For Business Women: Does your Posture Communicate Confidence?

By Stacey Hanke (Read about her here.)

(Listen to it here.)

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Do you walk into a room like you belong there? Does your posture communicate confidence—or uncertainty?

Last week I attended a conference and was observing individuals as they walked into the room. The individuals who caught my attention walked into the room as if they were saying, “I’d rather be having a root canal than entering this room.” Their posture conveyed a lack of confidence and credibility. Not only did they walk with hesitation, but their seated posture communicated uncertainty.

If only we could see what others see when we enter a room, sit in a meeting, or participate in a face-to-face conversation. If you want to be taken more seriously and have more impact and influence, a powerful place to begin is with your standing and seated posture.

The challenge with communication behavior is that there is no right or wrong. Throughout this year’s podcasts, I’ll give recommendations on what I’ve found are the most effective ways to communicate with impact and influence.

Posture is a Confidence Skill
Since posture is a confidence skill, begin by improving how you carry yourself.

If you are somewhere where you can stand while you read this (or listen to the podcast), please stand up now. Try this posture: Distribute your weight evenly on both feet with toes forward and legs hip-width apart. Relax your arms at your sides to avoid fidgeting with your rings, fingers, notes, etc., which may distract your listeners.

How do you feel? You’re probably feeling uncomfortable if this is not how you normally stand. Therefore, you’re tempted to go back to your previous posture. However, remember that changing communication behaviors is not about comfort—it’s about effectiveness.

This posture is called the “neutral stance” or “home base.” You don’t need to stand in the neutral stance at all times. Instead, when you complete a gesture or movement, come back to your home base.

At some point during your talk or conversation, you need to be quiet and still by relaxing your arms at your sides in home base. When you are fidgeting, rocking back and forth, or pacing, your mind can’t work effectively, which prevents you from thinking on your feet. You are trying to do too much at one time. As a result, you may lose your train of thought and not be as effective as you could be.

You also need to be quiet and still for your listener. When your posture becomes a distraction, listeners will focus on what you are doing rather than what you are communicating. Returning to home base gives you time to think on your feet..

The neutral stance also applies when you are seated. Give this a try:

Uncross your legs and place your feet flat on the floor. When you slouch or cross your legs, it’s more difficult to breathe from your diaphragm, which negatively impacts your voice.

If you are seated at a desk or table, keep your gestures above the table to add emphasis to your words. When you gesture underneath the table, your listeners may wonder, “What is she doing under there?”

When you’ve completed a gesture, relax your arms on top of the table. If you are seated without a table, relax your arms in your lap or on the arms of the chair.

Most importantly, avoid fidgeting with your pen, fingers, rings, etc.

Where should you sit?

When possible, avoid sitting directly across from your listener. The table, desk or podium becomes a barrier between you and your listeners. Instead sit next to your listener, creating an open posture to enhance the relationship.

If you’re facilitating a meeting with a group seated at a conference table, sit at the head of the table. This position makes it easier to connect and increases listener participation.

Practice the neutral stance whenever you are standing or sitting, talking to co-workers, friends or family members.

Business Women’s Tip of the Week:

Twice a day for a week, pay attention to what your posture communicates. If you begin to fidget or slouch, move to the neutral position. Begin creating new habits.

Be sure to visit our site, WomensMedia to get Expert Advice for Business Women.

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here, or StaceyHanke here.

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On our website, WomensMedia you should read this: Table-Talking Your Way to Networking, or this: 8 Tips for Fearless Communication in the Workplace .

It may help to listen to Gender Communication with Authority And Care —A Business Woman Can Be Careful Without Losing Her Authority
or read it here.

Little Miss Perfect Is Not Saving Time

by Nancy Clark (Read about her here.)

(Listen to it here.)

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I like to include the latest research whenever I can so you’ll feel confident when you buck conventional wisdom. However, perfection is tough to measure. If you want the truth, you only have to ask yourself, “Am I guilty of thinking my work is not good enough because it’s not perfect?” Whenever you answer “yes,” I want to you put time above perfection on your priority list and take another look.

