And now a few words from �� myself! - how to become a public speaker

and now a few words from ... MYSELF!

Getting up in front of an audience to make a speech - and getting paid to do so - is something few business communicators see themselves doing. We will write the speeches for our CEOs; we will grouse about the state of our various industries; we will envy the keynoters at IABC meetings and other conferences; we even will kibbitz, critique or scorn the presentations of august leaders - but few of us think about getting up at the podium and spouting off ourselves. At best, some communicators will wonder how those other people made the leap from humble audience to exalted presenter.

That's too bad, because becoming a public speaker can be an important career move for communicators. And a communicator with something worth saying, and hearing, can become a renowned speaker fairly easily without being a Nobel prize winner, a best-selling novelist, a fashion leader, a politician, a reformed crook, a beloved actor, or take any of the other obvious routes to fame that lead to being paid for talking to a crowd. Nor does it take having an agent or signing up with an impressive speakers bureau.

The big question for many professional communicators is how to get started - how to get asked, to get picked, to take that first step. Ample resources are available for learning how to write and present a speech effectively, from IABC chapter programs to Communication World articles to Toastmasters Clubs to pricey seminars.

Why Do It?

Plenty of reasons exist for becoming an in-demand speaker at the local, regional, national or international level. From the corporate-loyalty perspective, speechmaking gives communicators the opportunity to advance the causes of their employers or industries, to take a specific message to the public about a company or an issue. From the perspective of personal professional growth, anything involving communicating to a public may make a business communicator better at all communication tasks: Giving speeches increases the speaker's personal visibility, expands skills, provides new experiences and information, builds confidence, and even can be fun. It also can be lucrative - professional communicators can make handsome profits from becoming prophets and pundits; budding entrepreneurs can get new assignments from audience members.

"Making presentations to conferences makes me a better communicator and a better professional," said Rozanne Weissman, vice president, corporate communication for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in Washington, D.C. For that reason, Weissman is as willing to make speeches to the local IABC chapter as to the annual National Media Conference in New York City, she said. "I love speaking to a group," she explained. "Putting together a presentation improves my speaking skills and thought processes - it makes me organize things in ways I may have not thought of before." 9 Weissman's presentations tend to focus on topics related to her work, which is overseeing and initiating media relations, public relations, public affairs and corporate communication activities for CPB, as opposed to talking about public broadcasting per se. One of her most popular topics is "Getting the Biggest Bang for Your Buck," in which she shares ways that nonprofit groups can increase media exposure by using humor and media-relations savvy to make the most of their limited public-relations budgets. However, "as a representative of CPB, my presence at a program also is an opportunity to advance interests of public broadcasting," Weissman noted. "I always talk about what we do, what we are; I make a case of support of public broadcasting."

Becoming a speaker has various professional benefits for Ray Hiebert, professor of journalism at the University of Maryland-College Park; president of Communication Research Associates, which publishes Public Relations Review, Social Science Monitor and Media Report to Women newsletters; and author of a new book on international public relations (reviewed in the January 1990 issue of Communication World). Public speaking has made Hiebert a world traveler - he makes two or three speeches a month to audiences all over the world and all over the communication profession - government groups, journalists, foreign visitors, professional societies, and conventions. "I don't do after-lunch, Rotary Club things, though," he noted.

"Professionally, speaking gives me exposure," Hiebert said. "It's always valuable. I always learn something new from the people I address, because making a presentation requires me to get up to date on their issues by researching my audience and topic."

Weissman agrees: "You have to understand your audience, so I usually do a great deal of research."

For the seemingly omnipresent Don Ranly, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia; frequent speaker at IABC conferences and seminars as well as those of dozens of other groups; and promoter of "Ranly on Grammar" cassette programs, public speaking provides insights into the real world outside academia. "For a professor, the great fear of being tenured is getting out of touch," he said. "Making speeches keeps me in contact with the rest of the world. It keeps you alert and alive - and it's fun." Having visibility in the profession outside the university also helps his credibility with students, Ranly noted.

