Public Speaking : 12 Steps to Creating Your Own Ezine
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10 Worst Tips To Give A Speaker 1. Learn the speech by heart or read it from a script. This is meant to be a way of making sure you don’t forget what you’re going to say. Instead, it’s usually a way of making sure you don’t connect with your audience. Most people who use a script end ... Assertiveness - Just how nice are you? It is important for you to define where you find your behaviour beneficial and where you find it a liability. See where you fit into the wide spectrum of our definition of nice behaviour. Below is a list of some of the things that adaptive people do. It ... Stand Up and Be Counted I don’t think you’re going to like today’s point. I don’t like it very much myself but it’s got to be done. For most purposes, when you give a presentation you should stand. Not clutching the back of your chair for support, not leaning against the podium ...
12 Steps to Creating Your Own Ezine
Now that youve decided to create your own ezine, whats the best way to begin? Here are 12 steps that have proven useful to many people just starting out. #1 Create a list of topics These can come from many sources. Here are a few ideas to get you started. A. Questions from customers or clients B. Problems overcome C. New trends in your industry D. New products or services you offer #2 Decide on how often to publish Youre probably better off writing once or twice a month. Less than that and people will forget about you. Writing weekly is tough on you and might be too often for your readers as well unless you keep your articles very short. #3 Build up a backlog before you start If you outline three or four articles at the beginning, it will give you the confidence that you can do this. Then, even if you get too busy to plan your next issue, you can relax a bit knowing a lot of the thinking has already been done. #4 Keep your writing informal If you write like youre speaking to a friend across your kitchen table, a lot more of your personality will come through. Its unlikely your high school English teacher will grade your writing, so relax already! On the other hand, you dont want to let a lot of obvious mistakes get out since your readers will make judgments about your attention to detail based on what they read. At the very least run your spell checker at the end. Also, its a good idea to have a trusted friend or colleague read your article before sending it out. Its so easy to overlook your own errors since you know what you meant to say. Someone else will find words you left out, missing punctuation, grammar errors and so on. Plus, if they dont understand your message, you have a chance to make it clearer before you go public with it. #5 Consider using content written by others At some point you might find yourself without enough time to prepare an article by your deadline. Or perhaps youd like to bring a new perspective to your readers. For whatever reason, you may want to have someone else write an issue for you occasionally. If your business is part of a larger organization, they may have material you can use in your newsletter. There are also many online resources that archive articles on every topic imaginable. My last newsletter (http://www.zmoon.com/articles/newsletter.html) suggested several places you could submit your original articles to. Those same websites might have just the thing you need to send to your readers. Be sure to include the authors copyright and contact information. #6 Start with a plain text e-newsletter Although most people can receive HTML email (in other
words, they can see colors and pictures in it), not everyone can and not everyone prefers that format. In the beginning its much simpler for you to create your documents in plain text.They will go out quicker and be received faster as well. Later on, if you decide to offer an HTML version, be sure to let your readers decide which version theyd prefer. List management software (see #11 http://www.zmoon.com/articles/newsletter12.html#eleven) can automatically send each person just what they want and you only have to prepare the HTML version. For ease of readability its a good idea to format your text to 60 characters per line. If you use a monospaced font like Courier your lines should end at the same place on everyones system. #7 Create and build your mailing list So who are the lucky folks who will receive your words of wisdom? In these days of spam in every inbox, its critical that you have specific permission to send your ezine to everyone on your list. Current clients and customers already have a relationship with you, so they can probably go on your list if you have their email address. Gaining new readers can be done both online and off. Your website can have a page or section describing your ezine along with a form to input an email address. If you ask for their first name as well, you can personalize each email. Your email signature box is another place to put a brief advertisement about your newsletter. If you have a storefront business, you can put cards at the register or desk that can be fill out. You can enter the addresses into your system later. One client of mine has placed a computer kiosk right by the door. That way customers can sign themselves up as they leave and get on the mailing list automatically. Finish the rest of the article on the website (http://www.zmoon.com/articles/newsletter12.html#eight). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please forward this to a friend! Les Goss is the president of ZebraMoon Design, Inc., where he educates his business clients as he builds their web sites. To subscribe to the free email newsletter or to find out more about how they can serve you, please come to: http://www.zmoon.com/. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About the Author Les Goss is President of ZebraMoon Design, Inc. To see a partial list of high-ranking web sites we've created for our clients, please visit our web site at http://www.zmoon.com. Sign up for our free newsletter at http://www.zmoon.com/webdesigntips.html. You'll receive two issues a month on topics that should help you stay a step ahead of your competition.
