The Super-Secret Impact of Public Speaking on Your Career (Or, How do I get promoted?)

The Super-Secret Impact of Public Speaking on Your Career (Or, How do I get promoted?)

Not surprisingly, I spend a lot of time talking about public speaking and the role it plays in getting promoted, finding a new job and, in general, the care and feeding of careers.

Mentoring Monday is an annual event held in more than 40 cities across the U.S. where a group of female leaders participates in a speed dating-like event, getting matched with other women from their community. This year I had the honor of participating as one of the mentors and talking to an awesome group of women who were all investing in themselves and their careers. Meghan Ingram, a super-star production director from Small Army, was the first of my Boston area Mentoring Monday “mentees” to ask some variation of, “What can I do to grow my career?”

I was lucky in that I had just received some excellent concrete evidence of what we know to be true: that public speaking helps build careers.

On Friday, one of our Innovation Women members, Laura B. Janusek, reached out to let us know that she had been recently promoted to Chief Product Officer at Modern Teacher. “Speaking at conferences has helped establish my credibility and shed light on my areas of expertise. Sharing my strategies and experiences at conferences has helped others recognize me as an authority, and I believe this recognition has opened doors for me, including my recent promotion to CPO.” (Congrats, Laura! Well deserved!)

We also heard from another member, Amie Thompson, on the topic. Just this week, Creative Allies, a content marketing firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina, announced the appointment of Amie as President and CEO. Thompson originally joined Creative Allies as Director of Operations in 2015, leading the agency in executing initiatives for global brands, including KISS, BIC, Twenty One Pilots, Art.com, ESPN X Games, and Ben & Jerry’s. (Sounds exciting, Amie! Congrats!)

We asked Amie about the impact of public speaking on her career. She told us about her experience as a college freshman, having to introduce herself in class (using note cards) and realizing she was terrified of public speaking. It was after college that she decided to get help and joined Toastmasters. “This might still be the best decision I ever made,” said Amie. “I practiced speaking weekly, once I got over the fear of actually speaking, and I saw my confidence grow over time. I completed the Competent Toastmasters program and really felt like speaking was just something you do, and not something to fear. This confidence led me to speak up more in meetings, volunteer for more projects, and do other things that helped me progress in my career.”

Amie continued, “As CEO, now I’m the single biggest representative for my company. I need to seek out speaking engagements, and hopefully one day soon, people will be approaching me to speak because of my experience, my story, and my company’s success.”

[Side note: I can almost hear you thinking, “Do I have to be a member of the C-suite before public speaking is prescribed for my career? Isn’t that too late?” Nope. Public speaking is appropriate at any time in your career. Start now! One of the earliest projects we were asked to support as Innovation Women was a panel of millennials talking about how they got their first jobs.]

Let’s go back to Meghan’s question. “What can I do to grow my career?”

1)     Start speaking now. Look for opportunities to share your expertise and skills. Just getting started? Look for smaller groups, panels and opportunities at schools. (Need permission from your employer? Get it! There might also be assistance and training offered. You may also want to talk with your employer about their goals – what messages do they want conveyed?)

2)     Keep track of your speaking opportunities – keep a list of the who, what and where of your speaking. Speaking engagements are part of your resume. And when you get your annual review, bring out your list.

3)     Create a signature talk – become known for something specific. Start to build your brand.

4)     Share your speaking engagements on social media. In addition to helping event managers promote the events, you also become known for speaking. Speaking begets speaking. The more you speak; the more you will speak.

Public speaking gives you credibility – it’s an external validation of your awesomeness. Someone outside your company knows of you and likes you enough and thinks enough of you to invite you to speak at their event.

Public speaking makes you more visible. You’re more visible to the audience; you’re hard to miss at the front of the room, on that stage. But you’re also more visible to other people. They might have seen an email promoting your presence at the event. They might have seen a Tweet or a LinkedIn or Facebook post about you, your topic or your presentation. Some of those other people might be potential employers, partners, customers or industry influencers.

Public speaking can connect you with people who have the power to influence your career. You might end up sharing the stage with potential customers, partners and other influencers. Bring in that big customer and get promoted! Who me? A board seat? You’d like to interview me for your article?

And, as Amie pointed out, confidence is a by-product of public speaking. Confident people are self-motivated and are willing to take risks, attractive traits in an employee. External speaking engagements lead to internal results (promotions.)

Rachel O'Neil

Impact entrepreneur helping leaders improve executive function and drive economic development.

5y
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Excellent post on how speaking engagements can help boost your personal brand and your career!

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