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Professional Speaking Skills Are Business Skills

Great speaking is a business skill every executive can, and should, learn.

Ever since the great orators of the ancient world - Cicero and Pericles, for example - used their speaking talents to sway the opinions of the crowds, people have understood the power of a gift for public speaking. Winston Churchill, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, and closer to home, Nelson Mandela and Professor Jonathan Jansen are just some examples of the great leaders in more modern history that have (or had) the ability to capture the attention of their audiences with nearly word that they speak.

In the business world, the likes of Apple's Steve Jobs or South African guru, Clem Sunter know how to keep an audience entranced for the duration of a speech, whether it lasts 15 minutes or an hour. But in many cases, the ability to speak like a superstar is one that is learnt and developed over time, rather than one that is innate.
There are some people who have a natural ability to engage an audience with their words - almost irrespective of the content they deliver or the message they're offering. For everyone else, it's a skill that needs to be worked on and learnt from a professional with an understanding of what exactly makes a great speech or presentation.
For politicians, businesspeople and other leaders who spend much of their time in the spotlight, good speaking skills are becoming a basic job requirement. A speech that an executive makes today could appear on television tonight or be uploaded to YouTube, in addition to the impact on the people in the room. A chance to engage directly with a large audience, often comprised of influential people such as journalists or major shareholders, is a business opportunity that no executive can afford to squander. That's especially true in an area of rock-star CEOs, where execs like Steve Jobs have an enthusiastic audience hanging on to every word they say.
Executives spend only a small fraction of their time speaking on a public platform, but the way they carry themselves in presentations and speeches to clients, employees, investors and the public has a massive impact on their personal brands and the brands of their organisations. In the US and Europe, and increasingly, in South Africa, executives are investing in the services of professional speaking coaches to maximise the impact of their public speaking time as well as to enhance their image and credibility in the eyes of their clients, suppliers, shareholders and employees.
The skills that many executives struggle with lie not only in delivery of information, but also in consolidating the massive amount of content that they have to include in presentations, down to a few key points, which then form the basic structure of a presentation.
Good professional speaking skills are business skills. They impact on a business and a leader's image in a very tangible way. Public speaking opportunities are opportunities for leaders to raise their profile, enhance their image, gain credibility and improve client and employee relationships.

Lynn Baker of Eloquence Speaker Consultants (www.eloquencegroup.co.za).
19/04/2010 www.hrfuture.net