Whether you’re addressing a group of one or one thousand, you need to be able to engage with your audience. You have to put in hard work to learn about a topic, an industry, or a client/stakeholder before you can communicate authoritatively with/about them. The good news is that every time you speak in a meeting or to a client/stakeholder, you are working on becoming a better communicator. Focus on speaking with clarity, conciseness, and connecting with your audience.
As you gain experience in handling difficult client calls or pitching new strategies to your boss, you’ll reach a point where you’re able to handle more challenging conversations and relationships. That’s good, because as a department manager, the game has changed. You’ll be responsible for passing important information to your superiors and team members, and possibly to your entire company.
When you expand your services to include multiple advertising platforms, it gets infinitely harder to scale spend while also hitting your clients’ spend and performance targets. So how will you manage the additional platforms, keep clients’ performance on track, and continue to scale their businesses?
- Are you effectively communicating company decisions, policies, etc. that affect your team members?
- How aware is upper management of your team’s performance and status at any given time?
- Are you confident being the voice of your department when you face difficult client conversations?
- Is your team able to pace campaigns to meet spend and performance goals?
Takeaway: While speaking in front of groups may not be your strong suit, it’s a skill that you can improve over time with practice. Every time you address a group (whether in writing or in person) ask for feedback and work to improve. Groups such as Toastmasters can help you gain confidence with public speaking as well. The trick is to get comfortable quickly because public speaking will be a major part of your role as manager.