Speaking for Profit

Asked this morning at a breakfast seminar* what promotional tool I found most effective, We regularly use around 30 different techniques depending on time available & mood/inspiration hits. When pressed for the most effective tool: it has to be getting out there and giving talks.

Public speaking is one of the things many people dread doing most, but almost every time I speak to a business group, we land a new client almost immediately. That's an incentive to get going, if ever there was one!

I enjoy public speaking now, but I used to dread it. I was a written words person.

Toastmasters International gave me a really effective confidence boost in public speaking with their positive feedback-based training and speaking practice. And it has to be one of the best bargains around at c£100 a year for fortnightly sessions.

The Toastmasters' training manuals are great, but it's the positive feedback that helps with the nerves. You are clapped every time you speak, and evaluated in a way that encourages you to make the most of your best traits.

Eventually you love getting an opportunity to speak because you know how to prepare and practise effectively. You have a whole box of proven techniques to engage your audience. Including impromptu speaking for those times when a speaking opportunity suddenly emerges.

There are two Toastmasters clubs in Edinburgh: http://www.capitalcommunicators.org/ and http://www.waverleycommunicators.org/

Other Scottish Toastmasters' clubs are in Glasgow, Dundee, Linlithgow, Aberdeen and Forres (nr Inverness). For these and other clubs use the meeting finder at http://www.toastmasters.org (note: all UK location results show a map centred on the UK Norfolk HQ - scroll past that to get to your results).

* Thanks to Kirsty Lloyd at OA Executive for inviting me to their breakfast briefing on staff communications in difficult times led by the very excellent team from Enhance.



By TwitterButtons.com

Why Connecting is the New Networking

Most people would do anything other than walk into a roomful of strangers. Yet making worthwhile connections in business is the single most powerful form of publicity you can achieve. Not ‘working the room’ touching base with everyone, exchanging cards and connecting with nobody. Connecting is finding people you genuinely like: people you can do business with.
Heartfelt recommendations from people that know you really does bring in new business. It works because the people that like you, tend to gather similar people, so their contacts are also likely to like your approach.
That experience of walking into a roomful of strangers, along with public speaking were both famously ranked before death itself in a study of things people feared most. And that was a study run in the US. We in the UK tend to think they do communications better over there.
Yes, many Americans are good communicators, and I promise you there’s a very good reason for that. Toastmasters International. Portland, Oregon is a US city with a population equivalent to my hometown of Edinburgh, UK. Portland has 125 Toastmasters’ clubs to our two – and one of those is very new!
Toastmasters is a not-for-profit self-help that offers a ridiculously good public speaking training plus impromptu speaking practice (ideal for connecting with people) and a leadership skills programme that is ludicrously good value for money. It costs around £100 a year (clubs vary according to the costs of meeting rooms etc) for fortnightly 2 hour training and practice sessions.
There are great 1-2-1 trainers who’ll get you faster results, but without the practice opportunities, how long will that last?
Toastmasters offers regular practice along with proven training resources and powerful feedback.
There’s a reason Toastmasters is the world’s largest public speaking training organisation, with over 4 million people trained in most countries throughout the world.
Go onto toastmasters.org and find a club! (scroll past the map which shows the UK HQ to find results for your area).

Speaking Easy

The ability to communicate effectively is a key asset in both business and personal life. Whether it's interviewing potential recruits, connecting with new people, or deciding between new business pitches, who wouldn't prefer an interesting speaker with a clear message?

So it's good to see that one of Scotland's leading communications skills training companies has put up free communications training resources on a new blog www.voicebusinesstraining.co.uk.

They include videos showing VoiceBusiness walks the talk - see http://vimeo.com/6007276 for a quick pre-speech exercise featuring their director, Dilly.

I've known Dilly over the years and have seen her in action several times: impressive and always generous with her tips. More importantly, I've seen the results of her training. Her company produces a step change in speakers' abilities.

Speaking is so important, yet we rarely think about it until shortly before we have to make a speech. We often haven't put the groundwork in to learn speaking skills, nor have not prepared or practiced enough. And deep down, we know it. It's not surprising that our speaking experiences are often laced with nerves or downright panic.

I'll never forget pitching to produce a new magazine. I'd done an OK job, but I wasn't a totally confident presenter. I got a phone call afterwards saying our proposals were much better on paper and we had a better team, but another company had done a much better presentation on the day. They got the work, despite it being a writing job with no presentation skills involved. When I pointed this out there was a total silence as the caller realised just how stupid their decision had been.

But I learned an important lesson that day. With a background in editing and writing, I needed to develop broader presentation skills. I joined the Edinburgh branch of Toastmasters International (TMI) and I achieved visible improvement in presentations within 6 months. Since then I have seen an increase in winning new business pitches.

It's certainly benefited my PR career. We have less than 30 seconds on the telephone to interest an editor in a client's story, so concise speaking is essential. And running a business, I have to be able to connect with new people effectively. I only have a few seconds to create a favourable first impression, and I need to think on my feet effectively. Toastmasters teaches you how to run your brain ahead of your mouth!

Plus the explosion of video online (UK online video viewing time is rapidly approaching TV viewing time) means that every business spokesperson needs clever presentation skills to take advantage of this most powerful medium.

It's never too late to do something about it.

