Executives balance work, public speaking

Chances are, he could be on the road, speaking to hundreds – or even thousands – of people about the merits of the open-book management style he touted in his 1992 book, “The Great Game of Business.”

Stack said he gives between 50 and 60 presentations a year, a demand created by the success of that book and “A Stake in the Outcome,” a subsequent Stack-authored book.

“(Public speaking) takes on a life of its own once you get a book out there,” Stack said.

Like Stack, many local executives use the speaking circuit as a method of spreading their messages, promoting their businesses or tapping into an additional source of income.

For Springfield clinical psychologist Nancy O’Reilly, public speaking is about education.

“My background is in prevention and education, and most of my speaking originally came surrounding the topic of stress prevention and management,” she said. “That’s a pretty common thing for most psychologists – we’re asked to speak a lot at a lot of luncheons and brown-bag events, just to come in and talk about specific topics.”

O’Reilly said she charges anywhere from $200 to $300 for a short speech and between $1,500 and $2,000 for a larger-scale presentation. She has written a book, “Timeless WomenSpeak Of Feeling Youthful At Any Age,” which will be released in September.

Jack Burke, founder of Branson-based Sound Marketing, has been giving presentations on the importance of interpersonal communication since publishing his book, “Creating Customer Connections,” in 1996. His company offers audio and video recording services for businesses.

Burke, who charges anywhere from $2,500 to $5,000 for a typical speaking engagement, said being a published author catapulted him into the speaking arena.

“I started getting calls from groups asking if I would address their group,” Burke said, noting that he and his wife moved their business to Branson in the hopes of attracting groups to visit him for presentations and save him some traveling. “Today, I still do a considerable amount of speaking – probably more than I’d like to.”

The payoff

While public speaking can be a time-consuming business, both in time spent away from the office and in preparation for upcoming events, executives say they benefit from the activity – and not just financially.

“I’ve been lucky enough to go all over the world to talk about how if you teach people business, you create sustainable businesses,” said Stack, who declined to disclose what he charges for speaking engagements that have taken him everywhere from Zambia to Australia to Germany. “If you can talk to 50 businesses and help three or four turn around, you feel like you’re contributing to the betterment of the society.”

While O’Reilly’s cause is more personal, she said it’s no less fulfilling.

“Every now and then, someone comes up to me and says, ‘Thank you. That really helped me in my relationship, or in my job, or in my relationship with my children,’” she said. “To me, it’s an extension of what I’ve done in therapy. But I also learn so much from people – sometimes the questions they ask help me to think about different things, too.”

For other speakers, such as Consultant Board Inc. principal and employee retention author Mark Holmes, the payoff from public speaking experience is more tangible. Holmes, who has worked for both large and midsize corporations, said his speaking skills helped him “gain attention for special projects that I doubt I would have been assigned.

“Particularly for executives, when they’re going to be presenting to customers or in front of a group of employees, it’s extremely helpful to have communication skills and get the point across without droning on and on,” Holmes said. “You don’t have to be a polished speaker, but you need to be an effective communicator.”

The balance

Striking the right balance between speaking in public and running a business can be the biggest challenge for executives – especially, O’Reilly said, if the executive is dynamic.

“If you talk about what you do and why you do it and you’re inspiring people, the word spreads pretty quickly,” she said, noting that she only advertises through word-of-mouth and her Web site, womenspeak.com, in an effort to keep her speaking schedule manageable.

The problem is even more acute for Stack, whose multiple books, articles and profiles in national business magazines have made him a hot commodity.

He said there are three issues he runs into: regular engagements that come up every year that he has committed to; speaking free at events for charities he wants to help; and trade speeches that benefit his industry.

“You go out and make a speech, and these people want you to come back. Then the people you talk to in these organizations want you to come and talk to their organizations,” he said. “The hard part is balancing giving speeches and being a CEO.”

Burke said it’s also important to be familiar with the group to be addressed.

He knows from experience; he was invited to speak in January in Mumbai, India, about customer relationships as a result of previous writing he had done for The Times of India, which sponsored the event.

After being told he’d have to pay for his own travel expenses in advance and take a cut in his customary speaking fee, Burke ended up canceling the trip and losing the money he’d already spent on travel arrangements.

“Stateside, most of the people I talk to, I have some prior knowledge of or connection with,” Burke said. “I’ve never had or experienced a problem like that.”

Even with the difficulties that can come with speaking, speakers such as Stack – who said he pays his travel expenses and donates most of his speaking fees to charity – feel the pull of the lectern in an effort to improve the world around them.

“I believe that we’re financially illiterate and make bad decisions because we’re not teaching financial literacy,” Stack said. “It’s more of a cause than financial advice.”