Are there really secrets and tips to preparing and winning a pageant? After all, everybody says “just be yourself.”

After doing this for decades, my answer is, yes, you must be yourself; but there are secrets and tips about each system that you must learn in order to be the best “YOU” you can be at the pageant.

My first year transitioning from festival pageants to beauty pageants was a frustrating time for me. I was desperately seeking resources that would help me be my best at the pageant, but I couldn’t find anything complete and comprehensive. I went to the library to find books on pageant preparation. Zero. Went to the book store and all they had to give me was their last copy of Pageantry magazine. OK, so the issue was 2 months old but at least it was something. A few of the articles were helpful and I did find a couple other resources in the back of the magazine, but still nothing to really get me where I wanted to go.

Information on the internet was spotty. So I finally asked the director for help and she gave me the phone number to a pageant dress shop which was helpful in putting together my wardrobe. However, nowhere along this path did anyone tell me about coaches or about the different pageant professionals people hired to help them prepare for a pageant. Hmmm.

Two things quickly became apparent to me. First, there was no organized A to Z system to help girls and women completely prepare for pageants. Secondly, it was only by word of mouth that contestants found the individual professionals they needed to help them prepare for pageants. That is if you could find people who were willing to share that information with you.

You see, for some people, competition means keeping all the information they learn a secret so that they’d have (or they perceive to have) the inside power and advantage to winning. They don’t acknowledge the team of people who help them because they want the public perception to be that they did it completely on their own. Winning to them means there is only one winner and the rest are losers; and by golly, they’re not going to be a loser. So they’ll use people and do whatever it takes to win that crown at the end of the night. The only way to be a winner in their eyes, and have any self worth, is to have their name called as Miss/Mrs.____ at the end of the night. It’s all about bragging rights and ego.

However, there are other people within the pageant industry who believe that when the tide comes in, all ships rise in the harbor. These people freely and generously share names and resources with others who seek them out. They want the contestants to be fully prepared to present their very best to the judges. Words of gratitude and acknowledgment flow freely from these people because they understand that there is plenty to go around; and what goes around, comes around.

I’ll be forever appreciative to my roommate who shared the name of her pageant coach with me. It completely changed my pageant experience from that point on. Pageantry has had such a positive effect on my life that I don’t want others to experience the same frustration I felt before I knew what I know now. So I want to share three of the most important insider pageant secrets I’ve learned over the past three decades:

• Titleholders have a team of people who help them prepare for the pageant. This help comes in many forms from family and friends, to hired professionals; but make no mistake; they have help- lots of help.

• Your hair, makeup and clothes are very important. Fit, color and style must be perfect for you and show you in your most flattering light. This takes time and lots of practice to figure out. You can’t do this the week before your first pageant. You must start a year to 6 months before your pageant.

• Your mental attitude and communication skills are more important to winning than the color of your dress or your hairstyle. Directors and judges know that it’s simple to buy another dress or change your hairstyle. However, the way you think and speak are not as easy to change. These skills must be well developed in a titleholder.

For additional insider secrets, be sure to read my free special report, 10 Insider Secrets to Winning. When you’ve read my report, join us on a Q&A Live telecall where I answer your questions.

Request my free special report, 10 Insider Secrets to Winning, and receive  my free award winning newsletter weekly. Just click here or at the top of this page to GET YOUR FREE REPORT.Then fill out your name and email address in the boxes.

Congratulations Meghan Hamson, Miss North Dakota Collegiate 2010.!

Rhonda Shappert is an expert pageant coach, an iPEC Certified Professional Coach, an Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner, and a member of the International Coach Federation. She created Winning Through Pageantry® to partner with pageant contestants and their support people to provide complete pageant preparation, achieve winning results in life through pageantry, and to Succeed From The Inside Out®. She has over 30 years experience in the pageantry world as a contestant, judge, emcee, staff member, mother of daughters who compete, Mrs. Ohio America 2005, and has held multiple titles at the local, state and national levels.
Rhonda graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelors degree in Musical Theater from The Ohio State University and has performed on stage in 15 countries on the Asian, European and American continents. This mother of three home educates their children and has been married 21 years to her husband Stephen, is the former mayor of her community, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Ohio Virtual Academy. She and her husband perform original contemporary Christian music. Their music CD entitled Cana is available through  www.cdbaby.com/cd/shappert or on her website. For more information on Rhonda, visit  www.WinningThroughPageantry.com .

© 2010 Winning Through Pageantry. All Rights Reserved.

