By:Gretchen Cain Wells

“NSA-Central Florida is a diamond in the rough for the knowledge ANY small business owner might be seeking to start, expand, and even change their business.” – Kathy Potts

Kathy Potts, National Speakers Association (NSA) president for Central Florida, believes if a person has the desire to meet the challenge and embrace change, any fear that is learned, can be unlearned, including the fear of public speaking. She recommends joining a professional organization, such as NSA, where guidance, encouragement and nurturing are provided to members as they seek to develop and attain success in speaking, training, and consulting.

Fear of public speaking, ranks in the Top 5, along with its companions: fear of failure, rejection, commitment and success, according to psychologists. There are some who would rather walk through fire, or cuddle a snake, than stand at the front of the room and give a presentation, or so they say. “But most people, who are ‘on their way up,’ realize in order to distinguish themselves above others as leaders, they need to acquire good speaking skills, and will find a way to improve,” said Potts. “It’s a matter of how and when.”

A case in point is King George VI, who only after taking the throne in 1936, learned to master a severe stammering problem with assistance from Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue. The King’s Speech earned four Academy Awards in 2011 because film audiences could relate to another’s vulnerabilities, and the sacrifices made toward course correction. The movie stimulated discussions on talk shows and Internet blogs, and opened the door to an increase in the demand for public speaking and related training businesses.

Potts has never experienced stage fright personally, having been a performer since age 3, when she had a small part in The Magic Flute. In fact, encouraged by her mother, an aspiring opera singer, Potts pursued a vocal career through college that would have her perpetually in the spotlight, until one day she was challenged by her father to stop singing, and to find her true voice in the business world.

“It was an ‘aha’ moment,” Potts recalled, as she faced the question of what she wanted out of life. “It was the first time I made a decision for me, and not in the name of trying to please, impress, or comfort someone else. The lesson of ‘just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to’ was learned in that moment,” she said.

Eager to share the discovery of what she had learned, Potts took several career paths, all the while reading voraciously and attending motivational seminars. Eventually, Potts discovered coaching, a wide-open field and a means to work with professionally-oriented individuals who were seeking to improve their skills and abilities.

Through NSA, Potts keeps perfecting the art of “speaking up” for herself, and helping others to do likewise. The group meets monthly on the third Saturday of the month at the Crown Plaza Tampa East hotel, beginning with registration at 8:30 a.m. and concluding at 12:30 p.m. One of the membership benefits to business owners is the opportunity to hear “world class” speakers, such as Jeffrey Gitomer, who scheduled into his speaking tour in Tampa a presentation exclusive to NSA members.

Potts looks forward to the opportunity to learn from and model Gitomer, who has often said, “Becoming well known is the most valuable element in the connection process." Gitomer has been recognized for “Presentation Excellence” and designated Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) by the National Speakers Association. The CSP award has been given fewer than 500 times in the past 25 years and is the association's highest earned award.

Additionally, in 2008, Gitomer was inducted into NSA’s Speaker Hall of Fame and received the Counsel of Peers Award for Excellence, which honors professional speakers who have reached the top echelon of performance excellence. Each candidate must demonstrate mastery in seven categories: originality of material, uniqueness of style, experience, delivery, image, professionalism, and communication.

The NSA website includes a wealth of resources including profiles of its members and their subject matter of expertise. This is a win-win situation for a group looking for a speaker, or for speakers looking for venues. A perusal of www.nsacentralflorida.com linked organizers of the Seminole Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Business Connections and Education Workshop to Potts in 2010, and she conducted an interactive workshop on achieving goals for about 20 business people at St. Petersburg College.

Potts credits preparing for and delivering this particular workshop, which examined seven aspects of a business model, as her inspiration for developing the “Getting to the Bottom of Business” workshops she presents nationally in Denver, Boston and soon, Milwaukee.

Prior to designing her own business, Oncore Performance Group, Potts was an executive coach for Home Shopping Network. “This was an incredible privilege,” said Potts. “Behind closed doors, with real people, in sometimes intense situations, I used all that I knew to coach people into choosing to step up their game because it was THEIR choice, or decide to be brave enough to move on.”

In 2005, Potts discovered NSA-CF and a 10-month course on how to start a business that happened to be a speaking business. “I learned everything from the essentials of branding, marketing and sales, to how to set up and grow the back end of an office,” said Potts. Before Potts took on the role of Dean of the Academy the following year, she wanted to know how it compared to other resources out there. So, she enrolled in the Small Business Administration (SBA) “Starting a Business” course offered over five weeks. Potts also got involved in the University of Tampa’s MBA Program (as a volunteer to the Fast Start Program and as a Coach). “With multiple perspectives, and the assignment of developing the HSN Understanding Business series, I was safely able to see that NSA-Central Florida is a diamond in the rough for the knowledge ANY small business owner might be seeking to start, expand, and even change their business,” said Potts.

She points to the learning library, offered through NSA, which has thousands of tapes, CDs and books that can be borrowed free of charge. There is “Voices of Experience,” a CD series that accompanies the monthly Professional Speaker Magazine loaded with tips and ideas supplied by national members. Potts totally agree with NSA-CF’s vision statement, that it is “… the organization of choice for professionals dedicated to igniting a passion for, and excellence in, the professional speaking community.” There are numerous testimonials on the website from NSA members who concur.

Utilizing the NSA tools and her own experiences, Potts said, “It took me five years from that point to craft my own voice, finance my business, develop my brand, develop a pool of products and services, and finally launch full-time into my consulting/coaching/speaking business. On July 9, 2010, I went solo, and by Aug. 31, all that I had learned was feverishly applied, so that I can tell you, I not only broke even, I was profitable.”

Potts’ signature these days is “Destination Breakthrough,” a weekend seminar conducted in a relaxing and luxurious setting, most recently at a resort outside Denver. Potts helps participants discover their purpose and formulate a 12-month plan of action, broken down into 90-day increments. “It is the ideal opportunity to teach others to stop running, face their fears (public speaking, or anything that impedes) and be free to be happy,” said Potts.

The seminar also is a “breakthrough” for Potts. She said after returning from Denver to Tampa, “If there were a Cloud 10, I’d be on that cloud! The culmination of more than 15 years of work seemed to come together into one seemingly perfect weekend. To some degree it was like watching from the sidelines as I saw a dream come true. The only difference is that it was my dream,” she said.

In many respects, Potts’ life has come full circle. Instead of practicing arias at her mother’s knee, now she is singing the praises of powerful, yet vulnerable, people using their hearts as a guide to discover who they are and what they want.

For more information see www.oncoreperformancegroup.com.