Give a speech. Win a client.

As simple—or even scary—as that formula sounds, a host of entrepreneurs have found that conquering public speaking can be the route to more contacts and customers. Impressing people with your expertise at a conference, in a classroom or over the radio can sometimes win more business than making sales calls or manning a booth at a trade show. Not to mention that the most successful speakers can take home thousands of dollars in fees for an appearance.

Of course, it’s not always easy to get started. Many entrepreneurs—like many people in general—suffer from stage fright, or simply don’t think they have anything to say to an audience. In many cases, they have to get up to speed with the help of speakers’ groups such as Dale Carnegie & Associates Inc. or Toastmasters International, or even coaches and therapists. But those who have done it often say it’s worth the effort, for both their business and their self-esteem.

Here are some of the crucial lessons these entrepreneurs have learned about finding their voice—and using it to land clients.

Get Out There.

For all the training they go through, entrepreneurs say it was vital to practice delivering their message in public. “You don’t get better by reading and studying the craft,” says Scott Miller of Cincinnati. “The only way to improve is to put yourself out there.”

Mr. Miller, founder of B2Bee LLC, a developer of invoicing and bookkeeping software for very small businesses, says giving speeches didn’t come easily. “When I graduated from college, I was a terrible public speaker and deathly afraid of the experience,” he says.

He started off his speaking career with a Dale Carnegie course on professional selling, and then bolstered his training with lots of practice before technology groups. He also taught college classes, which kept him nimble by forcing him to answer tough questions on the fly.

“College students force you to be prepared and bring your A game,” he says.

That practice didn’t just help his speaking, he says. “Being prepared for a 45-minute talk followed by 30 minutes of Q&A helps develop the skills of preparedness and organization that all entrepreneurs need to succeed,” says Mr. Miller.

Now he often speaks before technology-industry groups and teaches a class in entrepreneurship at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He also makes presentations to raise capital for his business from angel investors and to obtain state grant money. His efforts have landed him plenty of business. After a speaking engagement last November, for instance, Mr. Miller picked up a handful of beta testers, who agreed to run their business on his new invoicing software. They are now customers.

Tony Coretto also benefited from lots of practice. Mr. Coretto, co-founder and co-chief executive of PNT Marketing Services Inc., a Long Island City, N.Y., database-marketing company, trained in speaking and negotiating a couple of years ago through a Harvard Law School program, then “followed that up with a few quick sessions with a behavioral therapist, to attack the problem of stage fright and fear of public speaking.”

After that, he began seeking out opportunities to speak: day-chairing an event, doing a radio interview and being a panelist at a conference. He even had some videos of himself professionally recorded and posted them on his website and on YouTube. “More people are calling, referencing an event at which they saw me, or one of my videos, and we’re definitely building more of a buzz around our company,” Mr. Coretto says. “We can’t yet quantify the effect in terms of sales, but it’s early days and we’re confident it will eventually pay off.”

You’re the Expert.

Lots of people are intimidated by the prospect of speaking in front of a huge crowd at a conference or similar event. They’re more comfortable with the intimacy of a sales call or a convention booth. But remember that when you get onstage you have one simple, but huge, advantage: People want to listen to you.

“Often with a cold sales call you can play telephone tag and talk to seven different people until you reach the individual in the right department—who may or may not be interested in your service,” says Marty Metro, a Los Angeles entrepreneur. “Compare that to a captive audience at a conference in which the people in the audience are interested enough in the topic to leave the office, pay for the event and sit and listen to your message.”

Mr. Metro, founder and CEO of UsedCardboardBoxes.com, which promotes conservation by buying and selling used boxes nationwide, says public speaking is such a great source of clients that he doesn’t make outside sales calls anymore. He appears at about one event a month, talking about how companies can go green. His recent engagements include keynote speaker at the Mid-Atlantic B2B Green Forum in Baltimore in March and emcee for the Good Housekeeping/Wal-Mart Green Expo Speaker Series in Bentonville, Ark., in April.

“I meet potential clients at almost every event…and I’m in the position of thought leader and not salesperson, because I’m offering valuable information and the audience appreciates that,” Mr. Metro says.

Be Specific.

Many people aren’t sure what to talk about on stage. One good rule: Stick to real life. Effective speakers say they use actual examples whenever they can, to liven up their talks and give the audience something to relate to.

In 1998, Maribeth Kuzmeski, president and founder of Red Zone Marketing, a consulting firm in Libertyville, Ill., was asked to speak about a marketing plan her firm set in place for a financial adviser. The venue: a national sales conference, with 350 advisers in the audience. “I was so nervous I thought I wouldn’t make it,” she says.

But after the talk, Ms. Kuzmeski had a line of advisers who wanted to work with her firm. She took away an important lesson: Audiences respond strongly to stories. “Today, I speak more than 80 times per year and speaking has built my marketing consulting firm entirely,” says Ms. Kuzmeski. “I have not done any marketing besides my Web site and writing books and articles.”

Whenever she gives a speech, she makes sure to use real-life examples. For instance, she relates a story about a client who complained of poor results after spending $100,000 a year on dinner seminars. He described the invitees as “plate lickers” who didn’t even listen to his pitch.

Ms. Kuzmeski suggested an event in which existing clients are invited to a special event if they give a referral. The event—a dinner cruise on the Detroit River—drew 40 client referrals. The strategy was so successful, and so much less expensive than the seminars, the client does three of the events a year, and no other marketing.

“Audiences don’t want theory, they want to know how someone is actually putting the theory to work,” Ms. Kuzmeski says. “I use success stories from our consulting clients, and I use only recent ones because what worked years ago may not work today.”

Source: WSJ.com