Sometimes that 2-page report is sufficient for the task and that 76-page rendition you could deliver would set you back in three ways.

1.  The first is that you would be using up time that could be put a high visibility or a high return item, such as acquiring a new client for your company.

2.  The second setback—which happens all too often to women—is that your company will assign this task to you permanently since they know no one else would want to do the next 76-pager.

3.   And the third setback is that higher up execs will think, “She’s one of those Busy-Work Women.” That certainly creates an image, and it’s not the image you should be striving for.

Are you going to have a problem letting go of perfection? I bet quite a few of you are. If so, do not under any circumstances, present a report with a disclaimer, such as, “I just didn’t have enough time to do a good job.” Chances are it was good enough. Chances are other employees would not have done a better job. Chances are after hearing your disclaimer, everyone will be looking for evidence of a lousy report. And what you look for, you usually find.

Tip:

Don’t give anyone a reason to label you as a Busy-Work Woman. Keep your attention on the other side of the coin: You are an Important-Work Woman who cares about time, strategy, and moving ahead with new business ideas.

Next time you’re assigned a task that sets your Perfection Worry Center on alert, stop, take a breath, and start the Perfection Cancellation Process. Here it is:

Talk to your boss soon after the task has been assigned. Remind him, or her, of your other higher priority tasks and make it known that you’ll do a good job, but won’t sacrifice these other tasks because of a time crunch. See if he agrees. I bet he will and you’ll be off the self-imposed Perfection Hook.

Listen to today’s podcast here.

Be sure to visit our site, WomensMedia to get Expert Advice for Business Women.

Or on our website, WomensMedia you should read:

Advice to Business Women by Carol Bartz, CEO Yahoo! or

How You Can Be An Effective Listener

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here.

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5 Tips For Entrepreneurs

by Sharon Michaels (Read about her here.)

(Listen to it here.)

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From experience I know that growing a business takes time, energy and money. It is extremely exciting to find credible resources that provides a valuable business service and is free to use. In fact, the site you’re on right now, WomensMedia.com is one such resource.

Personally, I’m a big believer that if I can learn a new how-to or gather a time saving success tip, it is worth my time to use the resources available to me. And if they are free, so much the better!

Here are a few of the free Internet sites I’ve found, use myself and want to share with you.

1. Small Business Administration - http://www.sba.gov/index.html

This is truly a valuable resource for the woman business owner.

The site is divided into four sections:

• Small Business Planner – Help manage your business from start to finish.
• Services – Expand your business with programs and services
• Tools – Increase your business with products and tools
• Local Resources – Support your business with a team of experts

This site is filled with self-help business building tools. It’s worth your time to browse through this site to pick and choose the right information to support your business growth.

2. SBTV.com – http://www.SBTV.com

SmallBusinessTV.com is a content-rich Web resource filled with up-to-date information dedicated to small business owners. SBTV.com is an Internet TV station. It has TV programs covering all areas of interest to business owners – marketing, money, green business, success stories and even a daily newscast of breaking business news. Many of the programs are aimed specifically at women in business.

3. Twitter and Facebook – http://twitter.com and http://facebook.com

Social Networking is a powerful free marketing tool that is here to stay. If you want to be competitive within your target market, then learning to wisely use Twitter and Facebook is an inexpensive marketing must. These two social networking tools can take your product or service directly to your target market. Many business connections have been formed on Twitter and Facebook.

4. Social Oomph – http://www.socialoomph.com/

This free tool works alongside Twitter. I use Social Oomph to program my “tweets” days in advance. You can even use a keyword service to have a daily report sent directly to show you each time the keywords programmed the report were used in tweets and by whom. Since I’ve started using this service, my followers have more than doubled and the subscribers to weekly Ezine has increased considerably – all from having 24 hour exposure. It’s exciting to know that even as I’m sleeping my new tweets are being read by people all over the world in all the time zones.