With great excitement you've paid your pageant fee and have received your information packet from the director. Woo Hoo! But wait…what's all this paperwork? "Oh well, I'll read it later", you might say as you toss it onto the huge paper pile in the corner, or if it's digital, put it in the "to read later" folder. You eagerly jump into your car and head to the nearest mall to begin shopping for your pageant wardrobe. You find some really cute things on clearance and buy them on the spot.

Weeks go by and you receive an email from your director informing you that she hasn't received your necessary paperwork yet and it's due tomorrow.What? You had to send in additional stuff? Now you're in panic mode. Where's that paperwork , you say to yourself as you frantically hunt for it. Alright, you found it.

Great, this will just take a few minutes and you'll be done … so you think. That is until you start reading what's in the paperwork. Come to find out, there's $500 due to pay for a mandatory ad page which needs to be printer ready in digital format and there are mandatory tickets sales. Where are you going to come up with the money? Plus, you have no idea how to create an ad page on your computer.

Then, you see a sheet that says judge's bio ( or contestant fact sheet). It's asking you to list all of your career information, awards, hobbies, community service, church activities, and why you want to be "Miss All That and More". Your mind goes completely blank. You can't remember anything important to put on the paper. Worse yet, upon reading the wardrobe guidelines, you realize the outfit you bought for interview isn't appropriate for the pageant. Since you bought it on clearance and can't take it back, you have to go shopping again. Ugh!

I wish I could say this was an exaggeration of what happens, but I've had too many last minute calls from panicked clients saying "HELP ME" who were in the situations I just painted.

Read every piece of material sent to you from the director before you do or buy anything. You've heard the old saying, haste makes waste. Well, in pageantry that haste could cost you hundreds of dollars and waste priceless time if you aren't clear on what is expected of you. You must have a clear understanding of the clothing guidelines and the dates you need to have things turned in. Take out your calendar and put big red circles around the dates the director needs the materials. That doesn't mean that you should mail them in on that day. Materials need to be in the directors' hands by the dates that are indicated. If the directors extend their deadline dates, that another story. It's your personal responsibility to meet their deadlines.

If you have your personal information and records organized before the pageant, creating a professional bio full of substance and free of errors is easy and enjoyable. Your paperwork makes your first impression with the pageant staff and judges. Poor grammar and misspelled words may be acceptable on Twitter or Face book; but not in a pageant. Allow several weeks and many drafts to do a thorough job on your paperwork.

This information is not only important for a pageant; but also when you’re applying for colleges, jobs, scholarships and membership to organizations or boards. Quantifiable information about you will expedite your desired results. Everyone should have an up to date resume, or bio, created regardless of their age.

Yes, a 7 year old child's bio is not going to look the same as a married woman's; but mothers, your ability to document your children's lives will reap benefits in so many ways. Start today if you haven't already begun.
Here are three of my recommendations.

• 

  Have a separate composition book for each member of your family. This will be the chronological journal where the entries are listed in order. In this book jot down the detailed facts (who, what, when, where, how many, why) of what happens in the areas of family, education, community, organizations, sports, grades, recognitions, awards, accomplishments, church, service, and career.

• 
  For example, if Sally went door to door in her community collecting old candles and blankets for the homeless shelter; count and write down how many candles and blankets were collected, how long it took her to collect them, which shelter she took them to and take a picture of her boxing them up to take to the shelter. Document your travels in the same way. Some days you may not have an entry. That's ok. Just write down events while they're still fresh in your mind.

• Have a three ring binder of 8 ½ x 11 plastic protector sheets to store your certificates, test scores, programs, newspaper clippings and paper documentation. Again, one for each family member. You can keep

  

  this in chronological order as well if you want to keep things simple. The point is to have all of the loose documentation in one place. It's easy to access, move around and reorganize into different categories depending on your needs.

• Have an accordion organizer for each family member. Here you can store photos until you put

  

  them in an album. Purchase one that is photo safe so if you lose track of time, your photos won't prematurely fade. You can put special greetings cards and other mementos in here too.

I also scan ribbons and artwork. For three dimensional projects, trophies, medals, and things too big to scan, I'll take pictures of them. When the appreciation time is over, we recycle the object to get rid of the physical clutter; but have a permanent memory of it in a more manageable format. When these things are saved digitally, you can easily create 8x10 photo collages to show with your paper documentation.

This is extremely helpful if you're doing optional academic or community service competitions. Not to be redundant, but you're going to need all of this information when it comes time to apply to colleges anyway. Do yourself a huge favor, and start now.

If you're a stay-at-home mom, quantify and document your life, too. You may reenter the work force (or enter a pageant) at some point, and all those volunteer hours at the school, church or Boy Scouts will come in handy.

