, tips and more. Create a speech stress-free and fast with my free guide 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.