5. Project Gutenberg – http://www.gutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg is one of my favorite resources for interesting free content. Project Gutenberg  is known for electronic books that free to reprint in your own articles, newsletters and books. Basically this site has hundreds of books, magazine articles and essays that are now in the public domain – that means in the United States the copyright has expired. You can find books by Mark Twain, Louisa May Allcott and more. These are electronic books (ebooks) that can be downloaded onto your computer.  You’ll want to go to the site and read the details to make sure you’re using the materials properly. I’ve used excerpts from books and magazines on my blog.

To sum it up, being a wise entrepreneur means knowing how to find and use inexpensive business building resources. Pick and choose the resources that are right for growing your business. Please remember, I am only making a recommendation and not endorsing any of the sites mentioned.

Listen to today’s podcast here.

Be sure to visit our site, WomensMedia to get Expert Advice for Business Women.

Or on our website, WomensMedia you should read:

Women in Business – Do You Have a Fear of Selling? or

The Right Way to Promote Yourself Using Social Networking

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here.

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Public Speaking For Business Women

by Suzanne Doyle-Morris  (Read about her here.)

(Listen to it here.)

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Have you ever stayed up late or worked weekends on a report or project only to see the credit go to the person who presented it all? Well, that used to be me. I started to notice this tendency in college, and then in my first jobs and then again when I earned my Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, looking at the experiences of women in male dominated fields. And eventually, rather than continue to be victimized, I realized I had to learn one of the key lessons that very successful women know (the lesson I want to talk to you about today) — and that is how to use public speaking to get ahead in your career.

While stereotypes abound about ‘the chatty woman,’ the truth is that it is mostly men who present at conferences, who chair meetings and who lead presentations. Nowhere is this more true than in fields that already suffer from a dearth of women. Speaking in public is one of the most common fears, and certainly one that can be debilitating to a burgeoning career. It can sound daunting initially, but you don’t have to start with speaking to an audience of thousands. In fact, most women begin to add public speaking to their careers by leading meetings and giving presentations.

As you move up, do get into the habit of chairing meetings—but don’t offer to take the minutes, make the tea or other stereotypically female duties! As the chair, concentrate on honing your communication skills, allowing other people to express their opinions and building consensus. If you don’t yet meet with senior clients, ask to attend such meetings with a view to making a short presentation on your specialty, a new initiative or the work of the team. Beginning to speak publicly is yet another way to demonstrate that you are serious about developing and progressing your career.

Sometimes my clients initially feel they haven’t been able to raise their professional profile because a big, juicy project that is of great interest to them hasn’t landed in their laps. The key to getting high-profile opportunities is to go and seek them—and not judge too early in the game what these opportunities might look like. It is vital to remember: the opportunity to speak has many unexpected guises. You could be asked to fill in for your boss at an important conference because of an unexpected illness, facilitate an important meeting, or make a presentation to new clients or even senior management.

Practice first within your own team. You won’t get comfortable with presenting unless you try it first with people with whom you are already comfortable. On the other hand, sometimes it is easier to speak in front of strangers. To get started, go with whichever option feels the most appealing. That may depend on the company, the office culture and even your workmates. The key is to increase the frequency of how often you are speaking at all. While it is considered one of the most common fears, the women I interviewed for my book, Beyond the Boys’ Club, didn’t let their fear of speaking to an audience stop them from advancing their careers.

For some it was a matter of talking to the press regarding a product launch. For others, it was about giving evidence to government committees or even Parliament. In some cases it meant taking on a role where regular public speaking made up a good part of the job, such as Dame Veronica Sutherland, the former ambassador to Ireland. When I talked to Dame Veronica she said to me, “After being made ambassador, I had to look at my fear of public speaking. I realized I sounded nervous, which is something you just can’t do as an ambassador. My husband would give me feedback, and I took a short course on public speaking. Both gave me plenty of tips and after that I’d force myself to make speeches even when I didn’t want to, and gradually I began to improve. The role of ambassador in Dublin is senior, and any senior ambassador has to be able to speak well. At the end of the day, it’s what you are there for.”

Listen to today’s podcast here.

