Gary Genard's

Speak for Success!

"Be a voice not an echo." - Albert Einstein

Want to Promote Your Business? Learn Public Speaking!

If you don't experience speech anxiety—or perhaps especially if you do—you should learn how to promote your business through public speaking. Your ideas, your vision, your products or services, or the mission of your organization can all benefit from more of you on the stump.

And not only your company will reap rewards. You yourself will promote your skills and abilities (and reasons to be promoted) through more dynamic presentation skills. (To discover how to gain more influence with listeners, download our cheat sheet "5 Ways to Captivate an Audience".)

Let's look at four reasons why it's a great idea to talk up your company or organization through regular public speaking.

1. Educate your market. Do your prospects, customers, clients and other stakeholders understand why they should be doing business with you? The juncture of your organization and parties that can benefit from working with you isn't always as clear as you might think it is.

Recently, I conducted training for the board of directors of a nationwide veterinary organization. The reason I conducted a full-day training at their annual meeting was because I'd given a breakfast seminar for a Boston-area Chamber of Commerce. One of the attendees was the owner of a veterinary practice, who liked what she heard and contacted the national organization. What she said to them was interesting:

"We're all so focused on our patients and their care that we're comfortable talking to their owners in our examination rooms, standing around the examining table. But we have this national initiative coming up, and we're all going to have to speak to other veterinary groups. And none of us is comfortable with that kind of public speaking! This is the perfect opportunity to learn how to do it right so we can get our message out strongly to all interested parties."

And it was. Yet up until that Chamber of Commerce breakfast and the subsequent phone call, the board wasn't even aware that public speaking was an essential part of their game plan. You may be able to educate your potential partners the same way. (To get on the same wavelength as your key audiences, learn how to perform an audience analysis.)

2. Increase your visibility. Is there anything like public speaking to put you front and center in your industry and with potential customers? You may not think of it as "public speaking" at all. Perhaps it's speaking at conferences, or pitching to prospects, or outreach, or public relations, or going on the road, or any other way you like to think of it. The point is, it's difficult to remain in the mind of stakeholders unless you or your services are in front of them on a regular basis. Public speaking is a terrific way to accomplish that.

Maybe you've been avoiding any of the opportunities mentioned above because you suffer from anxiety over speaking in public. Some of our clients at Public Speaking International come to us specifically because they realize that they're hurting their own brand by their speaking phobia. Your boss will only ask you so many times to talk on behalf of your company and listen to your excuses, before you're no longer asked at all. And if your company isn't proactive in seeking out opportunities to speak in your industry, your goods or services will be negatively affected in the same way.

3. Become known as an expert. Actors understand a simple truth about human behavior: if they tell an audience (and act the part) that they are someone, people will believe them. Of course everyone present knows that the actor is merely playing a part. But by characterizing themselves in a certain way, they define themselves in exactly the terms in which they want their audience to perceive them.

Why should your company, your organization, or indeed you yourself not offer the same proposition to your interested parties? The more you present yourself as an expert in your industry, the more you will be perceived as one. What better way than public speaking to do so? Learn the 5 essential speaking techniques of leaders, and you'll be well on your way!

In my workshops, I conduct a simple exercise. Your greeting, I tell trainees, is a critical time to establish your credibility with audiences. Each workshop participant has to take a crack at greeting a "typical" audience for them. After a few people have stood up and given their first name and perhaps the name of their company or department—and only that—I remind them that their full name and title, along with number of years working in this area, are important elements of credibility.

We try it again, and instantly, listeners perceive more expertise than they did previously. A simple exercise, but a helpful reminder that speaking in public and going about it the right way will do wonders for the perception of you as an expert in your field.

4. Improve your speaking skills. Do you believe you're less than a great speaker? And have you been holding back from accepting speaking assignments because of that belief? Here's some good news, which shouldn't surprise you: just speaking regularly will improve your skills considerably, and perhaps dramatically. 

Here's even better news: Your job presenting on behalf of your company or organization isn't to be an excellent speaker at all. Leave that high hurdle up to motivational speakers (and the truth is many of them aren't equal to the challenge even though they're paid for it). Your role isn't to be "excellent" but adequate, up to the task, good enough to get the job done. The real task you need to excel at is to be a good manager, analyst, lawyer, VP of sales, CEO, butcher, baker, or candlestick-maker. From there, take the time (and practice enough) to be a good communicator about the things that matter to you and those you speak to. 

The more you do that, the better you'll be at reaching the people for whom your service, product, or mission truly matters. Who could ask for more?

Key takeaways from this blog:

  • Your ideas, vision, product or service will all benefit from you "on the stump."
  • It may be important for you to educate your market. Public speaking will help.
  • You'll promote your own skills and abilities when you speak regularly.
  • Public speaking increases the visibility of your organization like nothing else.
  • Is there a better way to be known as an expert than public speaking? Uh-uh.
  • If you don't think you're a good enough speaker, do more of it to become one.   

complete guide to effective public speaking

Tags: promote your business,learn public speaking,public speaking expert

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