Photo: Persuasive communications training participants in Lusaka.

Women in business need strong communication skills—particularly public speaking, presentation design and delivery, and negotiation—to advance to leadership roles and effectively promote their businesses. Across the Southern Africa region, women entrepreneurs and business owners often lack these critical communications skills, which holds them back in their business endeavors.

To promote these necessary communications skills, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Southern Africa Trade Hub, through Banyan Global, designed an innovative “Persuasive Communications and Negotiation Training” designed specifically for the needs of women entrepreneurs and business-owners in Southern Africa. A renowned persuasive communications expert, who has trained senior political leaders from the United States and Fortune 500 Companies, designed the persuasive communications course and trained Banyan Global and Southern Africa Trade Hub staff in how to deliver the course.

The training goes over central principles of communication, with participatory discussions, activities, and exercises on impact and delivery styles, visual and verbal presentation techniques, principles of persuasion, negotiation techniques, as well as discussions on how culture and gender influence communication. The training also promotes self-confidence so women entrepreneurs can apply for leadership positions, actively participate in decision-making forums, engage in strategic negotiations, and advocate for their inclusion within value chains. The Persuasive Communications and Negotiation training includes continuous opportunities to practice and receive feedback on public speaking, impromptu speaking, business pitches, and negotiation techniques. All training participants are given one-on-one coaching sessions with training facilitators. During these coaching sessions, participants practice how to tailor communication goals towards specific audiences, stand correctly, make effective use of their voices, and use gestures and pauses, while also refining their overall persuasion techniques and business pitches.

In August 2015, Banyan Global delivered the training to the Botswana Women in Business Association in Gaborone, Botswana and the African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program in Lusaka, Zambia with approximately 20 participants per training. “The feedback from the training has been extremely positive. Senior-level entrepreneurs have said that they never realized they could learn so much about being persuasive. Other participants had never given a presentation before and were able to practice essential public speaking skills in a safe environment,” says Lis Meyers, Senior Gender Specialist at Banyan Global and training co-facilitator.

Banyan Global is currently collaborating with the Southern Africa Trade Hub to implement two additional Persuasive Communications trainings in Namibia and Zambia in February 2016. “After the project ends, we hope to adapt the training for some of our other gender projects,” says Lis Meyers.