Complete Transcription of bni podcast Episode 049 – Priscilla Rice

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 049 –
Priscilla Rice:
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast brought to you by networkingnow.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice coming from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you?
Ivan Misner:
I am doing great, Priscilla. I have an interesting topic today.
Priscilla:
Oh, what are you going to talk to us about?
Ivan:
I am going to talk about conquering your fear of public speaking. You know, BNI wasn’t really created to be a training organization for speaking, but one of the things that I hear over and over again from BNI members is how much they have gained in terms of feeling confident in standing up in front of groups. We are not a Toastmasters. That is a great organization to teach people how to speak. But that said, we do really help train people on how to speak by having them do it week in and week out.
I don’t know if you know this, but you probably do. It has been published in many places. In many of the surveys that I have read over the years, people have ranked their fear of public speaking higher than the fear of dying, which amazes me. So standing there talking to an audience can be really frightening, especially if it is more than just a minute, more than just 60 seconds.
I first really got a handle on this years ago in BNI. I met a CPA who was deathly afraid of public speaking. We knew she was afraid. She was always nervous just to do her 60-second presentation. One week we told her – this was in the early, early days of BNI. We told her that she was scheduled to speak six weeks out. She looked at me and the Secretary who was there and said, “If I have to speak, I quit.”
I said, “No, no seriously. You are scheduled to speak six weeks out.”
She said, “No joke. If I have to do a ten minute talk, I quit.”
I said, “You are kidding!”
She said, “Come on, you guys. Don’t you see it takes all my willpower just to stand up and give the 60-second presentation? I am just deathly afraid of doing a presentation.”
We said, “Don’t quit but you don’t want to lose this opportunity. This is a great opportunity to train and teach people about what you do.”
She said, “Okay, I understand. I quit.”
I said, “No, don’t quit, but you have to come up with something.” She, in no uncertain terms, informed me that if she was required to speak for ten minutes, she would have to quit because it was just so stressful for her.
We told her not to quit and we wouldn’t make her speak if she didn’t want to. That seemed to alleviate some of her anxiety. We continued talking. I told her that she didn’t have to do the presentation but it is unfortunate to eliminate an opportunity to educate members. She acknowledged that but still said that she wasn’t going to speak.
I said, “Well, what if, instead of speaking, you just read a test, read questions?”
She said, “What do you mean?”
I said, “Give the members a test. Don’t do a speech. Just give them a test. You read the question and let them answer it. Then you tell them whether it is true or false.” I asked her whether she could come up with ten true or false questions about tax law and asked her if she could just read the questions. How many of you say true? How many of you say false? Do that kind of thing.
She thought for a moment and she said, “I don’t have to speak. I just read the questions and say true or false.”
I said, “That’s it.”
She said, “Alright, I can probably do that.”
When the day came, the test was absolutely hysterical. It was just so funny because she was a little nervous but was okay. She didn’t have to speak. She stood up and started reading it. She really worded the questions well. She asked us some tough questions. Half the audience was saying true and half the audience was saying false. Some of the people we saying they were going to go to San Quinton because they missed all three of these questions so far.
At about the third question through, she kind of got off script and she stared speaking extemporaneously. The further she got into it, the more she was comfortable. She was very professional, but she was humorous and informative. And at about 12 minutes, the President had to have her sit down. She was absolutely shocked that she went over time. It was great because she just did a “test”.
I think the bottom line with this is that you should do a presentation that you feel comfortable with but think creatively about what you know and find a way to do it in a way that expresses your knowledge and allows you to be comfortable. You will discover that you don’t have to pass up an opportunity to talk longer to the networking groups that you belong to if you just get creative on how you do it.