Many communicators find themselves discussing aspects of their profession with audiences who have nothing to do with the speaker's field, employer, industry or affiliation. Even disparate audiences offer professional growth and development benefits to the speaker, though, by forcing the speaker to look beyond narrow limits of a given industry or company to see - and share - how communication skills apply elsewhere. "It is interesting to meet people outside my own field," Weissman said. "We all get too internal, too mired in our own industries and fields. There is too much speaking to each other."

"I've learned so much about the world of writing and opportunities for my students through my speeches," said Ranly, who makes presentations on aspects of writing and grammar to diverse audiences such as the National Credit Union Association, Rural Electric Cooperative Association, fraternity and sorority editors and FOLIO: The Magazine on Magazine Publishing seminars.

Of course, for some communicators, there also is the financial motive: "I meet new people, which sells my books and publications," Hiebert noted.

Getting Plugged In

This is all very well - you have something to say, you even know to whom it should be said. Now what? Who cares if nobody knows?

Getting started may take some extra initiative; rarely will someone come to you, if you hide behind the limits of a job description or do not let colleagues and professional peers know that you have something to say. People who are used to being invisible producers of top-quality communications projects may have some trouble with the idea that becoming a speaker means using some hustle.

For CPB's Weissman, the first step was to attend a conference where potential topics suggested themselves to her - and letting someone know about her ideas. "I first went to the National Media Conference as an attender and suggested some topics to the organizers," she recalled. "They asked me to make a presentation based on one of those ideas the following year." Weissman now is listed in the Public Relations Society of America's speakers bureau: "You let them know you're available to make speeches on appropriate topics and they recommend you when people need a speaker on those topics."

A recent presentation to the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference was the result of "the person making the decision to invite me heard me at the National Media Conference," Weissman said, demonstrating the ripple effect that one good speech can have. The association gave her the topic they wanted to hear - "marketing your county" - and it was Weissman's responsibility to research the group and apply the basic communication skills she used at CPB to a new environment.

For Weissman, being an active member of several professional groups has led to other speaking engagements. Belonging to Women in Communications, Inc. (WICI), led to her being asked by a WICI member to make a presentation to a student chapter of the group. She also makes presentations to the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) as a result of being recommended by a member of ASAE's board. It is important to note that such a recommendation is not always an automatic invitation: "They ask you to do a proposal for a speech," Weissman said.

One route to getting to the speaker's podium is to start with the writer's pen. "They come to me, now," Hiebert said. "My name is on a number of publications - 20 books; the PR Review, which has come out four times a year for the past 15 years; Social Science Monitor, which is every month for the past 11 years - these add up to a lot of impressions."

It also is important to "establish a niche for oneself," Hiebert said. "My name comes up in connection with certain topics and I get recommended." Being an IABC member for 10 years also helped in terms of generating professional recognition, Hiebert noted.

Ranly began doing speeches as a result of his background in public speaking; he has an MA in speech. "The only real key to becoming a speaker is to speak," he said. "Rather than standing in a corner, take every opportunity and never turn down an invitation to speak. Of course, in the end, the message is everything - you have to have something to say and be entertaining. People's jobs are on the line when planning meetings, so they want someone `tried and true' who can deliver." There is, he noted, "always a degree of luck" in having such ventures succeed, but "if you don't take advantage of opportunities, others will get the break."

Ranly's experience proves his philosophy that "the overwhelming truth is who knows you." He plugged into the IABC circuit several years ago.

Other places to start a public speaking career include self-help and adult-education programs, such as the US national Learning Annex, where anyone with a good idea can become a speaker or teacher. Local colleges and universities often welcome people with proven expertise in a given field, whether the business communicator side or the industrial affiliation of one's employer, teaching certificates and degrees are less important continuing-education-program credentials than ability and experience. High schools and colleges can always use people to present "career day" information to students, again on either communication per se or a specific industry. Even the prestigious Smithsonian Institution is open to people suggesting themselves and their favorite topics for its Resident Associates Program courses.

