How Public Speaking Can Help Your Business

When it comes to businesses, there are so many strategies out there that you can deploy to grow your business. Some of these strategies include advertising (both traditional and digital), customer loyalty programs and so much more. However, there is one important strategy that is often neglected by most businesspersons which could help you as a businessperson in showcasing your business and attracting more sales to your business. This strategy is public speaking.

What Is Public Speaking?

Public Speaking refers to the art of speaking to a group of people or an audience on a given subject matter. Public speaking dates back to the traditional ancient societies made up of kingdoms and chiefdoms where orators and men of nobility expressed their opinions and concerns on important state matters. The Igbo nation in present-day Nigeria had what is referred to as the “Umunna”, an assembly where the male representatives from each family within a community met to discuss issues of communal interests.

You may have known public speaking to be one way to publicly pass a message across to a large audience but you may not have considered it as a tool that could help your business. Ignorance of the attendant benefits of public speaking to businesses could be said to be one of the reasons why most business owners do not prioritize opportunities for public speaking.

Another reason could be fear of ‘public speaking’ itself. Many individuals dread speaking publicly and will turn away from every opportunity to speak publicly.

What Are Some Of These Benefits?

Public Speaking Increases Your Business’ Visibility and Positioning

Visibility and positioning are important in business. Visibility is the reason why we mount billboards, take out a page in the local newspapers, pay for time in the local TV and Radio stations and even go as far as sponsoring events and brands. Every business needs visibility to continue to stay in the faces of its customers and potential customers. Public Speaking offers you an avenue to increase your business’s visibility, howbeit, in a more positive light. When I organise events, because I desire to sell my events as much as I can to as many people as possible, I encourage my guest speakers to provide me with details about their persons, including their businesses and I make sure I give these some form of prominence in our publicity campaigns.

Through our campaigns, more people come to know about the businesses of our speakers. At the event as we introduce the speaker, guests seated in the audience also hear about these businesses again This increases the number of persons who are aware of the businesses.

Many people, for instance, came to know of Steve Jobs not necessarily because of Apple but his speeches. And when these individuals come to know Steve Job, guess what happens after that? They come to know of Apple. The same strategy is used by many other notable entrepreneurs out there to increase their business’ visibility and awareness. You can use the same for your business.

A note of caution: ensure your host is comfortable with you discussing your business before doing so. A host may frown at your frequent mention and reference to your business and services. I have seen many business persons make this mistake and while the host may not come forward to express disapproval, it could cost you the opportunity of being invited back to such events.

Public Speaking Increases Acceptance and Trust In Your Business

Aside from the visibility and positioning that your business could enjoy through public speaking, you can also increase the acceptance rate of your business. Most persons and organisations that organise events already have loyal audiences that you could leverage to increase the acceptance of your business and also inspire trust in what you do. There is a famous axiom that says “people do business with whom they know, like and trust”.

Having you show up as a speaker at events makes it easy for you to be known by people, increases the chances of them liking and trusting you. This is because when you speak to people, you connect with their minds and if you ‘wow’ them enough, you send out a subtle message that your business is doing well and therefore should be trusted.

Opportunity To Connect And Interact With Customers and Prospects

Another important benefit you stand to gain as a businessperson through public speaking is the opportunity it affords you to interact with your customers and prospects. Every speaking engagement you will ever be in have persons who may or may not have heard about your products and services.

Being at an event where you could see these persons will give you an opportunity to provide more information and education to them about your business and some of the products you have. There is a reason why football players celebrate their goals towards their fans and oftentimes you may even see them jump into the fan zone, to be touched and hug their fans. Doing that creates a form of connection between the players and the fans.

As a business owner, being seen by your customers and prospects at events where you are a speaker has a way of creating a personal touch between you and them. You can even go further in this by taking out time to take pictures with them after your talk, interacting with them in groups to answer some of the questions they may have regarding your business or products.

Opportunity To Generate More Leads

Public speaking could help entrepreneurs who are into service-based businesses generate more leads and following for their business brands. During your speech, you could leave the audience with means through which they can contact you even after the event, such as your email, your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn usernames. These contacts could then be nurtured strategically into paying customers. I have connected with many businesses simply because the business owner was at the event I attended and gave out his contact. However, ensure you do not give out contact details that are personal to you so you can easily regulate your business and personal contacts.

Closing Thoughts

As a business owner, public speaking should form part of the strategies you deploy in building your business. If you have not started making use of this, you could be missing out on opportunities to make your business more visible to potential customers. Your interests should not only be industry-based events, your next customer could be in the event you least expected.

As a business owner or a leader of a team, there are certain important factors you must take care of in order to get the most out of your team. Click here to find out what these factors are.