Some, if not most of us here, aspire to be speakers some day to impart to the world the things we can add to the greater knowledge and to ultimately inspire. Yet it can be challenging to do it, especially if you’ve never had formal training or if you find how most of the coaches are men. However, we women are different and need different things. We prepare differently and therefore speak differently. Tracy gives some pro speaking tips for women, from what women need to do to what they need to prepare before a speaking engagement, focusing first on the things we need. Learn what appropriate dress to wear as well as some accessories to have to truly make your talk conducive and effective.

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Pro Speaking Tips for Women: Stop Second Guessing Yourself and Learn the Right Way to Speak with Confidence

I’m bringing you some pro-speaker tips. I get this question all the time, “Tracy, how do you do this? How are you on stage? What do you wear? How do you do your hair?” There’s a whole bunch of questions that are girly questions. For you female speakers out there, these tips are for you. Some of them are my insider tips. I’ve discovered through the hard way. “This doesn’t work. This does work. This looks good on stage. This looks terrible in the after photos or in the video later.” I’m going to give you a few of those. I want to share them with you. I know there’s a lot of you out there who are aspiring to be speakers and you’ve never done this before. If you haven’t gone for formal speaker training on and even if you have, you might find out that there’s a bunch of men giving you tips. It doesn’t work out at all for us. When we’re women, we have a few different things that we need to do.

This episode is about accessories and girly stuff that you should prepare, you should do and you should wear that thing. For another time, I’ll give you some of my other tips about the rules that I violate for speaker tips, the ones that all of the gurus give you that are all men. I’m going to give you the ones that are for girls here, but right now these ones are my girly tips. These are my things that I never leave home without that I always bring with me every time I go.

When we’re women, we have a few different things we need to do. Click To Tweet

A lot of times, we wear a dress. We wear a cool, nice or cute dress. Maybe it’s a wrap dress or we’re wearing or a nice loose top. The issue is that when you go there, they’re going to give you a microphone that’s a Lav. If you’re not wearing pants or if you don’t have the right outfit, unlike men, we can’t tuck it on the inside pocket of our jacket if we aren’t wearing blazers. There’s a whole issue there. I don’t know about you, but I’m over 40 and when I get hot on stage, I start to not look good. It’s not a glowy look on me, so I don’t want to be sweating up there. I definitely don’t like the jacket over something which is how us, women, mostly do it. I don’t like to do that.

What I always bring with me is my favorite thing, which is a stretchy belt. It has a cool clasp and everything like that. It looks good on the front. If you’ve seen me on stage, you’d probably see me wear this thing. I wear this belt all the time. You clip it on and I clip the Lav mic behind me and I can bring it up through behind my hair. All of the wires, everything, and then hooked to the front. That’s another thing. Then, “What shirt are you wearing? What top are you wearing?” Make sure you have a V-neck because the scoop neck is almost too close to your neck. I always like to have a V-neck, not too low, you don’t want things popping out. You want to have it be perfect. That gives you a place to clip it to. It’s hidden under my hair for all the wires and everything. People can’t see behind you because you usually don’t turn around. You want to be facing our audience at all times. Any small amount of wire goes up from the belt into under my hair and then up through the front to where I clip the microphone.

That brings me to the second thing that I always bring with me, which is a cute necklace. This is one of the favorites that I wear all the time. It’s a tree of life. Many people love this. Especially when I go to the conferences where we have lots of health, wellness, spiritual people, energy workers, and lightworkers, they love it when I wear this because it knows that I understand them, that I get it. I also have a purple one that I wear because purple’s my signature color. I have a little bit of color thing going on so I keep it an accent. I like to wear black and sometimes that can be bad against the backdrop. I know that. You want to have a little accent color that pops on that. I try to keep whatever it is an accent color.

Pro Speaking Tips: The spikier your heels, the more it’s tilting you and the worse it feels on your feet.

