December 1, 2009
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Admit it. A little piece of you wants to be a rock star. When you watch Steve Jobs give a keynote, you can't help but imagine yourself up on a stage, wowing people with your vision and prowess.
A little piece of me does, at least. Public speaking, while one of man's greatest fears, can be an exhilarating experience. It can also boost your reputation and your business.
THE BENEFITS
1. Look like an expert.
If you're highly knowledgeable about something, nobody will know about it unless you demonstrate that knowledge. By simply being able to talk coherently about the subject at hand and answer questions intelligently and honestly, you show people that, yes, you know what you're talking about.
Keep this in mind when planning your presentation – your talk should be informative and helpful, and with as little fluff as possible. And for goodness sake, rehearse. You'll do yourself no favors if you fumble and stumble on stage.
2. Learn something yourself.
In many cases, a good talk involves a significant amount of participation from the crowd. In a good conversation, the attendees can challenge your viewpoints and offer valuable insights that, ultimately, give you a fuller and more well-rounded perspective on the topic at hand. Next time you give a talk, you'll be able to draw on that knowledge.
These days, with devices constantly competing with you for the attention of attendees, it's more important than ever that a talk be an interactive conversation. If you go into a talk expecting not just to teach, but to learn, you create an opportunity to really engage with the people at the event in a meaningful way.
3. Increase visibility online and offline.
To speak at an event, you must prepare content for your talk – and that content is intellectual property with a value that can stretch beyond the roomful of people that you speak to. By recording the talk and putting it online, sharing the slides, or inviting ongoing participation from the audience, you take better advantage of the content you've created for your talk by making it accessible to a wider audience.
When giving a talk, find out ahead of time if the host will be streaming or recording the talk, and if not, determine if it would be possible to arrange for a recording yourself. After the talk, consider posting your slides on slideshare.com.
GET STARTED
So nobody's begging you to speak at their event yet? Pick up some momentum:
1. Identify something you're good at that you want to speak about.
This seems like an obvious prerequisite for public speaking, but taking a critical look at where your expertise and passions lie might reveal that what you think you want to talk about and what you're actually equipped to talk about are two different things. Often, it's better to talk about a very specific area of expertise than to give a more generic talk about a topic on which you have less to offer.
2. Attend events that you'd like to speak at.
Pay attention to the kinds of people who speak and attend, and get to know the organizers. If you can establish yourself with the organizers and attendees, you'll be more likely to be invited to speak, or at least more likely to be accepted if you ask to speak.
On top of that, people are far more likely to pay attention to someone that they've met before or are at least a little familiar with. Set yourself up to be someone people want to pay attention to.
3. Blog.
While blogging has taken a backseat to Twitter and Facebook buzz lately, there are few better tools to establish yourself as an expert than a carefully-curated, well-maintained blog. People who blog about specific subjects consistently and intelligently will, over time, be increasingly regarded as experts, and will be invited to all sorts of events as a result.
4. Execute.
Nothing beats action. Do and build things that show you're good at what you do in a real, tangible way, and people will take notice.
But you're already doing that, right?
*** This post comes from Tony Bacigalupo, founder of New Work City, a co-working space in New York City, and a partner at Shift 101, a workspace consultancy. Tony’s fieldwork feeds into the knowledgebase of the Behance Team, who run the Behance Creative Network, the 99% productivity think thank, the Action Method project management application, and the Creative Jobs List.
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