
by Ren La Porte
Having employees that can pitch your business, assists to build brand reputation. Ultimately, a well-crafted brand contributes to long-term success, enabling a company to command premium pricing, expand market share, and weather industry changes more resiliently. As a skill of influence, pitching can be used to attract customers, support for donations, votes, and policy outcomes.
On a personal level, pitching can land you that job you always wanted! Developing these skills can stipulate or defend actions in crisis situations. It is a major part of conferences, product demonstrations, trade fairs, public speaking appearances, seminars and networking events.
Per sector in 2022 – Australia
Demand for employees with strong advocacy or public speaking skills is strong, and growing. With the quantum leaps in technology and artificial intelligence, soft skills are increasingly becoming an advantage going into 2030 (LinkedIn 2021). Consumers will be looking for genuine connections that reflect authenticity and trust. Fast and effective communication between clients, organisations, and stakeholders are key to competitiveness in an age of increased global competition.
Developing skills in pitching, public speaking, leadership, and team building is as easy as joining Toastmasters. Toastmaster’s International mission is to ‘empower individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders (Toastmasters International 2024). Based on the branding of Toastmasters International, every club’s mission is to ‘provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.’ There is an extensive list of the benefits for this mission going into the future; it offers:
- team management skills and conflict resolution (Tuttar 2022)
- assistance to build a career (Tuttar 2022)
- an ability to influence people (Tuttar 2022)
- an opportunity to improve research skills (Indeed 2022)
- an opportunity to strengthen critical thinking skills (Indeed 2022)
- an opportunity to expand vocabulary (Indeed 2022)
- confidence to represent a cause, company or organisation (Indeed 2022)
- an opportunity to expand networks (Indeed 2022)
- assistance in performance reviews and interview preparation (Booher 2022)
- the development of leadership skills (Marr 2022)
- cultural diversity (Marr 2022)
- opportunities to develop a growth mindset (Marr 2022)
- opportunities to develop social intelligence (LinkedIn 2021)
- opportunities to practice virtual collaboration and online meeting management (LinkedIn 2021)
Interesting Read – Identifying potential leaders during tough times