 

One of my favorite people taught me lots of things about speaking wears you can have blingy things up there at the neck, but you want to keep it small. I have this one necklace I was given, it’s for the Crypto Vixens and I absolutely love it, but it jangles. If you’re wearing the mic, it jangles against the mic and that’s a terrible sound. You definitely don’t want anything long and anything that’s going to move. You want to keep it tight and close to your neck. You want to keep it colorful or a signature item. That’s the second thing I always take with me whenever I give a speech.

The third thing, I discovered this the hard way from being critiqued on stage. I thought, “I’m five-foot-two.” I want to be taller. Who doesn’t? That’s why we’re on stage. We want to have a platform. We want to be tall. I wear my spiky heels and all of those things, but sometimes it makes people nervous when you’re walking on those tiny spiky heels and you’re walking back and forth on the stage. I’m a very active speaker and I like to move around a lot. It makes people nervous and uncomfortable. When you’re onstage, you’re leaning forward and you’re activated, your toes are like getting jammed into the front of your shoes. Even if those shoes felt comfortable before, they will not feel comfortable by the time you’re done with that. The more your mind is working on that and concentrating on that, the worst that it is. Never wear a brand-new pair of shoes. I absolutely never wear brand new ones. The spikier they are and the more that they’re tilting you, the worse your feet will feel at the end of it and the more conscious of it you will start to be.

I like to wear something that’s more like a wedge from one of my favorite shoe company, called Sbicca. Sbiccas are made here in the US, which is rare. It is not something I’m going to fall off of. It’s going to be easy. It’s got a nice wide heel. It’s got a little bit of height because it’s a little bit of a platform. Those are the kinds of shoes that are interesting. They’re detailed and cool-looking. These are the kinds of things that I wear on stage and I get so many compliments. I’ve worn my clunky wedgy heels that are big and clunky and people respond better to them than when I wore the spiky ones where they felt nervous. Especially if you’re going to do the tip that many speaker trainers teach you to do, which is to get down off the stage and get close to your audience. You never know how rickety those stairs are going to be. Am I going to fall flat on my face? Is there going to be a handrail? Is there going to be something that can guide me down?

That’s where we get into this situation where we’re not sure what we’re going to be in for. We’ve got a pack ahead of time. I have a set of trusty things, which are my shoes and the necklace that I always have. I usually have two or three that I rotate in-between and my belt. I have a couple of them. I never leave home without those no matter where it is because you never know when you’re going to be speaking or when you’re going to have an opportunity to have a mic clipped to you.

People can’t see behind you because you usually don’t turn around. Click To Tweet

If you’re going to have to hold a handheld mic, bring your mic block with you. I’ve got a mic block. I might have one that says Feed Your Brand or Brandcasting You or Podetize or Product Launch Hazzards on it. I might have one this branded for the event and I bring it and I give it to them. This is something that I absolutely love to do is to take one with me. This mic that I use here at home and in my office is exactly the same size and everything as the mics that are usually given to you as handhelds. This is something that I always bring an extra one with me. You can order them, you can contact me and I’ll be happy to connect you with that.

The other thing that I do is lip gloss. I never leave home without lip gloss that is brightly colored and that matches my theme. We want to keep our lips looking moist, not dry. We want to have them sparkled, especially while holding the mic, we want our mouth to be contrasted against that. You have to be thinking about that. I like it to be a little bit of glossy and not too matte. That’s something that I think looks better on stage when the lights hit you. That’s my personal preference.

The last tip is a little bonus that I want to bring you. I bring my own extra recording equipment. Sometimes, I have two packs behind me and an extra Lav. I bring that because so many times these events don’t provide your recording fast enough. If you’ve got your own audio, you have the ability to turn it into a podcast. You also have to flip it all off of that and send back a SlideShare with audio from your event and the energy of what you did immediately back to all the people who gave you their email address. When you say, “I’m happy to give you my SlideShare afterwards,” you can give them a bonus by giving the audio as well. Thank you so much. This has been Tracy with my women speaker tips. Take care.

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