Be sure to visit our site, WomensMedia to get Expert Advice for Business Women.

Or on our website, WomensMedia you should read:

Business Women Can Play in the Boys’ Club or Communicating With Men at Work

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here.

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Using Your Voice to Convey Confidence

by Stacey Hanke (Read about her here.)

(Listen to it here.)

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While there are few boring topics, there are plenty of boring communicators. We all possess one major delivery skill that determines whether or not our message causes listeners to yawn and nod off. It’s our greatest asset—our voice.

The sound of your voice shapes the attitude of listeners even more than the words you speak. The key to getting your message across is to convey believability and gain trust. No matter what you say, your message will not impact your listener unless you are believable. And you can achieve believability through your voice.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I don’t like the sound of my voice,” or “That doesn’t sound like me.” When you speak, you hear the sound waves resonating in your head. In contrast, listeners hear the same sound resonating through the air. These two sounds can be entirely different, which is why the majority of us don’t even recognize our own voice-mail messages.

Most individuals I coach to improve their communication skills speak more softly than they realize. To speak at a level that commands confidence, gauge the volume on a scale of  1 to 10, with 1 being inaudible and 10 overpowering. When speaking to a group of five or more, your volume needs to be at a 7 or 8. When speaking over the phone or participating in a face-to-face conversation, the level should be 4 or 5.

To guarantee that what you say is consistent with the sound of your voice, do the following:

•  Speak at an even pace so listeners hear you clearly. What’s the listener’s perception when you speak too quickly or too s-l-o-w-l-y? What’s their perception when you mumble? I’ve worked with people who mumble; they create a distraction for listeners because their messages aren’t consistent with how they sound. For example, statements such as “I’m very excited to be here today,” and “I’m confident you will understand why our product is the best value” are completely unconvincing when delivered in a lazy, mumbling tone of voice.

•  Vary your inflection by adding emphasis to certain words. You don’t want to give your listener the impression that you are anxiously waiting to conclude the conversation. Are you as excited about a new product as you say you are? Do you really feel you’re the best candidate for the project? Then show it in your voice! If your voice lacks inflection and enthusiasm when you attempt to influence people to take action, the likelihood that they will take action plummets. Why should your listeners be passionate about your message if you are not?

Steps You Can Take to Convey Confidence Through Your Voice

1. Record yourself to experience what your listeners hear when you speak. When you play back the tape, pay attention to what you hear and how it makes you feel.

2. Every night for a week, read a book aloud. Focus on producing a strong volume—between 4 and 5 on the scale described earlier, without straining.

3. Continuously ask for feedback on your volume during meetings, sales calls, face-to-face conversations and over the phone. Ask a co-worker or family member to point out times when you speak in a monotone. The more constructive feedback you receive the more quickly you’ll change old habits into new, more effective approaches to achieving good vocal quality.

4. When talking on the phone, pay attention to how your voice sounds. Add emphasis to words for excitement and impact. To add variety to your telephone voice, stand or sit in an open posture and gesture as you talk.

What’s in It for You?

You will…

• Hold your listener’s attention,

• Convey confidence and underscore the importance of your message,

• Project enthusiasm and belief in your product(s) and, most importantly,

• Influence action.

Don’t invite your listeners to drift off while you speak. Bring life and energy to your message through the power of your voice. Whether you are speaking to one person or 500, you’ll be amazed at how well you hold the attention of your audience and how positively they respond.

Be sure to visit our site, WomensMedia to get Expert Advice for Business Women.

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here, or StaceyHanke here.

Sign up for the WomensMedia Newsletter. We make it easy!
Further Reading:

Or on our website, WomensMedia you should read this: Communicating With Impact and Influence

It may help to listen to this Smart Women Interrupt When They Need To
or read it here.

Tags: communication,, business,, women

How To Cancel A Limiting Gender Stereotype

(Listen to it here.)

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Starting out in rocket science and computer technology, I was often the only woman in the room.

That’s another way of saying, the stereotype others had of me didn’t fit with the group. I was well aware of these assumptions.

