Speaking

Public Speaking for Introverts (And Those Who Forget How to Be Around People)

Years ago I hired a public speaking coach to help me improve my on-stage presence. Yikes that sentence is lifeless. Let’s try it again, mmkay? Years ago I hired a public speaking coach to help me keep my heart rate in a normal range instead of flitting close to a cardiac episode every time I stepped on stage. Nerves are part of public speaking. The trick, I learned, is to use them to your advantage. Your heart rate increases and your breathing comes more quickly because you care so very, very much. So that near-cardio episode isn’t because you’re terrified; it’s because you’re fired up and raring to go. Viewing your perceived weaknesses as strengths. The reframing helped me enormously. That alone was worth the big fat check I wrote the coach. * * * There were other lessons, too. I found my scribbled notes of them in my office

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Can Your Virtual Event Be Better Than Your In-Person Event?

How do you run a virtual program that has personality, joy, heart, humor, character, spirit, soul, magic? Can a virtual event be better than a physical, in-person event? Last Tuesday, I would have answered… I hope so (to the first question). And no (to the second)—not really, anyway. Maybe I was just exhausted. (Aren’t we all.) Maybe I was just uninspired. (Same.) Maybe it’s just been *A WEEK*. Then last Wednesday and Thursday we at MarketingProfs hosted our annual B2B Forum, for the first time ever online, using the virtual event platform BigMarker. And we realized a few things about how virtual events can be better than in-person. At least… in some ways. Here are some thoughts inspired by last week’s B2B Forum. My colleague Jen Smith is publishing a piece that echoes some of these ideas and introduces others. Even if you don’t run full-blown events, our advice applies

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Slay the Ignosaurus; Change Your Life

The Ignosaurus (Latin: Ignosaurus Status Quo) is a beast that lurks in the shadow of Marketing. Some say it doesn’t exist. That it died out millions of years ago along with the other dinosaurs. Some say it never existed. But insiders know the dirty secret… that the Ignosaurus is very much *ALiVe* in marketing. It lurks in our industry—holding you or your teams back, bringing everyone down. The only way to slay it…? Take away its seat at the table and invite another creature in its place. This is a lightly edited transcription of my keynote at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, illustrated by a few of the slides. The full deck is here, too: Slay the Ignosaurus; Change Your Life from Ann Handley * * * San Francisco, November 14, 2018 This morning let’s talk about slaying the Ignosaurus—what it is; why we need to slay it. This is Ignosaurus.

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Content Marketing In 15 Minutes a Day: 3 Content Hacks

Part of me is allergic to the headline I just wrote—or, at least, the “15 minutes a day” part. Because starting out with a stingy marketing mindset runs counter to the spirit of the rich content marketing opportunity. It reminds of me of punching a clock at a job you hate: How little do I have to work? How much responsibility can I shirk? But, still, businesses—especially very small ones—have certain constraints and often-ungenerous realities. What if you really have only mere minutes a day to focus specifically on marketing? What if you run, say, a restaurant or a pizza shop—and you’re squeezing out a Facebook post in between the lunch and dinner rush? Can it be done? Yes. But only with a solid plan and strategy in place. At least, that’s the message Shelly Kramer and I gave a few weeks ago at the International Pizza Expo in Las

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Follow the Fear: My ‘Bold Talk’ at Hubspot [Video]

When Hubspot first invited me last September to its “Bold Talks” stage, a stage that ostensibly was to give attendees at its annual user event access to “bold and powerful talks from a diverse and powerful group of exciting and influential people,” my first impulse was to say thanks but… No. This is the story of why my first reaction was No, and how it came to be that last August, I showed up to give the talk at Inbound, Hubspot’s annual user conference. “Showed up” makes it sound like it was no big deal — like I hadn’t spent the previous night sleepless with worry; like I hadn’t considered driving straight past the exit to the Hynes Convention Center and continuing on straight to Rhode Island into Connecticut, New Jersey, and so on… driving all the way down the Eastern seaboard, possibly forever; like I didn’t have to wear

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