We can take a leaf out of our US cousin's book for a start. We tend to think of Americans as being more outgoing communicators than us Brits. But they don't spring from the womb with fully-fledged speaking skills. They work at it. In schools - as many now do here. And they continue to practice impromptu and prepared speaking big-time at Toastmasters International (TMI) clubs.

TMI is a not-for-profit organisation with a proven track record of training more than 4 million people in public speaking and leadership skills world-wide. They offer a range of public speaking and leadership qualifications that are recognised world-wide.

Just how much more effort US citizens put into developing speaking skills is clear when you contrast the number of TMI clubs here and there.

A friend (and TMI member) moved from Edinburgh to Portland, Oregon. She reported that the population is roughly the same as Edinburgh. Yet they have 125 Toastmasters clubs in Portland. Until recently Edinburgh only had one TMI club called Capital Communicators which meets in the New Town. That grew too big and we now have two clubs with the recent launch of Waverley Communicators in the Old Town.

Why not find a Toastmasters International club to give you a speaking practice arena with constructive feedback? http://www.toastmasters.org also has a good range of free speakers' training resources.

The TMI site has a world-wide club finder. The last time I used it, disconcertingly, all UK results show a map centred on the UK TMI HQ in Norfolk, but scroll past that and you'll get a list of clubs in your area. Edinburgh's Waverly Communicators isn't on that list yet as we need a couple more members to reach official TMI chartered club status, but I'm happy to provide you with info. As a not-for-profit, TMI club membership fees are very low - related mainly to meeting costs - so they vary from club to club. The clubs in Edinburgh and Glasgow are around £100 a year for fortnightly training and practice lasting 2 hours.

You can start boosting your speaking skills today by visiting www.voicebusinesstraining.co.uk and re-visiting every month or so to to tap into their free resources.

And if you need to improve your speaking skills in a hurry, or your business depends on your presentation and speaking skills, why not invest in a VoiceBusiness course to produce overnight results?

PHPR has no commercial arrangement with either VoiceBusiness or TMI.

Picture created using www.wordle.net.

Confidence in Business

Really interesting piece in this week's New Scientist, reporting on research showing confidence is as important as IQ in exam success.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17187-confidence-as-important-as-iq-in-exam-success.html?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn17187

Having been in Toastmasters for some 8 years, I've witnessed the effect of the Toastmasters' programme in boosting people's confidence many times, and the changes it makes to their lives. Public speaking must be one of the toughest barometers of personal confidence. In fact, there's a well-known US survey conducted by a major newspaper that reported walking into a roomful of strangers and public speaking inspired more fear than death itself!

It's brilliant to see people coming in to their first Toastmasters' meeting stuttering and visibly shaking, um-ing and er-ing all over the place. Then 10 speeches later, plus a liberal dose of impromptu speaking practice and a lot of encouraging support and constructive feedback, they are transformed.
Boosting presentation skills and confidence feeds through to all aspects of business and helps with networking, client and staff relations and of course, pitching for new business or investment.

I've now got to the point that I can almost count on getting a new client every time I speak in public. It doesn't always happen immediately, but I'm often amazed by the length of time people remember my speeches. I did one nearly 2.5 years ago to a women's business network. I remember it well because I had a terrible cold at the time and thought I might lose my voice. A few months ago, I got a call out of the blue from someone who remembered that talk. She is a lovely lady with a really interesting business idea: online travel salvage (http://www.travelsalvage.com/).

They offer a market for you to transfer a cancelled holiday or flight to another buyer. It works because most holiday companies offer pitifully small refunds, but do allow transfers. The transfer option gives the seller a chance to get more money back, and the buyer gets a travel bargain, so it's a win:win for both sides. They're just building up the cancelled holidays and flights just now, so there's not a massive choice yet, but I think they're more than worth a try if you need to offload a cancellation. or are looking for a travel bargain.

We did a one-off ad hoc online press release and boosted their web traffic 250%. Best of all, that resulted in coverage in a well-known national magazine: in fact they are currently Prima's website of the month (June issue).

And all that interesting business and these results stemmed from just one talk 2.5 years ago - aided by the practice and feedback I get in public speaking at Toastmasters clubs in Edinburgh!

If you fancy a break, I see Travel Salvage have a holiday in Spain for 2 people (flights from Newcastle on 6th June & accommodation) currently going for just over £100....

And if you fancy coming along to one of the 12,000 Toastmasters clubs world-wide to improve your public speaking and leadership skills using proven Toastmasters educational materials, most clubs offer up to 3 free meetings for guests before they ask you to join. The two Edinburgh clubs (called Capital Communicators and Waverley Communicators) meet fortnightly. To give you an idea of costs, each Edinburgh club charges £42 for 6 months to cover meeting room costs and fees to Toastmasters International (TMI), plus a single joining fee of £20 to Toastmasters. Obviously local meeting room rates and expenses will vary, but price is not generally a barrier to joining Toastmasters.

Once you join, you can attend any open Toastmaster club meeting in the world as a guest, so even on a bargain break, you could find a Toastmasters club where you can meet locals and participate in the club meeting! I found one in Forres, in the Scottish Highlands. It's fair to say that Forres is not a major conurbation, but they are close to a major RAF base and the leading spiritual centre called Findhorn, which has attracted many eco businesses. My husband and I had a great evening and met loads of interesting people. And I got yet more public speaking practice.

Toastmasters is definitely recommended for confidence boosting and broadening your horizons.