I’ll bet you’ve had the feeling—at one time or another—that people have stuck a stereotype or label on you that made you out to be less than you are.

You may have felt like an outsider to their groups.

In their minds they could be thinking:

• She’s not important,
• She’s not educated,
• She’s not capable,
• She’s not assertive,
• it could even be, “Oh, she’s a mother.” and further questions might end right there.

You can see how this limits the opportunities a person is willing to offer you.

It’s not a good feeling when it’s directed at you, is it? Why do these stereotypes keep popping up? Unfortunately, each of us has a little bucket in our brain that acts like an autopilot to help us survive. This would have been a good idea a long time ago, when you were being chased by a fast 4-legged creature with big teeth out on the Pleistocene Plain.

But today, this bucket is full of quite a few wrong assumptions.

Well the next question we need to ask is:  How do stereotypes die?

Let’s take a look at how scientists say a stereotype disappears in your brain.

1.  A stereotype disappears when it’s popped up enough times and you’ve been proven wrong

—or—

2.  A stereotype disappears when you’ve been terribly, terribly wrong—as in embarrassingly wrong.

What can you do to counter a negative (incorrect) stereotype about yourself that might pop up when you meet someone new? You know, when someone assumes you are less than you really are.

Here’s my Women in Business Tip, which deals with this.

Women in Business Tip of the Week:

This is unpleasant to think about, but you need to do this exercise once. You must think of how others might be stereotyping you. What negative or incorrect assumptions do you think they may be making? Yucky mental game, isn’t it? Well, this is all for your benefit.

After you pinpoint the stereotypes and labels, work up a few sub-comments to add when you introduce yourself to someone new. These sub-comments should be designed to directly contradict what the other person might be thinking. Trust your intuition as to which one would be most beneficial in each situation.

You can also do this with a stereotype-breaking action—you can go out of your way to be

more reasonable, more helpful, more intelligent than the other person might expect.

Don’t be naïve—be prepared! Now, get out there and cancel those stereotypes, one by one!

Be sure to visit our site, http://www.womensmedia.com/ to get Expert Advice for Business Women.

For quick business updates you should follow me on twitter here.

Sign up for the WomensMedia Newsletter. We make it easy!

Further Reading:

Or on our website, WomensMedia you should read this: What Keeps Women from Reaching the Top?

Tags: business,, women,, success,, gender,, stereotypes

How You Can Promote Yourself Without Bragging

(Listen to it here.)

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It’s not bragging if you can back it up.
—Muhammad Ali

Ali can get away with bragging but we women can’t. We must walk a fine line between informative self-promotion and outright bragging. Most of us have been raised on the little girl admonitions, “It’s not nice to brag!” and “Who does she think she is?”  As long as these sayings are still playing in your mental background, you’ll feel uncomfortable when you know you’re bragging. And when you’re uncomfortable, other people focus on your discomfort. You don’t want that! The secret I can tell you is how to promote yourself just short of bragging. And that’s something you probably do want.

You need to self-promote—even if you’re not interviewing for a job. As you meet people they’re going to form split-second impressions of you. If you’re a woman, that may tend toward the sister, wife, mother, girlfriend, low-level employee, or helper images. Remember this and craft something in the beginning of a conversation that sets them in the right direction. I’ll tell you 2 simple ways to craft it in the tips of the week.

Meanwhile, for the guys who tell me they read this blog, women are not impressed the same way men are. For instance, men are often impressed when another man mentions his car by brand. Or, as I saw, a man left his Ferrari keys on the table during an entire dinner. For women, this type of display is too blatant. We don’t feel we should do it; we won’t allow other women to easily do it; and we see through it when men do it. You know, maybe we should ease up. Or not. On the other hand, women, if you’re talking only to men, you can take it up a notch without worry. Mention the private jet business trip you took, even if it was ages ago, and watch the men’s heads swivel around. Same thing with the 6-figure and 7-figure contracts your company is involved with. It will earn you respect. Just don’t try it with women.