IABC as the Inside Track to

Becoming a Public Speaker.

Getting established as a speaker may be easier for IABC members - and members of other professional organizations - than for those who have no such affiliations. The IABC chapter structure provides an ideal starting ground for the fledgling expert to make a verbal mark on the world. Chapters always need ideas and people to present those ideas. Offering to be a speaker at a chapter luncheon is a lot less demanding than taking on a committee leadership role, but every bit as important a service to the chapter, the profession, one's colleagues and oneself.

When serving the Washington, D.C. chapter of IABC, former chapter president Marjina Kaplan found that "some speakers contacted me because they think they can get other bookings as a result of addressing the chapter," she recalled. "People who want to become speakers should do marketing letters to chapter presidents - we pay attention!"

Chapter program committees "try to get third-party endorsements," Kaplan said. "We ask the potential speaker for references. Often, someone comes to our attention as a result of referrals from the members - IABC's membership diversity means that people hear good speakers elsewhere."

Chapter speaking offers a full year of opportunity, Kaplan noted: "We divide up the year, come up with topics and then look for speakers to match the topics, although sometimes we go for the speaker first if it's someone we especially want to present to the chapter or we think we can piggyback on the person being in Washington for another commitment." Understanding the needs and current issues that communicators face can be the key to becoming a speaker, she said.

Once established at the chapter level, the international conference is a real possibility, according to Catherine Tornbom, IABC's vice president of professional development. "From the international perspective, we depend almost entirely on chapter leadership for speaker recommendations, so getting on chapter programs is a good way to get visibility," Tornbom said. "If you can get on the district conference agenda, that's even better. We have about 50 sessions at the annual international conference and we take 12 to 20 names from the district conferences. About 85 percent of our speakers have come through the ranks over the years."

With both outside speakers and those recommended by their IABC chapters or districts, Tornbom checks references, although "we take IABC references above all others, because they are from the communicator's viewpoint." She suggested registering with a chapter or community speakers bureau to bolster visibility.

In essence, Tornbom said, "we look for depth of experience - we want people who do more than entry-level work. We also are looking for people with global awareness of their issues."

Outside Views on

Finding Speakers

Other organizations follow a similar path, with referrals, experience with hearing people elsewhere and internal recommendations playing important roles. "We decide on subjects first and then look for speakers," said Ann Breen, codirector of The Waterfront Center in Washington, D.C., which holds one annual conference and several workshops a year. "Sometimes we've read about or know about people in a certain field, but networking has a lot to do with choosing presenters. We spend hours on the phone looking for recommendations." Checking up on 30-plus speakers is a lot of work." For Breen's organization, technical expertise is important in speakers. "We want people who have done the things our members want to do, so we can learn from each other," she said.

With five days of back-to-back sessions and one major motivational a day, VOLUNTEER-The National Center has a lot of speaking slots to fill. "Because our staff travels a lot and are always at someone else's conference, we see and hear people who make good presenters for our program," said Richard Mock, who handles public relations and marketing for VOLUNTEER. "We almost never go through speakers bureaus because they are so expensive. Sometimes we use speaker's agents, but usually that works backward - we go after the individual and the agent gets back to us. Once, in a crunch, we went to an agent and described what we wanted."

People who make presentations at VOLUNTEER's conference benefit from being there, Mock noted. "Because we have a large conference - more than 1,000 people from all over the country from diverse backgrounds including government, corporations, nonprofit organizations, local Volunteer Centers - a lot of our speakers see the conference as a marketing tool," he said. "They use it as an opportunity to build future bookings."

It is important to remember that almost all major speakers started out on a humble, local level. It also is valuable to remember that even the most prestigious organizations are open to being approached by people who can offer their members useful or interesting information. The next time you hear a boring or bumbling speaker, don't just gripe - take their place!

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter is a free-lance writer/editor and member of the IABC/Washington (D.C.) chapter.

COPYRIGHT 1990 International Association of Business Communicators
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