Putting together pageant paperwork is one of my favorite things to do. If you're having issues with this, ask for help. Contact me and we can get you on your way to having pageant perfect paperwork.

Request my free special report, 10 Insider Secrets to Winning, and receive  my free award winning newsletter weekly. Just click here or at the top of this page to GET YOUR FREE REPORT.Then fill out your name and email address in the boxes.

A note from Steve:

Six weeks into the fitness challenge and Steve's waist has gone from 42"to 40". How are you doing with the goal you've set? We have eight weeks left in 2010. What do you want to accomplish before you ring in the New Year? Put a date on that goal.

Rhonda Shappert is an expert pageant coach, an iPEC Certified Professional Coach, an Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner, and a member of the International Coach Federation. She created Winning Through Pageantry® to partner with pageant contestants and their support people to provide complete pageant preparation, achieve winning results in life through pageantry, and to Succeed From The Inside Out®.

She has over 30 years experience in the pageantry world as a contestant, judge, emcee, staff member, mother of daughters who compete, Mrs. Ohio America 2005, and has held multiple titles at the local, state and national levels.

 
Rhonda graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelors degree in Musical Theater from The Ohio State University and has performed on stage in 15 countries on the Asian, European and American continents. This mother of three home educates their children and has been married 21 years to her husband Stephen, is the former mayor of her community, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Ohio Virtual Academy. She and her husband perform original contemporary Christian music. Their music CD entitled Cana is available through  www.cdbaby.com/cd/shappert or on her website. For more information on Rhonda, visit  www.WinningThroughPageantry.com .

You may absolutely share this newsletter with people you think may enjoy it. When doing so, please forward it in its entirety, including our contact and copyright information. Thanks and enjoy!
The Pageant Secrets™ Newsletter is an award winning e-zine written by Rhonda Shappert, owner and creator of  WinningThroughPageantry.com.

Seconds after the announcement of the top 10, and again at the naming of the court, one question runs through the minds of every contestant BUT the queen, “What could I have done to get better results at this pageant?”

This is a perfectly normal response for a goal oriented person who wants to excel. A self critique can certainly be useful for future events if used in a constructive fashion.

There is one principle that participants of all pageants must accept: Judging is subjective. It is not based on fact but rather on the opinion of the person judging. People have different values, likes, dislikes, biases, and the list goes on. So, you could do everything perfect and it still may not be enough to win the crown because the queen is selected subjectively.

Let’s say you have a panel of five judges. Four of them love you and give you high scores. But for some reason, one judge doesn’t connect with you and scores you very low; it may cost you the crown when the scores are averaged out. This is a reality you need to mentally prepare for.

One person’s opinion DOES NOT determine your value as a person. It’s only their opinion. Because it’s impossible to get into the mind of another person, it’s a waste of your energy to try to figure out why they didn’t like you. Accept the fact that you have no control over another person’s thoughts or actions and move on.

I’ve seen a contestant receive the comment “too polished and rehearsed” from one judge; from another judge on the same panel “needs more work- not professional enough”; and from a third judge “don’t change a thing. Perfect.” I mean, really. Are they listening to and looking at the same person?

That’s opinions for you . Everyone has one and it’s subjective.
Now, let’s talk about some of the possible objective reasons that may have influenced your final placement.

• Interview - You need to continually work on your speaking and communications skills. Every day events happen to you that cause changes in your lives. From year to year, you’re a different person and this should be reflected in your interview skills. What worked for you last year may not work this year. Here are some possible areas of change that you’ll want to be aware of so you can adapt your interview skills.
  • Aging Up a Division - If your age division last year was 7-9 and you were 9, you were one of the most mature girls in your group. This worked in your favor. However, this year you’re 10 and the span is ages 10-12, now you’re at the bottom of your group. The maturity level between a 10 year old and 12 year old can be huge in today’s world. The expectations are higher. With each age bracket change, the substance and quality of the communication skills needs to increase.
  • Changing pageant systems - Each system has a slightly different focus and purpose of the interview. For example, if you’re used to a 40 second interview with each judge, it’s a whole different world interviewing for 5 minutes with a judge, or switching to a panel format.
  • Different type of interview - Panel, one-on-one, on-stage and press style are all different types of interview styles you’ll encounter at a pageant. It’s important to know what type of interview it is and how long it will last. Many contestants have made the mistake of thinking they could just walk into a pageant interview, be themselves and talk normal. After all, how hard can talking be, right? Wrong.

• Walk - There are different walking styles for glitz, natural, and runway style pageants. If a contestant has done nothing but glitz pageants from ages 0-12, that bouncy, side-to-side glitz walk is not going to cut it if she decides to do a natural pageant. Or if you’re used to a natural walking style and enter a pageant where the walk is more fashion forward (more like runway) you’re not going to score as high.

