From Coach
to Speaker
I recently received a call
from June, an Executive
Coach who specialized in
women’s leadership within
the finance sector.
During our discussion, June shared
with me that although she was
keen to grow her business, she was
finding it difficult to attract new
clients. She was worried that if her
business didn’t grow, she would
need to look for a full-time job. She
also confided that she didn’t enjoy
public speaking.
Sadly, June is like a lot of talented
coaches I meet who are trying to
build a high-quality base of paying
clients. And the reality is that,
although June and many coaches
like her don’t enjoy public speaking,
the willingness and ability to do
so is one of the best ways to build
your business.
As a coach, there are many
benefits to speaking at events and
conferences, including:
• Efficiency.
Speaking to a roomful
of people is like a sales
conversation, multiplied!
• Generating awareness.
Speaking engagements—
particularly with members of your
target market—build awareness
of you, your brand and what you
have to offer as a coach.
For many coaches, the greatest
challenge on the way to becoming
a confident, competent public
speaker is making the shift from
asking to telling. As a coach, you’re
responsible for creating the space
for the client; all of the attention
is on him or her. In speaking, your
audience may be paying attention
to you, but your attention is on
a room filled with people, each
of whom brings his or her own
perspective, goals and desires to
the engagement. However, the
purpose is the same. In coaching
you’re facilitating change in your
client, and in speaking you’re trying
to facilitate change for everyone in
the room.
These five tips will help you
embrace public speaking as a
tactic for building your brand and
growing your business:
1. Value speaking as one of
your most-leveraged sales
tools. Having a lot of one-onone sales conversations isn’t
an efficient use of your time. A
single speaking engagement with
an audience of 40 people can
save you 40-plus hours of coffee
meetings. Those are hours that
you can instead spend coaching
your paying clients.
2. Analyze your audience. What
problems do they have? What
are their fears? What issues
does your message solve?
You need to have an intimate
knowledge of the challenges
that are happening in your
audience’s world. If you don’t
they will be lost quickly. As TED
speaker and author Simon
Sinek says, you need to “start
with why.” The “why” will allow
you to connect far more quickly
and engage with your audience.
4. Be mindful of activities.
You risk losing energy
and momentum in your
presentation when you bring
activities into a presentation.
If you are integrating activities,
make sure they move at the
same pace as the presentation
itself to maintain energy levels.
5. Be prepared! Ensure that your
message and key points are
clear and well-supported by
stories, examples, case studies
and evidence relevant to your
audience. Although you don’t
want to race through your
presentation, you do want
to maintain good pacing and
momentum: You’ll lose the
connection with your audience
if your presentation is slow,
laborious or off-point.
By taking the time to find and
prepare for speaking engagements,
you can build your practice and
position yourself and your brand as
a coach. By making the move from
asking to telling—and therefore,
from coach to speaker—you can
share your insights, build your
brand and move from one-on-one
sales conversations to one-to-many
growth opportunities.
19
3. Don’t facilitate. As a speaker,
you have several ways to
engage with your audience,
including stories, analogies
and humor. You shouldn’t
be engaging by turning the
mic over to members of the
audience for the duration of
the engagement. If you believe
participation is the best way to
keep your audience engaged,
set limits: For example, you
might ask them to raise their
hands to gauge