The Speaking Club: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking

We are living in tumultuous times, we are facing some of the biggest challenges ever as a species, and as individual countries, organisations and people.  And despite the huge incentives to come together to work through these problems, we are in a lot of ways more divided than ever before.  Many speakers today are talking on some of these big topics and wicked problems, looking to shift audience p...

This quick talk tip will help you avoid the trap that many speakers fall into, and will help you become more marketable to your target audience.  In this show I'm covering: The burning platform thought experiment.  The impact of failing to find a 'hot' problem. Hot topic vs. hot problem  The evergreen hot topics The principles of making your talk topic marketable. How you can get more help. Enjoy!...

All of us want to be healthy, happy and live a long and active life, but getting clarity on how to achieve that is a struggle. The information we get is often tainted by corporate interests pushing us in the direction of their products or pills, and all of this can leave you feeling like you're in a maze full of dead ends, getting spun around with no way to find the right path to wellness. In the...

This quick talk tip will help you avoid the pitfalls that stop most speakers from realising their dream to become a professional, paid speaker. If you have that dream, then listen up.  In this show I'm covering: The brutal truth about speaking A story that illustrates two of the biggest obstacles to authors and experts becoming paid speakers  Three things you need to do to overcome those obstacles...

How can you get the edge as a professional speaker? What can you do to make yourself more marketable? Well today on the show, my guest Elliot Kay, will be sharing valuable insights on how to achieve just that through The Speaker Awards. Elliot is co-founder of the speaker awards, a speaking coach, and a professional speaker.  About three years ago, he saw a huge gap for speakers, and had a big ide...

When I met David Van Bennekum on Linked In and he told me he'd written a self-help book on National Security, I thought 'That's a bit unusual, followed by blimey he's got some guts … that's a challenging topic'.  My curiosity was well and truly piqued though, so I had a look at his LinkedIn profile and saw that he was a former United States Marine Corps Infantry and Logistics Officer. He was a vet...

The other day I had a talk planning call with a potential client, and he said: "I just want to get consistent results. Sometimes I start my talk and I can feel the energy shift, and I know I've engaged them. But other times, I just can't get their attention, and I want to understand how to do this consistently every time I speak." The truth is that grabbing your audience's attention in the right w...

Quick tips to build your speaking confidence, skills, impact, business or engaging talk content. These tips originate from issues that come up for students, and questions from my audience. If you want to get your question answered DM me on Instagram or LinkedIN @Saraharcher15. This quick talk tip will help you attract people into your world and build a deeper connection with them, so that you will...

Not too long ago I heard one of the gurus in my space say that one of the big factors in his success is that when everyone else 'zigs', he 'zags'. You can see 'zigging' going on all around you, suddenly everyone wants to be a neurodiversity expert, or an AI expert, because that's what's hot, because they are chasing the trend.  But what if you don't do that? What if you go your own way, and stay t...

Itunes Summary (45 Words): Quick tips to build your speaking confidence, skills, impact, business or engaging talk content. These tips originate from issues that come up for students, and questions from my audience. If you want to get your question answered DM me on Instagram or LinkedIN @Saraharcher15. SHOW NOTES If people believe that you can deliver what they want and need, they will book you t...

Most of us have experienced sales 'tactics', and likely we've either recoiled against them and scarpered (physically or digitally), or have gone ahead with our needed purchase, even though a little bit of shine has worn off the relationship with the person that used them on us. Our experiences have made us sceptical of anyone with something to sell, and allergic to feeling 'salesy' ourselves.  But...

SUMMARY: Getting a clear understanding of how to properly protect the IP and assets you've created as a speaker can be a struggle. But doing nothing could leave you and your business at risk. Worry no more, that's where my guest Heather Pearce-Campbell comes in.   SHOW NOTES: Let's face it, trying to navigate how to protect the IP you've created in talks, books and courses, can make you feel like...

