CGM blog: Stand up – for yourself and your business

27 Mar CGM blog: Stand up – for yourself and your business

One of the biggest barriers holding business people back is the inability to speak in public.

Even the most successful of entrepreneurs sometimes mutter their way tortuously through presentations which ought to enhance their reputation – not detract from it.

Or they rely so heavily on an over-detailed PowerPoint they might as well have saved everyone’s time and simply emailed it to their audience.

Delivering a presentation or keynote speech, let along the art of delivering a proposal, proposition or even the ‘Dragon’s Den’ experience of pitching for game-changing investment, ought to be a skill in every business person’s locker. Not so.

The problem is two things – time and effort. Deep down, we all know we can’t expect to sharpen our skills unless we practise. Winging it rarely works.  Then there’s the old sportsman’s adage about luck – the harder I try, the luckier I get.

If you don’t train to speak in public small wonder it’s a struggle. So why do people fight shy? After all, we’ve all seen people we admire who are good at public speaking – who ooze confidence and can easily impart wit and wisdom – enhance their reputation so it heads off into the stratosphere.

It’s all down to training – creating some business me-time and taking the time to learn career advancing skills.

At CGM our most popular media training course is Delivering Perfect Presentations and Speeches.

I’ve seen people who were tortured by the idea of having to make a presentation leave hours later with the confidence and ability to want to develop their career through speaking.

It is often a latent talent, of course. Deep down, most of us understand of our subject inside out and have the ability to talk about it with confidence… it just needs teasing out.

A bit like making note-free speeches – easily do-able with a bit of inside knowledge and structure. You just need some know-how – and practise.

It is about having the right mindset, too. Accepting a public speaking opportunity shouldn’t be a question of what have I to lose, rather what do I stand to gain?

So go on. Stand up – for yourself, your career and your business. Learn to speak in public. You’ll never look back…

Chris Green is CGM’s managing director and an experienced author, broadcaster and media consultant.

Delivering Perfect Presentations and Speeches is one of four courses in our executive media and communications training programme.