I’ve just finished reading Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. This fantastic book talks you through the benefits of networking for your business and career and offers some great methods for building your own network. Keith also highlights a really important point about the connection between public speaking and building your personal profile and contacts.

When you present at a conference, networking group or other event the audience remember you more than anyone else at that event. Being a guest speaker gives you a platform to get your message across to a captive audience and it means that many people will come and talk to you later as they feel as if they know you personally. I know this stuff works because last year I gave a humour based speech to around 120 people. Even to this day when I meet people that were in the audience they come up to me and introduce themselves and compliment me on the speech. So public speaking can be a great way to build your profile and contacts – you just need to take the leap and start volunteering to speak at events. Try it and see what happens