Here’s my Women in Business Tip of the Week. Actually, there’s two this week!

Tip 1:
Rather than saying, “I have …,” or “I can do …,” the secret is finding an item in the conversation that relates to your accomplishment. Then start with something like, “I learned X when I was faced with a problem at IBM. I had to…”  Talking about what you learned or experienced keeps you just short of bragging—right where you want to be.

Tip 2:
You know how comfortable you feel when you’re telling someone about a memorable vacation you took? I want you to take a piece of paper, right now, and jot down a list of items from your life or career that are memorable, including a few that are impressive. I want you to craft what Peggy Klaus calls a “bragalogue.”  Pretend you’re writing a screenplay that only includes the good parts. OK, throw in a couple missteps to show your humility (we still are expected to be somewhat humble) and to show your sense of humor. This is now Your Story—a story you enjoy talking about.

Now, get out there and tell Your Story!

Be sure to visit our site, http://www.womensmedia.com/ to get Expert Advice for Business Women.

Sign up for the WomensMedia Newsletter. We make it easy!
Further Reading:

Website, WomensMedia, by Simon and Pedersen, Communicating With Men at Work

Podcast (always about 5 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, Smart Women Interrupt When They Need To —Don’t Wait! Be A Smart Woman And Interrupt or read it here.

Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, 3 Steps to Gain More Authority —Women Have To Work Harder Than Men To Gain Authority

Website, WomensMedia, by Sally Allen, Get Organized: The Paper Crisis

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Better Time Management Uses A “Do It Now” Technique         (Listen to it here.)

Here’s a relevant quote by Susan L. Taylor:

We don’t have an eternity to realize our dreams,
only the time we are here.

Well, that’s a sobering thought, but that’s the reason you’re here today, to learn how to manage the time you’ve got. Recently, I talked about putting your To-Do List together. You know, with the priorities and all.

Now, here’s a little change I want to add. For better time management, I want you to add a Do It Now category to that list. Put it right at the top. This relates to a task that takes very little time. Would you like me to put a number to it? Okay. If a task will take less than 5 minutes, you’re going to do it now!

There’s one condition to this. Can you guess? I want you to quickly add this to your To Do List—at the top under the heading Do It Now. I know this takes a teeny bit of time, but there’s a reason. When you finish your Do It Now tasks, you can bask in your success. You can pat yourself on the back and tell yourself, “I am no longer a procrastinator!” Now there’s some good self-talk!

After this becomes a habit, you can drop writing down each task. Research shows that it takes approximately 21 days of doing something before it becomes ingrained as a habit. So, give it the 3-week challenge. If the self-talk congratulations are a welcome new positive attitude habit, then by all means, keep doing it. With a positive attitude, I think gold and silver will start landing on your doorstep. But we’re not concerned about that—we’re concerned about time.

My Women in Business Tip of the Week gives you an added time bonus. Now here it is.

Women in Business Tip of the Week:

I can give you a hint of the time bonus with just one word: Delegate. If you want specific information on delegation, go to the WomensMedia.com site and do a search for “delegation.” Heck, talking about saving time, here’s the delegation link!

Your push from me this week is to carefully look over your To Do List and find one—merely one—task that you can delegate to someone else. It doesn’t even have to be someone in your own business. You could delegate a task to an outside vendor or service. If there’s cost involved, think about how much your time is worth to you. And remember the quote—you don’t have an eternity.

All you have to do is find one task. Pull out that To Do List, and find it and you’ll be on the road to better time management!

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Women in Business.

Further Reading:

Website, WomensMedia, by Sally Allen, Organizing: Time Management Learn 3 Must-Do Principles to Effective Time Management

Podcast (always about 5 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, A Busy Working Woman Needs To Prioritize Her To-Do List —Take These 5 Steps For A To-Do List That Keeps Your Priorities In Mind or read it here.

Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Organizing Your Desk For Time Management Results —Spending Time On Organization Is Time Well Spent! or listen to it here.

Website, WomensMedia, by Ramona Creel, 10 Ways to Delegate More Effectively

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