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One quality that sticks out to me as make or break in athletics and is common among all the greats is confidence. You never see someone win the gold medal at the Olympics who is timid or unsure of his or her abilities. It’s a quality that can truly take someone from good to great in anything. This goes for pitches and presentations too. Ever walk away from a speaker who moved or inspired you that wasn’t confident about their subject or their mastery of it?

Here are three tips to get you more confident before your next speech so you thrive next time you step in front a group of people.

Know your stuff: This would equate to having great fundamentals in sports. These are the things that are the foundation of your skill, and in your speech it is really as simple as knowing your topic well. Be familiar with the subject, so that you can answer questions, and be able to adjust in case something goes wrong. You’ll be more comfortable and your audience will sense it.

Practice: Pretty obvious, but I think it’s still important to point it out. You are never going to be confident giving a speech if the first time you present is in front of your audience for the real deal. No athlete competes without putting in hours at the gym or on the practice field first. Practice out loud, and try to practice it at least once in front of another person… dogs don’t count here. My goal is always to practice the full speech three times before the real one.

Posture: Someone in your life has probably told you to stand up straight or not to slouch; well for presenting they were dead right. This helps in two ways. The first is that it makes you look more confident to your audience, and that means they’ll be more receptive to your message and view you as the authority. The second is physiological. When you stand up straight and push your shoulders back your brain actually produces hormones that make you more confident and less stressed. It’s important during your presentation, but I would like to challenge you to practice it all day. I like to use doorways to remind myself. Every time I walk through a doorway I try to check my posture and correct it if I can.

There you have it, 3 easy ways to be more confident (or at least seem more confident) in your presentations and pitches. Know your stuff, practice your presentation 3 times, and practice good posture (hopefully all day).

Try them out for your next big speech and reap the rewards of a more powerful message.

Local business online marketing is difficult for the small local business owner. In fact it’s really tough. If you read some of the industry forums you’ll find many business owners asking each other how to make their local business online marketing work.

The small business owner generally can’t afford to hire an expert to tackle this for them. Often the cost can be over $1000 per month. Not only that, you have to sign a contract for 6 months or a year, that scares small business owners to death.

Studies show that over 60% of business owners who attempt local business online marketing drop it after 6 months. My guess is that their business is smaller than the 40% of the businesses who continue to find it profitable.

You see, there are two main options for business online marketing. One is pay per click and the other is directory listings. These options can be great if your marketing budget can afford for you to get top placement. To be found in pay per click and directory listings you need to be near the top where the eyeballs are looking.

Of course the marketing companies know this and charge a premium for those spots. The small business is at a great disadvantage trying to slug it out with the national franchise outfits.

So how can local business online marketing work for the little guy?

Well, the good news is 60% of people never look at paid search results, they just look at the organic results. What if you could place a promotion for your business there?…Well now you can.