How is your business adapting to coronavirus and travel bans? Here's why ONLINE PUBLIC SPEAKING TRAINING with a speech coach is more important than ever!

The coronavirus or Covid-19 is upon us—designated just this week by the World Health Organization as a pandemic. The stock market is see-sawing, events are being cancelled everywhere, we're in a serious economic downturn . . . and business travel is being banned.

So the question is: how is your company adapting?

At this juncture, you've probably recognized two things: (a) you have to figure out how to conduct more business online, and (b) your ability to communicate has just swelled in importance. In a shrinking business climate, you need to know how to pitch yourself or your company better than the competition. Period. 

And that means improved public speaking skills, in-person and remotely.

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Enter distance training via Skype, Zoom, Google Chat, or other easy-to-use platforms for video-based learning. And speech coaching and corporate presentation training are ideally suited to online courses such as those we offer at The Genard Method.

Online Courses in Public Speaking: They Work!

If you personally have had speech coaching or provided corporate public speaking training for your employees, then you know the value of in-person sessions or workshops. But we're in a different world now. Corporate travel and in-person meetings are suddenly being discouraged or prohibited outright. We've all heard about the conferences and large business gatherings that have sent Covid-19-positive attendees dispersing worldwide.

But the internet is an amazing resource . . . and one of the things it excels at is providing online coaching and training. In partnership with an outstanding speech coach, nothing is more convenient or cost-effective—and today, safer—than training made available by video conference or private online sessions. (Here's how video can transform your public speaking.)

Even before the current health crisis, we have been living in an increasingly visual world. One of the best aspects of video-based training is that it's strongly visual. There's not only the face-to-face intimacy allowed by web-cams. Your coach or trainer can also include slides or any other visual element he or she would use in an in-person workshop or private session. And any good video platform these days allows screen recording for critiques and feedback. 

How to Still Help Your Employees Improve

And here's a heads-up for that big event you're planning (whenever you're able these days to go forward). Online coaching of your line-up of speakers beforehand can be combined with an in-person rehearsal at the actual venue. I've conducted a number of these trainings that are a godsend to companies whose key employees are spread all over the country or internationally.

We all know that these days, the scheduling of such events are looking shaky at best. But you can still help your employees improve—or help yourself—by keeping the online portions of the training. There's even a strong argument to be made for going forward with such training now, so your speakers are in good shape when you're able to hold the event and they have a hundred other things on their minds. (By the same reasoning, now may be the time to work on exploring an online option for getting over your fear of public speaking.) 

Many of you may be limited to your office environment or working from home these days. But you have one of the most powerful resources—online public speaking training—literally at your fingertips for you or your staff to reach a new level of speaking effectiveness. You can bet that right now, your competition is certainly considering it.

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Gary Genard is an actor, author, and expert in theater-based public speaking training. His company, Boston-based The Genard Method uses performance techniques, through in-person and online training, to help executives and leadership teams embody presence and confidence to achieve true influence. In 2020 for the seventh consecutive year, Gary has been ranked by Global Gurus as one of The World's Top 30 Communication Professionals. He is the author of How to Give a Speech. His second book, Fearless Speaking, was recently named as "One of the 100 Best Confidence Books of All Time." Contact Gary here.