A Popular Topic: Public Speaking for Business Development
It’s funny; for years requests for my public speaking presentations focused on skills – organization and delivery primarily. Yet since the beginning of this year I have been asked multiple times to give presentations focused on Public Speaking for Business Development (for professionals).
I have to chalk that up to one of the only positive outcomes of the recession!
Of course, I am interpreting this new demand to mean that more professionals are realizing the value of using public speaking as a business development tool. Let me know if you think I’m mis-interpreting.
Tomorrow, May 19th, at the ungodly hour of 7:30 in the morning, I am giving a presentation on this same topic to a Century City ProVisors group. ProVisors is a popular professional networking group.
While I have not joined Pro-Visors (no time!), I have several friends who belong to various groups in the Los Angeles area who are big fans. In fact, talk about ESP (or something)…. as I was sitting here composing this blog post, I got a call from an attorney who just happens to be a member of ProVisors and who heard me speak about this topic two months ago for LexBlog.
This attorney called to discuss whether or not I would be willing to put on a Non-Profit related CLE course for attorneys early next year. He also emailed me, just prior to calling, with details of the program (he had emailed previously, me right after the LexBlog webinar, with his credentials).
Now this is someone who is taking my advice from that presentation to heart! I love it!
And guess what, based on his credentials, topic proposals and outlines, and my conversations with him, we will probably book at least one of the four proposed programs in the spring of 2012 in Los Angeles.
Now, I don’t do this particular speech as a way to get CLE speakers – we have a pretty full stable of speakers and generally speaking I only take CLE speakers by referral. But it has been an interesting side-effect of doing the presentations.
Why do I do this particular presentation? For business development of course! Somewhere down the road, a firm or agency will book me to teach public speaking (or this program) after hearing about me from someone who attended.
So I practice what I preach and I believe in in wholeheartedly.
Can I point to business I have gotten from my various presentations (free and paid)? Yes, absolutely! I have been booked several times in-house at large law firms/agencies based soley on someone either attending one of my free speeches or someone attending one of our paid public speaking CLE seminars (open to the public) or watching my DVD.
Not only that, but the ABA has contracted with me to write a book (yes I need to finish it) on Public Spoeaking for Attorneys. That came directly from my contacts at the ABA, where I established my expertise in the area by speaking annually, for free, at their National Convention.
We’ll be posting the webinar on this topic in about two weeks – on You Tube. I’ll also get a few blog posts going about it in June.
In the meantime, happy speaking!
Update: Here is the link for the recorded webinar.
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