I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The August 16 Wall Street Journal has a terrific article “The Gift of Gab,”  in its Small Business Section. (The online version may be locked for a while.) The author, Barbara Haislip, interviews a range of entrepreneurs and business experts. Her conclusion: “Give a speech. Win a client.”

The article notes that public speaking gives entrepreneurs a way to share their expertise much more effectively than a sales call or a booth at a conference. In particular, giving a speech lets you appear as a thought leader to an audience that wants to hear you.

Still, as the article notes, speaking can be challenging. The business people in the article (and I) recommend practice, practice, practice wherever and whenever you get the chance.
And once you get over your stage fright, work hard on the content of your speech and seek out great real-life examples. As Haislip notes, “Audiences respond strongly to stories.”

For the Fourth of July, I wrote a post on the Washington Post’s On Leadership blog about how some leaders (Frederick Douglass and FDR) have been willing to challenge their audiences on a day usually reserved for feel-good rhetoric. l Here are a couple ‘graphs, and you’ll find the rest online.

[G]iven the many challenges the nation faces at home and abroad, you might hear a very different kind of speech this year. Sometimes, a July 4th speaker decides that the times demand something out of the ordinary. He or she tries to lead listeners in a new direction by challenging, not reassuring, them.

One of the most famous examples is the 1852 fourth of July speech by the African American leader Frederick Douglass. He was invited to deliver the traditional address at Rochester N.Y. annual Independence Day celebration.

The latest edition of my column in the Washington Business Journal, Speaking to Rise, focuses on the special challenges facing women executives when they give speeches and presentations. Kathy Clark, CEO of Smarthinking Inc., along with
communications strategists Susan Peterson and Denise Graveline offer observations.

For example, Clark notes that  “Sometimes women fear that because we’re women, if we share personal things, we’ll be perceived as not being professional. In my experience, it’s just the opposite.”

It’s too early to tell whether Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne can save that endangered automaker. But it is clear already that he knows how to use speeches to help turn his company around.  A month ago he spoke in New York to the National Automotive Dealer’s Association on (what else) transforming Chrysler. That speech is definitely worth a read – especially because it’s breath of fresh air after all the wease-ly,  responsibility-shirking remarks by Titans of Finance these days.

Marchionne acknowledges his industry’s failures (we “got into businesses we did not know how to run and, in doing so; we created clumsy bureaucracies that impeded innovation in what should have been our core expertise: making cars that consumers want to buy.”) He’s frank about how much Chrysler needs government help.He also lays out specific steps Chrysler is taking to turn things around (more fuel efficient cars, more R&D, better engines, etc) AND he sets out his vision for the revitalized company – (“a profound transformation, both in terms of quality and quantity.”)

One of the things I liked most about the speech is the clever way he addresses one of the biggest questions about the merger – can the conflicting cultures of a European company and an American one really be blended in a way that works?

To take on the skeptics, he does an extended riff on how “Bruce Springsteen showed us the power of change.” It’s not just a throwaway line: he talks about the Boss’s song structure and lyrics in a way that shows he (or his speechwriter) really is a fan. Subliminal message: if this Italian guy knows archetypical American music so well, maybe an Italian firm and an American one can work together to make and sell good cars.

The latest edition of my column in the Washington Business Journal, Speaking to Rise, focuses on the role of speeches and presentations by senior executives in the government contracting business. I interviewed Tim Dowd, the CEO of Input, which helps companies develop business with federal, state and local governments; and Kevin Parker, CEO of Deltek Inc., which provides enterprise software for project-driven businesses, including many of the nation’s largest government contractors.

Interesting observations, including:

“I can say things at staff meetings, but the organization tends to react more to things I say publicly than internally,” Dowd said. “The message often has more power when people hear me say it at a public event or see it in the press.”

Parker revealed that he’s not “a deep technical guy.”  “But one of the skills I do have”, he explained, “is the ability to take something very complex and distill it down. I can explain it in a way that will resonate with a large group of people so a complex idea becomes a compelling idea.”