The Costco Connection

a community of like-minded people, and it also helps me a lot with my business [ thepointeshop.com].”

Costco member Jim Key ( jimkey.com) has a ;;-year background in information technology in Texas, but Toastmasters gave him an additional path. He recalls seeing noted speakers Zig Ziglar and Les Brown at a couple of business conventions and thought speaking was something he wanted to try. He reached out to both.

“They said, ‘Don’t do anything in the speaking business at all until you polish your presentation skills.’ They each gave me a list of different recommendations, and one of the common ones was Toastmasters International,” Key recalls. “Well, when two people who are on top of the mountain that you want to climb give you the same recommendation, and there’s nothing in it for them, it’s probably fairly good advice to take.”

Rising to the occasion

“A lot of people have this paralyzing
stage fright when it comes to being on a
stage, speaking before an audience, and
I never really had that,” Key says. “My
father was a minister, so I was accus-
tomed to seeing someone on stage speak-
ing before people. But what I didn’t have
were good content-preparation abilities,
organization and making things concise
but memorable. Toastmasters gave me a
great arena where I could work on those
skills and become more and more profi-
cient over time.”
Key mastered those skills, and on
August ;;, ;;;;, he became the ;;;;
World Champion of Public Speaking at the
Toastmasters International Convention in
Atlanta, Georgia (the ;;;; Toastmasters
International Convention takes place
from August ;; to ;; in Vancouver, British
Columbia). He has been a popular profes-
sional speaker ever since.

“[Toastmasters] also created for me a network of contacts who have largely become very good friends around the world, because there are Toastmasters organizations scattered all over the United States and all over the globe,” he adds.

Lee, who won third place at the World Champions of Public Speaking at last year’s Toastmasters convention, attributes to Toastmasters another skill that has helped in her business life.

“Overall, it gives me confidence,” she says. “Confidence is very important in communication, because when you’re communicating with your employees, your customers or potential customers, you have to have confidence in order to show them that you trust yourself and you trust your judgment, and that way you can gain their trust as well.”C