As we leave 2023 behind and start making our plans for 2024, I'd like to offer you some suggestions for tools and techniques which you might want to add into your planning process. These have worked to help me achieve my goals in the past and have also helped many others to build the future they desire.  Some are a little 'out there', but I've tried them all out myself and I do believe they will g...

I had a similar issue come up with two clients this week, and it's a mistake I see people making regularly, not just with their speaking, but in other critical content too. This mistake can result in people not paying attention to you, lost business opportunities, and normally leads to frustration and the question, "I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong!" What they are doing wrong is not le...

SUMMARY Is it possible to brag in a way that attracts people to you, rather than turning them off? Lisa Bragg, author of Bragging Rights believes so, and she is here to redefine bragging and share exactly how to do it the right way.     SHOW NOTES We have been conditioned since childhood to keep quiet about our achievements. We are taught things like, 'nobody likes a show off', 'stay humble' and '...

Quick tips to build your speaking confidence, skills, impact, business or engaging talk content. These tips originate from issues that come up for students, and questions from my audience. If you want to get your question answered DM me on Instagram or LinkedIN @Saraharcher15.  I come across many speakers who are struggling to connect with their audience, and as a consequence their talks fail to g...

How often, when it comes to writing in your business, has the blank page beaten you? I've seen so many people get stopped, or never share what they have written because they don't think it's good enough, or they are worried about being judged.  Just like when you speak, in your business writing too, you get an amazing confidence boost from knowing that your message is good, that your content will...

It's often said that the real experts are the ones that can make the complex easy to understand, and Ros Atkins is an expert on making things easy to understand … so I guess that would make him the expert's expert!  As a journalist, and BBC News' Analysis Editor, Ros Atkins has presented and reported on the biggest stories around the world for twenty years . He's also the creator of the critically...

Waking up paralysed in 2014 completely turned Jamie McAnsh's life upside down.  He lost his job, and his independence, but he was determined to forge a new path and purpose for his life.  That included becoming a top disabled athlete, and fulfilling his dream of climbing Mount Everest in 2022. What he realised was that he had a great support network around him, helping him to achieve his goals, an...

One of the most important parts of your talk is the opening, because you have to grab the attention of your audience and show why the talk is relevant for them. What I've noticed recently with some of my clients, is that their 'hook', (or 'lightning bolt' as I call it), is good, but they aren't fully committing to it, and that is weakening the opening and the connection with the audience and the t...

Still one of the most prolific tools around, Powerpoint can literally make or break your presentation, depending on how you use it. That's why I wanted to get Philippa Leguen de Lacroix on the show.  She started life employed as a graphic designer, and was increasingly tasked with creating powerpoint slides for the different organisations she worked for. But … Philippa had a yearning to become her...

This quick talk tip is in response to a situation one of my client's found herself in, that could be an obstacle for you too.  In this show I'm covering: Why you need to be able to flex your talk.  Why it works How I used it and you can see it in action Tips for building this skill Enjoy! Leave a rating or review for The Speaking Club (Take a photo of your review, email it to me at sarah@saraharch...

It wasn't until I embarked on my marketing, influencing and sales odyssey, that I discovered the concept of 'audience sophistication' as I call it.  It's something I've often shared with marketing clients, but although I used it myself in my talks, I've not taught it to speakers until recently.  And the feedback when I have has been so positive, that I thought I'd better share it with you too!  In...

As a speaker you need to be like the director of a movie, using your talk content and delivery to captivate the audience. Your talk should contain moments that challenge them, make them ponder, create desire and yearning and move them towards your intended destination. All in a way that feels natural and aligned. In this episode, I'm going to share the levers you can use to achieve those things. ...

As you may know in addition to teaching people how to become awesome speakers, I am a writer, and that's how I first discovered Jo Gatford. I was writing my second play, and needed some concentrated time to focus on getting it written, queue Writers HQ. Jo Gatford is an award-winning writer of short and long fiction and the co-founder of Writers' HQ. It's an organisation dedicated to providing low...