How Public Speaking can promote your "Brand"

Branding. Buzz word of trainers and businesses and entrepreneurial types everywhere. What is branding exactly and what does it have to do with public speaking?

Branding is who you are. Literally. It's pulling people in to what you're saying (or selling) making them believers in what YOU believe. This creates Evangelists (another buzz word) for your message/product. Branding is recognition and clout. In a wonderful article written by James Heaton of the Tronvile group they define branding as this:

Branding is the expression of the essential truth or value of an organization, product, or service. It is communication of characteristics, values, and attributes that clarify what this particular brand is and is not.  

A brand will help encourage someone to buy a product, and it directly supports whatever sales or marketing activities are in play, but the brand does not explicitly say “buy me”. Instead, it says “This is what I am. This is why I exist. If you agree, if you like me, you can buy me, support me, and recommend me to your friends.”

Think of major brands you know. What ONE word do you think of when you see...

• Mercedes
• TED
• Coca Cola
• Chanel
• Apple
• McDonalds
• IBM
• Google
• Santa Claus

You can truly reduce them down to "one" word. That is huge in the world of branding. It's called "single word reducability". Just like when you see "Ginger Training and Coaching" you think of Speaking. Yes? Yes. (At least that's our goal here people)

So what does this have to do with public speaking you ask? Everything.

Seeing that Branding isn't so much about marketing but about making believers, Public Speaking is vital to spreading your message of change and promoting YOU i.e. Your Brand.

Advantages of Public Speaking to your brand: 

• Being seen as an expert. You ARE speaking about this topic. Why would you be asked to speak if you weren't an expert?
• Being memorable. What you say and how you convey yourself can be absorbed for a long time after you've spoken, especially with shared online videos (thank you YouTube).
• If you are memorable then your Brand is remembered too. You will be seen as the "go-to" person on the subject at a later time.
• Trust will be built with your target audience. Trust is dynamically increased by seeing someone face to face and experiencing the emotions and senses that comes with that, creating rapport.
• Networking will explode. Being seen and introduced to many people at once? It's a total win. There will be "buzz" offline and on, Twitter is your friend here, linking you to future audiences who will hear how amazing you are!

Advantages to your audience:

• They get "it". They get insightful information on the topic at hand.
• The audience garners motivation, inspiration, ideas, etc. to help them enrich their lives, careers or businesses.
• The audience becomes aware of who you are... your Brand will identify you as someone to whom they can contact for advice, products, services, and refer career and business opportunities to.

Your "Brand" is your authentic self unequivocally linked to what you're selling, virtually indistinguishable. It's much easier to talk about a topic from the outside and then step away. But if you are simply offering your audience information, the impact on them will be less powerful. Those speakers who are their message, who can be relied upon whether they’re on stage or off stage are always the ones who will bring more inspiration.  Use public speaking to further your Brand... become the trusted name for what you do best!

Want more on how public speaking can give you a business advantage? Read The Seven Reasons Public Speaking is Good for your Career.