7 Ways Public Speaking Can Help Your Career

7 Ways Public Speaking Can Help Your Career Guess what? The world’s number one fear is not spiders, global warming, nuclear war, space invaders or even death. It it is in fact public speaking. Surveys keep confirming that presentation skills are vital to success in business and life, yet the idea of it somehow fills us with terror. If you can become that person that gladly steps up to talk, you will earn more, build your business or get promoted quicker and your personal brand will be boosted to new and greater heights. How to improve your speaking skills How does one go about to conquer this fear? I am sure there are lots of ways but one that is working for over 250,000 member is Toastmasters International. You may have heard the name before, in a nutshell it’s a public speaking club that was founded in California back in the 1920s and there are now 12,500 clubs around the world, each comprising of about 30 members. This may sound rather dull and like a support group where a bunch introverts hold hands and try to overcome their fears of public speaking. Au contraire, the members at Toastmasters are anything but shy. I believe most folks that join Toastmasters already have a showman streak in them and their club provides the perfect outlet for this. 7 reasons you should consider Toastmasters: 1. Presenting and speaking before an audience Presentation skills are crucial in the business world and if you are aspiring to climb the corporate ladder you have to be confident speaker. The speaking and presenting part is what most people expect to learn from Toastmasters so let’s move on. 2. Writing and structuring a speech What are you actually going to speak about? Whatever you like, but you have to put it together yourself. The content of your speeches has to be researched, structured, written, re-written, proofread to have the maximum impact. These activities take time and effort but you pick up a knack for it over time. 3. Listening and evaluating other speakers Some people are born good speakers. They do not tend to be born good listeners as well. If you work in sales, you will know that your ability to listen and understand your client is perhaps the most important aspect to your success. Toastmasters requires you to evaluate other speakers and giving constructive feedback before the group. After you have done your evaluation, prepare to be evaluated yourself, there is no hiding here! 4. Picking up leadership skills Once you are a regular member you will be asked to get involved in organizing and running meetings and other events. These activities take more effort than you would expect but make for excellent training. The sweat equity you put in will be returned to you as invaluable leadership skills that transfer over nicely to the corporate world. 5. Getting to know your local community You club will be made up of people like you, ambitious, curious and keen to improve their lives and careers. You will expand your professional network exponentially by simply showing up to meetings and talking to fellow members. Toastmasters is not an old boys club intended to further each others’ careers but it is one very useful side to it. 6. Giving you a perfect failure platform At Toastmasters, you can fail as much as you like. Mess up a speech, show up late, forget to print the program, whatever it is you have not done any damage to your career. And perhaps more importantly, it won’t cost you anything to fail. You can basically regard Toastmasters as a sheltered environment where you can expose others to you shortcomings without fear of repercussions. Over time you will learn from any mistakes you make and you will be stronger as a result, trust me I have done quite a few myself (and keep doing them to a lesser extent). 7. Staying very affordable Got you attention now? You are looking at a fee of about $100 for 6 months which is not bad considering a corporate speaking course could cost that per hour. The lion’s share of your membership dues will go towards the room hire, the rest to the global HQ which provides you with course manuals and other handy things. Toastmasters International is a non-profit organization and your meeting is run by functionaries who are basically unpaid volunteers (and before long, you will become one as well). My experience I found Toastmasters through a Google search, looked up a club near to me (The Grosvenor Square Speakers in London) and went down to check it out. Guests are always welcome and there is no obligation to join up. After a few meetings I made my mind up to join. When I announced it at the club, this elderly Irish fellow came over to where I was sat, firmly shook my hand and said “son, this is the best decision you have ever made”. That to me was a very powerful endorsement that has stuck in my mind ever since. Once I started speaking and getting in to the swing of things, I somehow ended on the club committee and I have realized that the many facets to Toastmastering have been very conducive to my business and career. I never did see that Irishman again, perhaps he was a guest, perhaps he was the resident ghost of Toastmasters â€" whatever the case I am very happy I joined. Call to action Joining Toastmasters is my best business and career tip and I recommend it to everyone. The one thing you have to bear in mind is that it is not a quick fix and it will take time and effort to get through the manuals in order to becoming the confident speaker and leader you aspire to be. So with that in mind, there is certainly no time like the present to visit a club near you to find out whether it’s the thing for you. Here is a link to the Toastmasters club finder. Is public speaking something you fear? Did you think Toastmasters was related to sliced bread? Please feel free to leave a comment!

How to Find the Best Resume Writing Service For You

How to Find the Best Resume Writing Service For YouWhen hiring a professional resume writing service to help you create a comprehensive, professional resume that will get you the best job, it is critical that you check the credentials of the company. So how do you know if they have the skills and experience necessary to produce the best resumes possible?Experience and Qualifications: The first thing you should look for in a resume writer is experience. This will help to ensure that your resume will be ready and available when it is needed. However, some writers may not have the necessary experience to do the job they are hired to do. Find out what experience each writer has had, and then check that this is something that the company specializes in.Skill Level: The second thing you should look for is the skill level of the writer. This can be determined by their educational background, which is normally obtained through formal education. More experience is often the result of internsh ips or training with a professional service that can be obtained after obtaining the required degree. However, these writers can still get you a great resume.Leadership Skills: Your final key to finding a great resume writer is by looking at the level of leadership skills they have. You want to hire someone who has a passion for writing and creating resumes that stand out from the crowd. Having someone with skills and experience in this area would be a very good starting point.Professional Writers: There are many freelance writers on the internet who specialize in creating professional resumes. So if you do not find the right candidate, you can hire a company with an experienced professional staff to handle the job.Where to Get a Reputable Writer: There are many writers who can submit resumes and keep busy all day long. These writers can also be very expensive, but there are plenty of sites on the internet where you can find quality and affordable writers who specialize in resumes a nd cover letters. You should always look for writers who work for large, well known companies with extensive experience and skills.Make sure to hire a professional writer who specializes in resumes. This will help to guarantee that your resume is a first rate creation and is written with the skill and experience to get you the job you want. It will also help to avoid making a mistake on your resume and losing the job you applied for.Hiring a professional resume writing service for the first time is a big step. You want to make sure that the service you choose is reputable and will produce the best resume possible for you.

