ENTREPRENEUR BLOG: Marketing, Leadership, Success Stories for Small Business

A New Breakthrough

  

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Guess who made some breakthroughs in the past couple of months? The photo below should tell you part of the story. For some exciting details, read on.

As a business owner and entrepreneur, you need a broad set of skills. Some of these skills you might have naturally, acquired over time, and some you need to work on. Public speaking is one of these skills that are critical for an entrepreneur to possess. Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs started their companies with another co-founder; however, Gates and Jobs are better known and more visible because of their ability to communicate their vision to others effectively through public speaking.

Public speaking is an important skill for a leader to have. As a leader, one not only needs to create the vision, but convey the vision to others in a way that motivates and empowers them. As I learned in my E-Myth Mastery Impact! training, you don't have to be born a leader; you can learn to be a leader. Luckily, public speaking is a skill that can be learned. Dale Carnegie spent over 40 years discovering the secrets of effective speaking. He revealed his discoveries in his books: "The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking" and "Speak More Effectively". Effective speaking is one of the concepts taught in the Dale Carnegie course that I had the honor of taking very recently.

When I started my Dale Carnegie Course Skills for Success eight weeks ago, I was not comfortable speaking in public. However, that was a skill that I knew I need to work on in order to communicate my vision and grow my business. Throughout the Dale Carnegie course, and with the help of our trainer, coaches, and fellow participants I was able to stretch myself beyond my limits, building my confidence, my skills and fascination for public speaking. Each week, we gave 1-to-3 2-minute presentations on building relationships, pushing back on stress, and becoming a leader. Our presentations were concise, passionate and intense.

Today, I am the proud recipient of the first Outstanding Performance Award for this course, and a proud recipient of a Crashing Through Award for demonstrating courage, flexibility and risk-taking. I am much more empowered, and much more prepared to tackle public speaking.

Now that I graduated from the Dale Carnegie course, I look forward to every public speaking opportunity I will have. On November 3rd, I participated in Virginia State University Business Week, were guests from the corporate world came and talked to students about working in the real world. I very much enjoyed talking to a computer networking class of 20 students along with another consultant from Cisco. It was a very rewarding experience that I plan on repeating. On November 17th, I had the honor of presenting my company at a luncheon to a local professional association in Richmond, VA. You can read my remarks here. 

While in the past I would've avoided speaking to large groups of people, now I would jump at any public speaking opportunity that will give my business more visibility. A very powerful tool for growing my business!

So I challenge you to stretch yourself beyond your limits and acquire new skills, and the benefits would be that you will achieve new heights you did not even imagine.