Group photo by Network Solutions’ Shashi Bellamkonda, Women Grow Business blogger team at Bootcamp
As someone who helped get the Women Grow Business community off the ground over a year ago (with the great team of social media swami Shashi Bellamkonda), this particular day made such an impact on my thinking.
It was irreplaceable.
Apart of the DC region’s Digital Capital Week events, it was beyond educational and motivating with over 100 women business owners arriving early on a recent Saturday morning to learn and engage. All this equated to fantastic introductions, new friends, great resources and potential partnerships – thus the first Women Grow Business Bootcamp that wonderful editor Shonali Burke organized. There’s more here on coverage with video excerpts by the great folks at Yayastream.
What would you like to see at the next Women Grow Business Bootcamp?
What an energizing day, with 5 minutes of my closing remarks here.
Thanks again to the Ruiz Mcpherson team for the chance to guest post this fun social media event and talk!
What a blast it was meeting recently with great folks and conversation at Social Media Club’s breakfast hosted in DC. It was great presenting there on an addictive topic: DC’s regional community. What area events bring together people offline and/or through social media? …when, why, and how? These questions were explored (and then some!) by the fun, interactive crowd and the other presenters: TECH Cocktail’s founder Frank Gruber and SMC’s Education Connection guru Yong Lee (and I shared on DC Media Makers and the blogger community Women Grow Business).
Social media love and diversity
It was early a.m. but despite that, a robust crowd was ready to engage! The breakfast attracted many parts of the social media lovin’ community — small business owners, freelancers, educators, content creators, marketers, and more. The diversity stood out and I learned a lot.
Community and social tech
The breakfast underscored a key point: DC provides so many ways to get involved with and learn from different parts of the area (in and beyond digital technology). A snapshot of those discussed:
Want more on the breakfast and Social Media Club in general?
Thanks big time to Andi Narvaez and Rachel Rule for making the breakfast possible. There’s content galore about the event, including complete video coverage per the archived web stream with more fun video interviews by Ananda Leeke (and you’re welcome to follow SMC’s breakfast Twitter feed for ongoing chats aka #SMBdc). P.S. The Club’s blog regularly updates with social media news and events.
Pictured above are myself with Yong and Frank – image by Catherine S. Read.
A small business owner and I recently discussed the growing relationship economy. And a favorite topic of ours came up: social media and the progress her team was making on that front.
She was thrilled at how her staff engaged through their Facebook fan page and a Youtube video series to engage prospect relationships and drive sales.
She then admitted something that really caught my attention.
Her savvy team was so skilled at engaging through social media. So she felt comfortable with them presenting as panelists for a small industry event.
…which didn’t turn out as she first hoped.
To her surprise, the team lacked confidence and basic skill in this public speech scenario.
She realized she had assumed their comfort and savvy in communicating online would automatically translate to offline environments.
Some ideas to audit and shape your team’s public speaking skill:
1. Assess team skill before game time.
Create chances with your team to discuss, audit, and practice public speaking skill, like in assessment and goal setting situations.
Discuss which scenarios where they’ve publicly presented – like what type of audiences, with or without co-presenters, or in vs outside your industry. Learn what topics and stories related to your business most draw out their interest. Build off that subject matter and collaborate on a plan to finesse their speaking ability.
2. Make the marketing value of public speaking a team mindset.
Are there small business events/conferences (great calendar of entrepreneurial events at Small Biz Trends), podcamps, or local meetups (in case you’re in the DC region) that would be ideal places for your business to be seen? …and be conversational forums for your team to present?
Fast Company blogger and presentation guru Ruth Sherman recently made a great point: always be ready to speak. That’s not to say folks on your staff should be ready for a 60 minute keynote at the drop of a hat.
It means that for business to succeed, the mindset ‘always be marketing’ rules the day. And the team’s ability to represent well even at the most relaxed speaking environment makes an impact.
3. Develop quick key messages for a range of speaking opportunities.
To bolster team readiness, it’s worth it to craft a mini, ongoing archive of key messages that reflect your business values, service, and industry relevance. These can be on-hand for future fleshing out for speeches or even networking events.
It’s the relationship economy.
Is your team ready to help build those relationships through authentic and skilled public speech ability?
Image Ready to Fly by Marcel Germain, Creative Commons
Fellow business owners and I met a few weeks ago to celebrate 2010. And social media came up – Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, and other platforms. We kept reveling in how easy it is to ‘just be human’ when conversing online and agreed it helps build trust with customers.
Then someone said:
“I wish I was more myself when speaking in public onstage as I am when on the Web.”
This resonated with many of us and we all paused to let his comment sink in.
Then the challenge to ourselves became: how can we better assert our development as public speakers?
Some ideas:
1. Observe your voice in relaxed environments when an audience doesn’t exist.
Social media tools used in certain ways can be great for this. Consider creating unpublished content to improve speaking skill. Use a smart phone’s audio or video device and regularly record two or three minutes of just talking to yourself (or to a willing peer). Then often review these recordings. If you want to make these informal casts public and online (like on Posterous) great! But going online isn’t the end game with these informal casts. It’s to help you recognize (and emulate) your voice when it’s relaxed and fearless.
2. Seek accountability partners and chances to speak in public.
Whether it’s through Ignite events, Toastmasters, or a small group of your trusted colleagues – commit to giving public speeches on a regular basis and receiving critique (this is separate from demos or client pitches, etc).
3. Include public speaking in your marketing strategy and developmental goals.
I suggest committing to quantity here if possible i.e. “Present five speeches in Q1.” Designate early in the year the conferences and meetups you/your team would like to present at to help pre-plan topic proposals. Here’s a diverse and per-month conference list from Susan Mernit that includes a collection of conferences dedicated to women in business – including the Women’s Leadership Forum, Blogher, NAWBO Women’s Business Conference plus those in entrepreneurship, social technology, and her interests in social cause marketing. Warning! It’s 80+ conferences that haven’t been updated yet on this post to 2010. BUT all citations link directly to conference sites that will have respective event updates as they are published (with great upcoming events announced at SCORE regularly).
How we present ourselves in conversation – online and off – is critical. The level of authenticity and skill we bring to both environments hugely influences how others respond to us (and the brand we represent).
How about you? What has helped develop your public speaking ability?
Originally published as guest blogger for SCORE Women’s Success.
Image Conversation by Rishi Menon, Creative Commons