• Personal Styling - Your hair, makeup and clothing all need to be appropriate for your age and the pageant system you’re participating in. I agree, it would be wonderful if we could use the same gown, swimsuit, interview outfit and casual wear outfit for every type of pageant we entered. However, that’s not always the case.

The bottom line is this, judging is totally subjective and outside of your control. One, and only one, contestant will have the title for the year. That means everyone else in the pageant will have to deal with their feelings after the pageant.

The only thing you have control of is your thoughts, feelings and actions. If you can walk away from the pageant knowing you’d presented your very best to the judges, and learned something new about yourself that will better your life, then you’ve won something more important than a crown from the pageant.

Request my free special report, 10 Insider Secrets to Winning, and receive  my free award winning newsletter weekly. Just click here or at the top of this page to GET YOUR FREE REPORT.Then fill out your name and email address in the boxes.

On a personal note, my grandpa’s funeral is today. He was 100 years old. Incredible to think of everything he experienced in the past 100 years- cars, TVs and computers. Give those close to you an extra squeeze and tell them you love them. 

Rhonda Shappert is an expert pageant coach, an iPEC Certified Professional Coach, an Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner, and a member of the International Coach Federation. She created Winning Through Pageantry® to partner with pageant contestants and their support people to provide complete pageant preparation, achieve winning results in life through pageantry, and to Succeed From The Inside Out®. She has over 30 years experience in the pageantry world as a contestant, judge, emcee, staff member, mother of daughters who compete, Mrs. Ohio America 2005, and has held multiple titles at the local, state and national levels.
Rhonda graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelors degree in Musical Theater from The Ohio State University and has performed on stage in 15 countries on the Asian, European and American continents. This mother of three home educate s their children and has been married 21 years to her husband Stephen, is the former mayor of her community, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Ohio Virtual Academy. She and her husband perform original contemporary Christian music. Their music CD entitled Cana is available through  www.cdbaby.com/cd/shappert or on her website. For more information on Rhonda, visit  www.WinningThroughPageantry.com .

TM

   Do you want to know a secret? My immediate answer is yes, tell me. It’s wonderful to be on the receiving end of a secret. That inclusive feeling of “I’m special because I have the inside scoop to what’s going on”. However, to be on the outside of an inner circle is quite another story.

I vividly remember the first time in pageantry when I experienced being on the outside trying to get in. I had made the leap from doing small festival pageants to big time beauty pageants. Throughout the weekend I would experience moments of frustration as I wondered how some of the contestants seemed to know more information about the pageant than me. Who taught it to them? Why wasn’t this “secret” information made available to everyone? Why was it so hard to find?

So let me share with you what I found out. There are insider secrets to winning in the world of pageantry. For the most part, there are only a couple ways to find it.

The first way is through your own trial and error. This could use up a lot of your time, energy and money. Personally, I am a very focused and goal oriented person so the idea of wasting my resources and trying to reinvent the wheel did not excite me. Been there, done that. NEXT.

The second way is to find an experienced person who has done what you want to do and have them share everything they know and have learned about pageantry. Sounds easy but it has been my experience that high quality people like this are hard to find. And once you do find someone, they may not share the whole story with you.

And, finally, you could educate yourself. The problem I had with this was I didn’t know where to start. I couldn’t find that magic manual, or website that had everything in one spot. I easily spent hundreds of hours surfing and reading websites, industry magazines and the few books I could find on pageantry in my quest to get the information I needed to achieve the results I wanted.

It was these three problems that I wanted solutions to. Pageantry has been such a positive source of personal development for me that I wanted to develop a business that would provide a winning experience not only at the pageant, but help contestants Succeed From The Inside Out™ and win in life.

So congratulations on finding my blog and www.WinningThroughPageantry.com website because you are going to benefit from my 30+ years of experience in the pageant industry as a former contestant, holder of multiple titles, pageant judge, trained life coach, pageant staff member and a mother of three daughters that each are titleholders themselves.

My website has three FREE resources available to you right now. Sign up and download my FREE special report 10 Insider Secrets to Winning. Reading my report will prevent the “Well if I’d known that before I did the pageant I would have done things different” syndrome that some people may experience.

You’ll also receive my FREE weekly ezine Pageant Secrets. It’ll give you winning insider tips to the world of pageantry plus other information available to subscribers only.

My FREE interview card, The Beginning 10 Questions, contains the staple interview questions everyone must know the answers to in any interview situation.

After reading my special report, come back and post your comments here. I’d love to hear your secrets, too.

About Rhonda