Social Networking Skills

Polls consistently reveal that fear of public speaking is second only to the fear of death for many people. And it doesn’t seem to be limited to introverts. Even otherwise-outgoing and boisterous folk are known to shudder and clam up at the thought of themselves propped behind a podium.

The unfortunate truth is that giving into this fear could be costing you money and success. “How?” you ask. Well, consider this scenario.

With rumors of mergers and layoffs running rampant, Sue and Charlie, who have been working in the same office for the last seven years, decide the time has come to go out on their own.

In many ways Sue and Charlie are alike: they are about the same age, both are highly skilled in their area of expertise, and each has a mortgage to pay and only one income to rely on. But in one big way they are different. Sue is not afraid to speak to a crowd. Charlie is scared stiff at the thought of it, but it has never been a big deal because he has never held a position where it mattered.

They knew that they would have to take an aggressive approach to marketing their new businesses. That would mean telling their stories to as many people as possible as often as possible.

Together they joined the local Chamber of Commerce. Sue volunteered for a leadership position right away. Charlie was more comfortable attending events as part of the crowd. In just a few months, Sue had become quite friendly with some of the long-standing members of the local business community; people who happily introduced her to colleagues and acquaintances, and in no time she landed her first clients. Charlie congratulated her.

She needed eight more to fill her practice. So, at the next meeting, she asked everyone she encountered whether they knew of any groups that she might be able to address. She explained that she was prepared to speak on several different topics from ten to 30 minutes. She followed up on the many leads she got and within the next three months she addressed eight different groups, resulting in six more clients.

In the same time frame Charlie, who was attending many of the same meetings as Sue - but always as a part of the crowd, never in front of it - had landed only two clients. He was becoming concerned about his shrinking savings, with the next mortgage payment due in days.

The big difference between Sue’s success and Charlie’s can be linked to the number of people they told their stories to. For every hour each one spent networking, Sue told six to seven times more people about her skills and services than Charlie. The law of averages took care of the rest.

The law of averages works the same for everyone, whether you are a business owner, climbing the corporate ladder or a self-employed professional. The more people who know who you are and what you do, the more chances you will have for growth and advancement. If you are afraid to speak to more than one person at a time, it will show on your P&L.

There aren’t any quickie bullet point answers when it comes to overcoming this fear - it’s a biggie and will most likely require you to swallow hard and enlist the help of a professional group like Toastmasters or BNI or hire a caring and dedicated mentor to help you walk through your fear. Chosing to do so can make all the difference to your success.

Lisa Almeida is a Marketing on a Shoestring Mentor and owner of Planit Production. She teaches business owners how to apply do-it-yourself techniques to proven and powerful marketing methods to get big business results with small business resources. If you are in the market for strategies that can deliver the results you want then visit http://www.PlanitwithLisa.com today and sign up to receive the weekly ezine, Going Soul-o. Because success doesn’t just happen. Are you ready to planit?

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