I know a lot of Toastmasters who would like to be professional speakers. They are skilled and experienced, and may have done very well in the Toastmasters International Speech Contest. Yet many of them struggle to find opportunities to speak professionally, and struggle even more to find something relevant to say when they do get the opportunity.
In his great TED Talk on creativity, Sir Ken Robinson points out that universities seem to be designed primarily to create more university professors. Academics teach academic skills, rather than the skills that matter most in the business or professional worlds. It’s what they know.
That’s the problem for many Toastmasters, too. If you need someone to wow the audience at a Toastmasters conference, a Toastmaster is the way to go. They know how to construct logically powerful arguments, tell emotionally evocative stories and deliver them all with confidence, style and verve. That’s what they practice in Toastmasters. It’s what they know.
But being a great speaker doesn’t qualify anyone to be a professional speaker
Don’t get me wrong, I love Toastmasters. I think everyone should be a Toastmaster and learn how to present themselves and their ideas with confidence, clarity and conviction. Most of what I know about speaking is a result of my experience in Toastmasters clubs and contests.
But business doesn’t hire speakers to entertain them, except perhaps at the yearly Christmas party. And despite what many would have you believe, they don’t hire speakers to motivate them. Motivation can only come from within the corporate culture.
Businesses hire speakers to help them; to teach them skills, to adjust their attitudes and to change their behavior. They’re not interested in hiring great speakers. They want to hire experts who can speak well.
Communication and delivery skills are vital. You can’t teach anyone, if you don’t grab and hold their attention, structure your content for clarity and retention and deliver it in a confident and compelling manner, and Toastmasters is a great place to develop those skills.
Ultimately, however, your content – your knowledge, your judgment and your expertise – is what they are buying.
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Very true. Style without content will only get you so far. Together they are a powerful combination. Otherwise, you’ll get a boring dissertation on whatever or a content-free piece of fluff. Expertise + delivery = success.