The Unintentionally Successful Accidental Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

The Unintentionally Successful Accidental Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career For most people there is one path to recognition, status and authorityâ€"slaving away, day in and day out, mastering a craft, drawing attention to achievements, and hoping that one day all that hard work will coalesce into a recognized personal brand. There is, however, the exception: the Accidental Personal Brand. This is the person who emerges from the ether, gains the attention of the masses, and benefits from the opportunities that inevitably come with an attentive audience. To most of us, these lucky few are supremely unworthy. If, for example, you’re a struggling (but talented!) writer, who hunches over your computer for several hours a day working endlessly to entertain your audience and build your platform, you likely cringe whenever you hear that the Internet phenomenon du jour has secured a book deal with an unheard-of advance, based on a blog started on a whim. Learn from the non-deliberate And I can’t help but agree that to the untrained eye, most Accidental Personal Brands (APBs) seem to have nothing more than dumb luck on their side, butâ€"stick with me hereâ€"not all accidental personal brands are untalented or undeserving. And either way, what’s important here is that we can learn quite a bit from the paths they takeâ€"from the very non-deliberate way in which their personal brands emerge to the very deliberate ways in which they capitalize on the opportunities that follow. But first, a look at some of the most compelling recent APBs: Joe the Plumber rocketed from a random commenter on Obama’s small-business tax policy to the mascot for middle-class America. He’s since released a book, signed a record deal, made more than a few paid personal appearances, and the list goes on. Jared Fogle lost nearly 100 pounds on his Subway sandwich diet, but gained national attention, a 10-year stint as the Subway spokesperson and a slew of speaking gigs. After Ken Jennings won 74 games of Jeopardy!, he was added to the Guinness Book of World Records, he wrote two books, secured a regular column with Mental Floss, and continues to entertain several media opportunities. Jon and Kate Gosselin managed to transform their sextuplets into a media empire, including a reality show, books and speaking engagements; a ton of cash, and a high-profile divorce. Octomom secured an upcoming reality show that will feed the country’s obsession with her and her octuplets. Levi Johnston got national recognition for getting a vice presidential candidate’s daughter pregnant and continues to capitalize on his newfound fameâ€"although his long-term success as an APB remains to be seen. Bloggers are plucked out of the blogosphere daily for book deals and other opportunities. You get the point. So now for the real question: What are the key elements that distinguish these APBs and how do they compare to the steps you’re taking to build your personal brand? 5 common traits Subject matter. Whether inane or ingenious, the content or actions that got our favorite APBs noticed are authentic. All too often people over think their messages/content/actions in attempt to cater to the perceived needs of their target audiences, but being formulaic and over-curating your every move are tactics that are at odds with accessibility, transparency and passionâ€"the qualities that generate real audiences. Audience building. Their audiences came to them, not the other way around. This is not to say that this is the only way, or even the best way, to build your audience, but it’s worth noting that our sample APBs’ audiences congregated around what was offered (whether its value was sheer entertainment, informational or otherwise). Many disproportionately focus on getting more followers, more email addresses or just more attentionâ€"essentially spending more time shamelessly promoting themselvesâ€"than on offering value to these audiences. Think of the so-called “experts” or “gurus” you find on Twitter. You know the onesâ€"they’ve got 50,000 followers, are following 60,000 people, and don’t have an expert or guru-esque tweet to speak of. So, no matter how big their audience, they don’t own it, and therefore won’t be able to leverage it as a selling point. Platform agnostic. These APBs transcend platform. None of them are limited to writing, blogging, speaking, singing or any one other thing. Although they might have been discovered for one of these things, their personal brand is versatile and goes beyond the competency responsible for their rise to notoriety. Essentially, they are the brand and revenue streams flow outward from what they’ve established. Continual brand reinforcement. In other words, don’t rest on your laurels waiting for the next opportunity to come to you. This is one piece of advice that APBs tend to bypass, which is why so many of them fade into oblivion after their fast rise to prominence. The key is to have complete ownership over your assets and your audience. Depending on your goals, this could mean the regular production and distribution of thought leadership, publishing your own book (without somebody else’s green light), or creating videos and other online content that allow you to speak directly with your audience, and keep them coming back to YOU for more. A pivotal moment. For each one of these people there was a pivotal moment when they were confronted with an opportunity, whether related or unrelated to their original platform. And the decisions they made at that moment is what may very well determine their staying (or going) power. When building your personal brand, you might have very specific goals in mind, but the opportunities that result aren’t always in sync with your plans. If your only plan is to make the most money as quickly as possible, then take what you can get. If, however, you want to build a long-lasting empire, well then, you’re better off bypassing the accidental and focusing on the strategic. Author: Gretel Going is a partner at Channel V Media and co-publisher at Channel V Books. Her background is heavily rooted in media (print and online), marketing and audience generation.