Toastmasters means business
The business world is full of opportunities. Very often chances come unexpected. Scenario one: A big project is in trouble. A new team leader is needed to manage the turnaround. This is a very visible position. Scenario two: The company established a new relationship with a client. They are looking for the trusted advisor who can successfully manage the relationship. Scenario 3: The VP of your division was hired away by the competition. The search for a successor has started. The company is looking both internally as well as externally.
We are interested to grow, perhaps make more money and make a difference. The question is, what do we do to systematically prepare for these situations? Will we have the skills to deal with the new challenges? In the sports world careers are shorter. We can see how players come to the game. There are only few like LeBron James who were drafted from high school into the NBA becoming the leader of the team over night. Mostly, somebody simply gets a chance. One player is injured, another player fills in and proofs himself. Now, what have these athletes done prior to getting their chance? Well, they have practiced. They played their game at anytime they could. They conditioned themselves in the off season. They thought through how this moment would look like, going on the field for the first time as a professional.
In the business world a lot of things are required from corporate athletes. We have to know our stuff. Engineers need to be technically competent. Sales people need to know their products, customers and markets. People in finance need to know their numbers, all applicable accounting and tax rules. Researchers need to know their science. Our educational system is designed to develop knowledge based skills. But, in order to be effective we need to connect with other people. We communicate facts, key concepts, perhaps strategies. Anyone who has ever been in a situation that is similar to one of the three scenarios, knows that the most important thing is not necessarily the domain expertise. The most important thing is to relate to people. It is about to reach out effectively, to listen and to be heard. Toastmasters is the ideal training camp for corporate athletes. Here are five examples how its educational program helps you to get ready.
1. Overcoming the fear of public speaking: Initially, this is the most important reason, why people join Toastmasters. For most people going through the Competent Communicator manual – a collection of ten (10) speech projects – is more than sufficient to achieve this goal.
2. Special speech projects: There is a slew of advanced manuals representing interesting challenges for an aspiring speaker. There are a wide range of speaking projects: a crisis situation, a dinner speech, a toast, a roast or a humorous speech. Nothing is more intimidating than the idea to have to be funny. The manuals help the speaker to prepare for the project. Based on very specific criteria - called speech objectives - the speaker receives constructive feedback in a meeting taking his game to the next level.
3. Impromptu speaking: Most of our day to day speaking situations are impromptu. We have to learn how to think quick on our feet. One way to train are “Table Topics”. As part of every meeting the Table Topics Masters has prepared a number of questions. She picks randomly someone from the audience. The selected person speaks for one to two minutes. And yes, this can be sometimes a long time. I met a number of people who said that Table Topics helped them most to become a more confident speaker above and beyond anything else they did in Toastmasters.
4. Listening: Business leaders need to be good listeners. It’s about understanding different view points and learning to detect those little nuances. This give us the ability to effectively understand, analyze and deal with the situation at hand. One of the great opportunities to train this skill is to give evaluations to other speakers. Evaluators are identified ahead of time in a Toastmaster meeting. They listen to a speech and then prepare a two to three minute response that equally encourages the speaker as it provides valuable suggestions for improvement.
5. Leadership: In Toastmasters we strongly believe that leadership skills can be learned. There are plenty of situations for our members to practice their leadership skills. It can be as simple as to practice how to run a meeting. From there we provide leadership opportunities to run a club, an area, a division or beyond. Just to give you an idea of the complexity: A Toastmaster division can have easily five hundred members. A district may have many thousands of members. So, Toastmasters can provide a training ground that easily matches the complexity of a VP level position in the corporate world.
Regardless, if you are interested to improve your speaking skills or your leadership skills. Regardless, if you are interested to become a professional speaker or just simply become more comfortable speaking in front of a crowd. The first step for all of us is the same. Visit a local club and participate in a meeting, perhaps answer a table topics question. Things will take its course from there.
