Organisations partner to improve public speaking

Understanding the impact of public speaking on the youths, especially in the age of when youths are coming out to become speakers, politicians, pastors, owners of Ngo within and outside the country, Mrs Olufunke Temenu has provided a Speakers’ Lounge platform for the youths in the act of public speaking.

The event who packaged and held at Primacy Edge Hub, Bodija, Ibadan, in partnership with The Plectrum Hub in Lagos. The programme aims to build trainees to be able to connect with any audience, monetize and sharpen their speaking skills, and be able to keep financial records.

Some of the facilitators of the programme include notable public speakers and entrepreneurs such as Jimi Tewe, CEO of Jimi Tewe Company; Adaora Ayoade, MD/CEO of EZ37solution; Victor Haruna Francis, Convener, iVantage and Ronke Giwa Onafuwa, OAP, Splash FM.

Chief Executive Officer of Jimi Tewe Company, Jimi Tewe said the first packaging of a speaker is the way they look. People will buy you first before they pay for your service.

In his topic “11 Ps in public speaking”, he stated that passion does not means I love, it means I can suffer for it, you can only demand for money when you have a product.

“Don’t be too big to carry something small, you impact and then it brings influence and turns to income.” He said.

Another speaker, Victor Haruna Francis, stated that it is okay to follow people but be care who you follow because they determine the future you see. He also explained that by giving people what is relevant, they will always own up to you.

On the part of Ronke Giwa Onafuwa, in her lecture titled “Appearance, Poise and Eloquence” she stated that to become a good speaker, someone must determine who his or her audiences are and what kind of outlook will help them receive your message better.

“Be comfortable in your own skill, be yourself, don’t try to be some else because you can only control your message but you cant control how people receive your message.”

In her remark, the convener, Mrs Olufunke Temenu said ‘Speakers’ Lounge’. It’s basically a public speaking master class for aspiring, and even already established speakers. Warren Buffet said if there should be any important skill that any entrepreneur should have, it should be public speaking skill. It is not just enough for you to have an idea, you should be able to communicate effectively what your idea is all about, and you should be able to sell it. That is what spells the difference most times between successful people and the unsuccessful ones.

“So, we’re using the opportunity of this programme to train speakers, aspiring speakers and even business owners, because more often than not – we get to hear of business owners who go for business presentations and sometimes – apart from their technical competence; what might ensure that they get the job sometimes would be how effectively they communicate the idea that they have. So, that’s basically what Speakers’ Lounge is all about and we’re doing it in collaboration with Primacy Edge Hub, which is our partner hub in Ibadan,” she said.

“Speakers’ Lounge is a vision from God, which is set to go places, by growing to connect public speakers across the length and breadth of the nation.

On how Speakers’ Lounge started, I met with Mrs. Akinlade, who happens to be the CEO of Plectrum Hub, and then we had collaboration; but I didn’t know what God had in mind when we started that collaboration because eventually, we had to come up with ‘Speakers’ Lounge’. We thought ok, how do we support people who come in for training? How do we support people who have been using our facilities? So, we just started with that and we have that all over the country today.

“So, we put Speakers Lounge together so that we could be able to help people who have issues with speaking, basically. People who would come to you and ask how much training facility would cost. So many people would come to you and you discover that they can only do it once or twice and they disappear.

“Speakers Lounge is out to promote them, to encourage them, to empower them and to make sure that we network them. You know, make them see that we’re all here…we have the same feeling of uniformity. We understand what you’re going through, we can help you to make sure that any kind of programme that you’re holding, we’d ensure that, one, the place is filled up; two, we have the facility for you to use; three, we can make sure that everything you need works together, everything is available. So, we go all out to ensure that whatever they’re going to need, we have it available,” she said.

Temenu added that Speakers’ Lounge is basically a support system. “Speakers Lounge is a vision on its own. It’s borne out of the passion of what we see of these people going through stuff, of not being able to get well settled, that was why we brought about Speakers Lounge.”