Why is public speaking important?
It is increasingly commonplace to hear people share or express their fear of public speaking. This is because public speaking has been rated as among the top fears in the world. It is a ubiquitous fear shared by experienced and non-experienced speakers.
Yet, the importance of public speaking has been growing progressively and in fact, it is one of the sought after skills for leaders and business owners alike. People in leadership roles including entrepreneurs’ will most likely be asked to do some kind of presentation at some point in their career.
For business owners, this may include pitching your business to potential investors, speech at a networking event, and other events.
Some people will view this offer to be in front of an audience as a great opportunity to market their business and help them grow. Therefore, they jump at it and appear like words are effortlessly rolling off their tongue. Whereas others see the opportunity however, fear pulls them away they want to run for the hills!!!
However, it need not be the case because, great public speaking is a learned skill, that everyone can master.
Here are some of the reasons why public speaking is great for your business/career:
- Public speaking helps you market your brand
The people in the audience may or may not have heard of your company. Now they will not only hear about your business but this is your chance to connect with them too. Once you’ve made your audience laugh or at least smile, you’ve established a rapport. Therefore, the next time they hear the name of your company, they will think of the nice experience they had listening to you. This you can never achieve through blogging, Social Media or traditional advertising. Regardless of how good your ads or blogs are, there’s nothing like the face to face contact with people.
- Public speaking will boost your credibility
Stemming from the previous point, giving presentations will boost your credibility. If you manage to establish rapport with your audience, you have grabbed their attention and if you’ve grabbed their attention, they will listen to you. When you are up on stage and people like you, you have a certain authority. When you share the knowledge about your experience, product or service, it helps build your reputation and consequently the reputation of your business.
- Public speaking helps to generate referrals
If you are proactive and you look for events where to appear yourself, you will probably only select those events where you could find your target audience or potential partners. Even when you’ve been invited and you think that the people in the crowd aren’t of any interest to you, you never know. People will probably walk up to you with questions, you will meet them after the event at the informal part, you will exchange formalities, LinkedIn profiles, email addresses, etc. Your network will grow and sales often start increasing as a knock-on effect of that sooner or later.