Get Your Club into Growth Mode
Every year Toastmaster clubs around the world are working on their Distinguished Club Goals (DCP). In order to get to all ten (10) goals a club needs to achieve the following:
- Goal 1 and 2: Four (4) Competent Communicator Awards
- Goal 3 and 4: Two (2) Advanced Communicator Awards
- Goal 5 and 6: Two (2) Advanced Leader Awards
- Goal 7 and 8: Eight (8) new members
- Goal 9: Train their officers in the summer and winter
- Goal 10: Submit the officer list in the summer and get the dues in on time at least once
It’s very rewarding to reach all ten goals. There is lots of recognition on the area, division and district level as a result. Most importantly it’s fun to be part of a club that is humming like this. Now, all goals except 7 and 8 are about making it happen with existing club members. We can identify people by name, we can talk to them, track their actions and help them, if needed. So, goals one to six and nine and ten are basically about good management and leadership. Goals seven and eight are different. How do you reach out to people you don’t know yet? Here are three simple principles that are the key to success.
1. Every club meeting is a demo meeting
Consider every meeting as a demo meeting. A good meeting features well-prepared speeches, fun table topics and constructive evaluations. If you think there is a problem in the way your club runs its meeting, then your intuition is probably right. There are Toastmaster assessment tools (e.g. The Moment of Truth) that help to dig deeper. Use them. Get a club coach if a fresh outside perspective is needed. The VP Membership needs to be good in talking to visitors and following up. It should be everyone’s job to make sure that visitors feel welcome. If you have the foundation built, it makes sense to increase traffic to your club. New people will be attracted and join your group.
2. The club can be found easily
Traditionally, Toastmasters made all sorts of efforts to get the word out: Flyers at the library, hang outs at the local super market. I wouldn’t want to discount the effectiveness of those. However, in today’s world people go to the web to find out about stuff. So, your best bet is to make sure that your club can be easily found online.
a. Accurate club information on http://reports.toastmasters.org/findaclub/: Make sure that your club’s information is listed correctly on the global Toastmaster website. Check the correctness of the meeting time, location and contact information (email and phone)
b. Have a website for your club: This doesn’t have to be fancy. There is a free hosting platform that allows you to set up a club site. Check out www.freetoasthost.org. Ask your members to fill in their profiles. Give your club that personal touch that others can relate to. Check out this club as a simple example: http://fstoastmasters.org.
c. Search engine ranking: This requires a little more tech savviness, but it goes a long way. Submit the URL of our club site to the main search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Bing). If you don’t know how to do this, find someone who does. Here is a simple litmus test. Conduct a Google search. Type “Toastmasters”, your city and state. For example search for “Toastmasters Reston VA”. If your club shows up on the first page, you have done a good job. Ideally your club should be among of the first three links.
d. Leverage advanced platforms: There are additional ways for people to find you. Look at meetup.com or facebook.com. These platforms are social networking sites. You might consider to build a community of existing club members and friends there. Then you can publish your meetings and reach out to others. I would recommend this after you have completed your work on a-c.
3. Reach out to the club member’s network
This last principle is about active marketing. There is a difference between corporate clubs and community clubs. I have recommendations for both.
a. Bring a friend: This is the most straight forward approach for boosting attendance that works very well in community clubs. Put a meeting together with some of your stronger speakers. Arrange for a nice welcome. Ask every member in your club to bring at least one friend to the meeting. Involve your guests in the meeting. Table topics is great for that. Don’t forget to ask for feedback. Arrange the follow up.
b. Toastmasters means business: Corporate clubs have the opportunity to tie Toastmasters to the goals of their company. At the end, what organization doesn’t need good speakers and leaders. Talk about your club in the company newsletter and publish an article on the intranet site. It makes a huge difference if your club officers are able to secure executive sponsorship within your company. If company officials are endorsing the club, you will have it much easier to reach out and stir up interest. Go for it. Executives will get the value of Toastmasters quickly.
Personally, I have seen clubs that are President Distinguished year over year. Some accomplish all ten goals in the first six months of a Toastmaster year. I also have witnessed how a low membership club with six members grew to a club with more than thirty members within eighteen month. The success of these clubs is based on these three simple principles. If your club goes systematically through the recommended actions, visitors will come to your meeting and you will turn visitors into members. A little extra tip. It has always been a good idea to feed your members and visitors very well. Great speeches combined with great food are irresistible.
