Nomalanga Ndlovu – well known as Miss Noma, was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. She lived most of her childhood till her early adult years in Botswana where she obtained her Law degree from the University of Botswana.
She is a public speaking coach who is passionate about women empowerment and self-discovery. As a Christian, her values are based on her beliefs.
Miss Noma loves to travel and meet different people. She is the founder of Outspoken Consulting, therefore, she enjoys learning about entrepreneurship.
Nomalanga has had notable experiences being part of the Mandela Washington Fellow 2017 and being a Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) fellow in Washington DC where she did her internship.
She is also a TEDx Speaker coach. 2018 was her second year taking up the role yet to occur in Pretoria December 2018.
If you’re interested in becoming a professional public speaker, you’ll learn one-too-many things from Miss Noma.
Where did you get the passion for public speaking?
My journey to public speaking was inspired by her childhood which had memories of her being a backbencher. I was mostly a reserved child of low confidence and participation. Although, I would always envy the children who participated.
My literature teacher was the one who saw something in me and that was when I started making presentations. Since then, it has always been my mandate to help other people discover their voice and be able to sell their stories.
My passion to help comes from helping people creating first impressions that will create opportunities as she believes most people will miss out on the best opportunities based on how they present themselves.
Tell us about your company – Outspoken Consulting
Outspoken Consulting was established in 2016, it is an organization that helps business executives and entrepreneurs to develop their ideas for presentation, customer care, and selling of brands as individuals as well as organizations.
We realized a lot of business entrepreneurs and executives have great ideas however when it is time to present the idea there won’t be much focus on the customer.
The sales or marketing teams at most times could not have received training on how to engage and speak with the client. We help individuals and companies:
- Package themselves and their product.
- Understand the clients they have and how to speak to them.
- Take their business to the next level in terms of communication.
[bctt tweet=”Speaking isn’t only about opening your mouth, it is about selling an experience -@MsNomalanga ” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”]
Outspoken Consulting also has a program that is being launched in 2019 that is called the Outspoken Girls Initiative that will focus on high school girls to help them discover themselves and focus on their futures.
There will be successful and experienced business women that will be mentoring them and also engaging with them one on one so that they can have an idea of what is happening out there in the real world.
Outspoken Consulting goes beyond consultation work, it also has Outspoken women, which is a platform for women to network, collaborate in events. It simply offers a platform for people to meet and network and sets a tone that there is no limit in who you are and what you can do.
As a result, I’ve collaborated with various companies in Harare, Zimbabwe.
What strategies have you developed to help entrepreneurs develop and deliver rich presentations?
The main strategies are first to discover who the clients are (business executives/ entrepreneurs /individuals), through the YOU experience.
Knowing who these parties are as individual’s makes it easier to now prepare and sell their brand. We help clients sell their experiences. Also, we look a lot at relevance, when it comes to the product and the audience.”
How can one develop and manage their personal brand through speaking?
The most important aspect in developing a personal brand as a speaker is that one has to be very clear. You’ve got to address the following questions:
- What is your topic?
- Who are you speaking to?
- What is your experience?
- Why should they listen to you?
- What platforms have you spoken at?
- What have you done, where have you gone to?
“As you develop your personal brand as a speaker, find a topic or subject, stick to it and do not speak on things that you do not know”.
As you are building a personal brand, you are building perception, and perception is reality. The more you speak on a certain topic or subject, the more it settles with the external people that you are an expert in that certain field, it results in more research and speaking on different platforms.
Put yourself out there, in this era of social media, make use of platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook etc., those are platforms where one can start to grow from.
It is not about waiting to be invited to speak on large platforms, it is about making yourself known and sticking to the topic or subject you want to be heard on.
“Attend networking a lot of events and continuously look for opportunities.”
[bctt tweet=”As a public speaker, your main strategies are should be to discover who the clients are through the YOU experience -@MsNomalanga” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”]
Can people have a career in speaking?
“Yes, people can. Speaking works differently in different countries, you can have speakers like Tonny Robins and Simon Sinek.
These speakers are encouraging and motivating people, it’s working for them because of how they have branded themselves and how much value they have put in people’s lives.”
“The most important aspect is HOW MUCH VALUE YOU ARE ADDING IN SOMEONE’S LIFE.
I believe anyone can have a career in speaking as long as it adds value, the value added is the one that will translate into the monetary aspect that one is living on.
Speaking is a career that can be penetrated but one needs to be strategic about it, which goes back to the issue of topic and value addition to your targeted audience.
[bctt tweet=”Anyone can have a public speaking career, as long as it adds value – @MsNomalanga ” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”]
What are your recommended steps to creating a winning presentation?
While making a presentation, one always has to ask the organizers whether they want you to make a keynote speech or a presentation on a particular product or topic.
Some questions to ask the organizers are:
- What do you want me to speak about?
- Who am I speaking to?
- What value does the organizer want a speaker to add to the audience?
The kind of presentations made for business executives and high school children are totally different. even female entrepreneurs, it might be the same product but the audience is different hence should be fine-tuned accordingly.
Ask yourself: What kind of impact and what kind of story can I tell in my speech?
It is vital to understand who you are speaking to, why they are listening to you. What do you want your audience to learn and from there it is about what you want the audience to do with the knowledge shared, we call that a CALL TO ACTION!
Your speech or presentation has to have an objective the people have to do something after, the speech is not about the presenter, but about the audience listening.
Prominent people like Oprah Winfrey and Barrack Obama have given speeches on platforms such as goal cast. What sets them apart from others is their ability to connect so well with the audience.
They listen to the audience instead of themselves.
Most speeches get very boring because speakers have not tailor-made their speeches to for the respective audience.
What blunders do people make when pitching an idea or giving a presentation?
- Failing to understand/have the objective of the pitch. You have to come down to the level of your audience (client/business investor).
What is the objective of the pitch? If you fail to understand this, you will get it all wrong. For example, you are a scientist and are pitching to potential investors, if you pitch as the scientist, you will use jagon that business people will fail to understand.
- Not having visuals when giving a pitch. E.g Images, gifs etc
- Not knowing your numbers
- Not selling yourself enough. People should use stories as they are hard to forget, they connect us.
Don’t make things so technical.
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